You’ll need to slip past the flashy aliens exhibit, go through a hallway of aerospace paintings, walk beneath aircraft, and go up a flight of stairs to discover one of the San Diego Air & Space Museum’s most fascinating rooms: its library.
The library's collection has attracted interest in recent weeks because of the museum’s digitization project: more than 70,000 images have been digitized and uploaded to Flickr (check out this photo of stuntmen standing on the wings of a flying plane).
Offering more than photos, the SDASM Library & Archives houses one of the most significant collections of aviation-related research materials in the world and holds the third largest collection of its type in the United States. Browse the shelves and you’ll find parachute manuals from the 1930s, copies of Naval Aviation News from the 1940s, and handbooks for airline hostesses from the 1960s.
Although a devastating fire in 1978 destroyed much of the museum's collection, some of the printed materials survived with minimal damage. “Many of the documents were so tightly packed together that they were singed around the edges but still survived,” explained Katrina Pescador, head archivist at the SDASM.
Katrina said that her favorite items in the collection are two logbooks of the Lafayette Escadrille 103rd Pursuit Squadron from World War I (one book is pictured at right). Inside the logbooks are detailed records of the daily lives of members of the squadron—documenting everything from specific combat operations to nights of social drinking.
In addition to uploading images to Flickr, the library staff have been working on other technology projects that include adding oral histories and technical drawings to their online catalog and maintaining an online blog.
The library is open to the general public Tuesdays through Fridays from 10am-4pm, by appointment. Cost of using the library is included in museum admission and is free for museum members.