Noteworthy Collections

Business Reference Collection | Folk Literature Collection | Funding Information Center | Genealogy Collection | Local History Collection | Magazines and Newspapers | Reference Collection | Spanish Language Collection

Business Reference Collection

Our main business reference section is in our Kennewick branch. We carry many directories of companies of a national, international, and/or regional scope. These include the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers, Dun and Bradstreet's Million Dollar Directory, Dun's Principle International Businesses, World Business Directory, Washington Manufacturers Register, Dun's Regional Business Directory and Companies and their Brands. Also available at any branch in our library system or on your home computer is GaleNet , which includes an index of 900 business and management-oriented magazines with profiles of over 100,000 public and private companies. The on-line database STAT-USA/INTERNET is accessible from each branch library. STAT-USA/INTERNET contains timely business and economic information from over 50 Federal government agencies. This database is the most comprehensive source of international trade information containing the entire NTDB (National Trade Data Bank) with it's Country Commercial Guides, import/export statistics, Trade Opportunity Leads, plus daily economic information such as foreign exchange rates, GDP, the Commerce Business Daily.

ReferenceUSA gives brief information on 10 million businesses and organizations located throughout the United States.

Our Kennewick branch maintains current investment information. We carry the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Investor's Business Daily along with Value Line Investment Survey and Expanded Survey, Morningstar Mutual Funds, Investment Companies Yearbook, CDA/Wiesenberger Mutual Funds Update, Standard and Poor's Stock Reports, Moody's Bond Reports and Moody's Annual Dividend Record.
Our Pasco branch carries the Value Line Investment Survey.

If you plan to start your own business, we can help with information about starting a business in Washington State, with some Small Business Administration publications and other resources. These are primarily available in our Kennewick branch.

If you have questions, please call the information desk in Kennewick, 509-783-7878 ext.119 or E-mail us through our"Ask-A-Librarian"reference service .

Folk Literature Collection

Mid-Columbia Library District has an extensive collection of folk literature and storytelling materials. The children's librarians have always had a special place in their hearts for these two areas. Hence, we have multiple versions of most fairy tales material such as 15 different versions of Cinderella.

Many of the stories cited in Index to Fairy Tales and The Storytellers Sourcebook by Margaret MacDonald are held in our collection. Those items that we do not own can be accessed through interlibrary loan. The Children's Archives at the University of Washington is a good source for many older publications.

Funding Information Center

The Mid-Columbia Library District System in one of only four funding centers in the state that are a branch of the Foundation Center in New York. Our center is housed in the Kennewick branch. Other branches of the Foundation Center are located in Spokane, Wenatchee, and Seattle. We receive many of the most current materials published by the Foundation Center on grantmaking, including key directories: Foundation Directory, Foundation Directory Part II, National Directory of Corporate Giving, Guide to U.S. Foundations: their trustees, officers and donors, Foundation 1000, Foundation Grants to Individuals and Foundation Grants Index. In addition we carry the Federal Government's Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. These directories must be used in the library. The directories can also be accessed through the Foundation Center Database, which is available on computers in the reference section.

Our Funding Information Center also contains books on grant and proposal writing, special events fundraising, books of interest to non-profit agencies and volunteer organizations and scholarships. Many of these books may be checked out.

You are welcome to use any of the materials in the Funding Information Center during library open hours. We encourage you to schedule an appointment if you feel you would like special assistance in using the materials in the FIC collection. If you are a first time grant writer, we especially encourage you to schedule an appointment to learn more about our collection and how to best use it.

For further assistance, contact Tom Moak at 509-783-7878 ext.105.

Genealogy Collection

We have a basic collection of genealogical materials in our Kennewick branch that serves as a good complement to the materials in the Family History Library in Richland. We also have a small genealogical collection in our Pasco branch.

Among the items that we have in Kennewick are Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, Newspapers in Microform, Washington State Death Index 1907-1989, and many basic reference books on searching in other countries and in other states. We subscribe to several genealogical periodicals.

We are one of the few public libraries anywhere that have the FamilySearch collection of CD-ROMs which include the International Genealogical Index, the Ancestral File, the Social Security Death Index, the U.S. Military Index and the Family History Catalog. This service is available, in our Kennewick branch, free of charge. We also have Heritage Quest a genealogical database, available on the  Electronic Resources page of our website.

For more information contact, Tom Moak, 509-783-7878 ext.105.

Local History Collection

Among the most valuable materials on the Benton and Franklin counties in our collection are our historic local newspapers. We have the most complete collection of newspapers in the area, dating back before the turn of the twentieth century. In the following list of historical newspapers, the city of publication is in parentheses if the city's name is not in the title. All of the newspapers listed are housed in the Kennewick branch, except as indicated in capital letters. The format is listed in brackets. Most of the papers are in microfilm, but some are bound or in unbound paper form. Depending on availablity, there may not be full runs of all the listed newspapers.

List of historical newspapers

Sample of local history books

We also carry various Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps on microfilm for Kennewick, Pasco, and Kahlotus in our Kennewick branch. The Sanborn Maps for the entire state of Washington are also available on a computer database accessible from any MCL branch library computer. The maps can be useful in identifying communities, from their dwellings to their commercial structures.

• Kahlotus--1909, 1930
• Kennewick--1905, 1909, 1925, 1942
• Pasco--1891, 1909, 1912, 1925, 1938

We have Metsker atlases of Benton and Franklin counties which list some property ownership.

• Benton County--1934, 1943, 1960, 1976
• Franklin County--1934, 1963

We have Polk city directories which cover the Tri-Cities in our Pasco and Kennewick branches beginning with 1952/1953. We have Cole directories for the Tri-Cities since 1982. We have telephone directories for the Tri-Cities in Kennewick since 1973 and in Pasco since 1971.

