New Church Library

Last Saturday, Floyd and I went to the new Church History Library open house. It rained off and on all day, but was only cloudy when we drove to Salt Lake. We parked at a near by parking lot and walked a short distance to the library. The newly finished library will officially open to the public on June 22, 2009. The building is very large, 230,000 square feet. The library property on North Temple Street between State Street and Main Street in SLC, was originally owned by Heber C. Kimball (1801-1869). This land has been occupied by homes, a school, a mill, a blacksmith shop, a pharmacy, a cafe, an ice-cream shop, a dance academy, a bowling alley, an advertising agency, and the mission home.

The library holds more than four million church documents from around the world, ranging in date from 1830 to the present. The building has five floors containing books, pamphlets, magazines, manuals,, newspapers, original unpublished journals, diaries, papers, manuscripts, photographs, posters, maps, audivisual recordings and microfilms as well as patriarchal blessings.

Floyd and I saw a short 14 minute film on the library and and then went on one of the tours. It was exciting and fasanating. We saw a demonstration on how the first edition copy of the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith hand addressed to Vienna Jacques, one of the three women referenced in the Doctrine and Covenants and the Joseph Smith Papers, was cleaned refurbished.

When we finished our tour and got ready to leave there was a cloud burst and we got wet on the way to the car. We enjoyed our tour of the library so much we didn't even mind, it added to the excitement of the day.