"We are not makers of history. We are made by history."

This quote by Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us that our individual and collective past shapes us all to some degree. We have some exciting new ways to help us connect with our collective past as a community and to our own individual histories.

Take a walk down memory lane.

Or maybe a virtual stroll while learning about what was happening on Love Lane, Pollywog Lane, Whispering Lane, or any other the other charmingly named lanes, streets, roads, and by-passes in town (ok, we have no charmingly named by-passes). First the first time, Weston town reports from as far back as 1861 are now available digitally:

https://archive.org/details/westonpubliclibrary

The best part is that you can now save time and frustration by using the search feature to look for the information you need!

This project was quite the undertaking and we want to thank the digitization team at the Boston Public Library for making this a possibility, as well as our Local History Librarian and the other library staff members that contributed to making this happen. Don't worry, just because these items were lovingly digitized, it doesn't mean that physical copies aren't still available for in-library viewing. If you want to access any of the library's historical documents, you can visit the WPL's Local History Room.

The most groovy/tubular/all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips times of your life have gone digital

Speaking of memory lane, Weston High School digitized its yearbooks several years ago. Again, we have paper copies available for your perusal, but while we're talking digitized historical documents, we figured we'd leave this digital stack of yearbooks for your viewing pleasure.

More resources to help you discover your own history

Your family history awaits.
(In-library use only)

Journey through African American history,1704 to today.

See if you made the news. Historical sources through current events.

With potentially nasty weather on its way in, remember to check the Weston Public Library website, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for updates about our hours. Even if the building is under 10 feet of ice (OMG knock wood that that never happens), our eLibrary is always open so that you can get eBooks, digital audiobooks, digital magazines, comics, TV shows, movies, music, and more without ever leaving your home. Find out more here.

In the meantime, enjoy some weather history from the "Blizzard of '78" and prove to the younger generation of family members who think you're lying when you say, "and there was no school FOR A WEEK!" that there was, indeed, no school for a week:

Into the Blizzard by Michael Tougias (digital audiobook).
From Hoopla: "In the midst of the Blizzard of 1978, the tanker Global Hope floundered on the shoals in Salem Sound off the Massachusetts coast. When the Coast Guard heard the Mayday calls, they immediately dispatched a patrol rescue boat. But within an hour, the Coast Guard rescue boat was in as much trouble as the tanker-both paralyzed in unrelenting seas. Enter Captain Frank Quirk who was compelled to act. Gathering his crew of four, Quirk plunged his forty-nine-foot steel boat, the Can Do, into the blizzard. Perfect for fans of the I Survived series ready for a longer-form account, this middle-grade adaptation of an adult nonfiction book chronicles the harrowing journey between Captain Quirk and the Coast Guard as they struggled in the holds of a radical storm. It's an epic tale of heroism and bravery at sea."