For more information, contact Tom Moak 509-783-7878 ext.105.

Magazines and Newspapers

Magazines

Mid-Columbia Library Magazine list

We carry a variety of over 300 popular and informational magazines in our library system. We have the widest selection of magazines in our Kennewick and Pasco branches. In these branches we have back issues of most magazines, with some kept two or three years and others kept longer. Magazines like Time and Newsweek are carried back to the 1940s and 1950s and National Geographic back to 1911. We also carry several years of magazines in our Othello branch.

We have several databases from GaleNet that are available at every branch of the Mid-Columbia Library District and from your home computer. The databases include a variety of health, business and general reference magazines. You can read and print or E-mail the full text of many of the indexed magazine articles..

Proquest provides 15 years of indexing for academic and professional journals and major newspapers. Abstracts or full text are available for over 3,000 journals. Articles may be printed for $.10 per page or E-mailed to your home computer.

At a microfilm reader in Kennewick you can view and print magazine articles from the Magazine Collection, a full-image microfilm version of many popular magazines. We have coverage of these magazines on microfilm since 1983.

Newspapers

In Kennewick, Pasco, West Richland and Othello we carry local and out-of-town newspapers, especially those from Northwest cities. The Tri-City Herald from the late 1940's is in both Kennewick and Pasco. The paper is in bound form for much of the 1950's and 1960's and since then is in microfilm. The Prosser Record-Bulletin from 1949-1986 is archived in bound copies located in Kennewick.

We are proud of the number of early local newspapers in our collection. In the Kennewick branch we have Kennewick newspapers since 1903, Richland from 1916-1942, Prosser since 1903, and White Bluffs from 1915-1938. In the Pasco branch we have the Pasco paper either in microfilm or bound form for most of the years since 1898. We also have some early Connell newspapers. The Othello branch has several years of the Outlook in print form.

In either the Kennewick or Pasco branches (or both) we subscribe to a number of Northwest newspapers, including those from Seattle, Spokane, Portland, Pendleton, Olympia, Tacoma, Yakima, Walla Walla, Wenatchee and Boise. Out of state newspapers include USA Today, New York City, San Francisco, Houston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Anchorage. Most of these latter newspapers we have Sundays only and keep them for one month. We keep The Wall Street Journal for 12 months and Barron's and The Christian Science Monitor for 6 months. The Othello branch carries the Othello, Moses Lake and Ritzville newspapers.

For more information, contact Tom Moak at 509-783-7878 ext.105.

Reference Collection

• Telephone and Cross Reference Directories

• Legal Materials

• College Materials

• Business Materials

Our reference collection consists of print and electronic resources. The collection of print materials is strongest in our larger branches, Kennewick and Pasco, while the rest of our branches have a basic reference collection.

Telephone and Cross Reference Directories
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In Kennewick and Pasco, we have telephone directories on microfiche for most directories with populations of 70,000 or more. We have a collection of print telephone directories in Kennewick and Pasco, mostly of Northwest communities. Our Othello, West Richland, Connell and Benton City branches have some Northwest print phone directories.

Acxiom InfoBase Phone Directory, an on-line United States residential and business telephone database, is available at every branch.

At our Kennewick and Pasco branches we have Polk city directories for the Tri-Cities beginning in 1954 and Cole directories since 1982. We have Tri-City area phone directories since the 1970s.

Legal Materials
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• United States

In the Kennewick branch, we have the US Code Service/, Code of Federal Regulations on-line; The Federal Register since 1984 and the Congressional Record since 1988 in microfiche; as well as the US Statutes since 1954 in print. In the library system we have current and past editions of the Uniform Building Code, the Uniform Plumbing Code, the Uniform Fire Code, the Uniform Mechanical Code and the National Electrical Code.

• Washington

In Kennewick and Pasco branches we have the current Revised Code of Washington in print form. The Kennewick branch has the current annotated RCW, the current Washington Administrative Code, Washington State Register and the Laws of Washington since 1947 all in print form.

• Local

In the Kennewick branch we have the Kennewick Municipal Code and the Benton County Code in print form. In the Pasco, Othello and West Richland branches we have their respective municipal codes in print form. You can also get the Pasco Municipal code on-line at www.ci.pasco.wa.us, the Richland Municipal code at www.ci.richland.wa.us and the Kennewick Municipal code at www.ci.kennewick.wa.us.

College Materials
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There are college directories and catalogs in our larger branches. The Funding Information Center in Kennewick has scholarship information. Most colleges have their own homepages on the Internet. Here is a list of Washington State Education Resources.

Business Materials 
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At our Kennewick and Pasco branches we maintain the current information on many companies, including information for inventors. The Kennewick branch has a number of business directories for the Northwest, as well as for international companies. We carry Value Line, Morningstar Mutual Funds, The Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily.

On our network we have GaleNet, which includes an index and full text database of business oriented magazines. We also network STAT-USA/INTERNET, a business, economic and trade database and ReferenceUSA which contains information on 10 million businesses and organizations in the United States, including addresses, officers, number of employees, and financial statistics.

For more information, contact Tom Moak at 509-783-7878.

Spanish Language Collection

The Mid-Columbia Library District blends together a diverse Spanish language collection of current magazines and newspapers, adult fiction and non-fiction, videos and books on tape.We also have special sections for children including biography, fiction and non-fiction. Our Pasco branch holds the largest Spanish language collection while sizable collections can also be found in the Connell, Othello, Kennewick, Benton City and Basin City branches.

For further information, contact Jeannie Connor at 509-582-5676.