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Get Involved

If you have an interest in Genealogy or Local History there are many ways you can become involved and assist the Special Collections Center in preserving and providing access to local historical materials.  To learn about current volunteer opportunities or for information about making a donation of local historical materials or funds, please see the sections below or contact Amy Groskopf, Special Collections Department Manager at 563-328-6850.

Volunteer

The Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center works with volunteers for a number of projects.  Members of the Scott County Iowa Genealogical Society help staff our public service desk so that they can provide additional assistance to customers doing genealogical research.  Other volunteers index obituaries and marriage notices from old newspapers while others complete the computer data entry for these indexes.

The Special Collections Center also relies on volunteer “advocates” – those dedicated folks who are interested in genealogy and local history and let us know when important historical collections are in danger of being destroyed so that we can try to arrange for their donation to the Library’s local history collection.

Make a contribution

In a period of budget cuts at all levels of government – local, state and federal – the Library relies more and more on monetary donations to accomplish it’s mission to provide free and equal access to information to all Davenport residents.  Your gift, large or small, will have a big impact on the services and materials the Library is able to provide.  Some ways to give to the library include:

• a monetary donation designated to support the program or area of your choosing – youth services, adult programming, Special Collections, etc.
• an unrestricted monetary gift to support the library as a whole
• a memorial gift in memory of a friend or loved one.  If such a gift is designated for the purchase of books, etc. a memorial bookplate will be placed in each item.
• a future gift in the form of a bequest in your will or designating the library as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy.