I took a trip to the land down under, aka the basement of Davis and have lived to tell the tale. Judith Panitch the Director of Library Communications and Renée Bosman the Government Information Librarian (that’s right. The big kahunas) offered to give me a tour of the basement after my musings of what might be down there from a couple of weeks ago.
There is neither a raging nightclub nor a disturbing cemetery down there, but something even more incredible…BOOKS!
And I actually mean that. The resources that are in the basement of Davis Library are invaluable sources of research for the student body here at UNC. The basement is where all of the ~government documents~ are kept. UNC is a regional depository (not trying to brag but its kind of a big deal), which means that Davis is the only library in the state that gets a copy every single document that the United States government prints. Every. Single. Document.
The UNC Library System has been in the regional depository business since the 1800s, so the basement has a copy of every single government document published since corsets were still in style (sorry Rocky Horror Picture Show). They have puzzles made by NASA for you astronomy lovers. They have nautical charts for you mermaids. They even have a pamphlet from the Department of Agriculture called How Dried Prunes are Marketed for those of you who need a little digestive tract regulation (I’m talking to you Jamie Lee Curtis).
I know it seems like these might be TOP SECRET but turns out, they’re available for your browsing enjoyment. The government also publishes documents that are less fun, but more helpful if you are in fact a student at UNC and not Jamie Lee Curtis.
Things like transcriptions of hearings; one example I saw was The Mitchell Report, which was a case about steroids in sports. There are also congressional reports for each year, which chronicle every official document that congress releases. There are even transcriptions of the president’s phone conversations. Renée Bosman said that they probably have a transcription of the phone conversation in the Watergate Scandal down there.
Mind that these are all primary documents. I’m not going to say that primary documents get you swag points with professors, but primary documents probably get you swag points with professors.
Besides government documents, there are magical little things called microfilms. These are small rolls of film that have tiny pictures of newspaper/magazine pages printed on them. You can project them and make them large enough to read. Davis Library has microfilms for everything from The Rolling Stone to the Black Abolitionist Papers. *Cough cough* PRIMARY SOURCES.
The basement of Davis Library is rich with information itching to get into the hands of the passionate and driven student here at UNC. All you have to do to get down there is ask someone at the front desk to head down with you and swipe you in with his or her mystical employee card. The librarians are there to help you. It’s their job to know where everything is and to help students find exactly what they need. People like Renée Bosman and Judith Panitch love to help students succeed. Don’t hesitate to reach out, Davis isn’t as terrifying when you have help.
Who knows? Maybe the nightclub is in the attic?
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
