All week, Willard Library will be open late for its annual Midnight Madness event.
The library is nationally recognized for being a great tool for genealogy research throughout the year, but one week every year they stay open until midnight Monday through Friday to give even more people access to their resources.
Keeping the library open until midnight helps people who otherwise would not have time in their schedules to discover their family trees.
Classes are offered throughout the week to teach people where and how to look, and library staff are on hand every day until midnight to help out.
Because of Willard Library’s extensive collections, people from all over the country come to Midnight Madness. The people from far away tend to be seasoned researchers, but Midnight Madness is open to everyone.
Special Collections Librarian Lyn Martin says the event provides a good start for people just beginning to trace their family lines and that once people do get in and get started, many get addicted and lose track of time.
“We generally have to ask people to go and say, ‘It’s time to leave now. Go do something else!'” says Martin.The classes offered during the week can help amateur researchers get started. Click here for a full calendar of those classes this week. Midnight Madness events are tagged specifically with the word “Genealogy.”