NFPA - Quincy - Morgan Technical Library - open to the public - call before visiting - on 2nd floor - left off elevators and straight ahead - lots of fire magazines and fire books
Mass Fire Academy - Sudbury/Stow/Hudson - small reading room - lots of fire fighting books and videos
FSP - ?566 Main St in Hudson - public safety publications store - public could view videos and read books there in the past - see www.fire-police-ems.com
Mass State House - annual reports from all municipalities in Massachusetts
Boston Public Library - Copley Square - is a federal documents repository library and patent library - has annual reports of all municipalities in Massachusetts - has extensive collection of telephone books and newspapers - I think that they used to have Fire Command and Fire Engineering magazines
Boston Public Library - Business Branch - hidden behind Boston School HQ on Court St downtown - used to have a big collection of Polk Directories (listed all fire stations in all major cities and included reverse street directories)
DOT - Cambridge - Transportation Library - should have various fire reports including the bad ?Kings Crossing Subway Station Fire in London - open to public but may require check in with security guards
Rotch Library - MIT - did have a Toronto FD Master Plan from 1970 - open to the public
Barker Engineering Library - MIT - various fire magazines - scientific type stuff - open to the public - probably also have some technical fire reports on microfilm from the NTIS (the federal agency which disseminates technical reports which have been federally funded)
MIT - Undergraduate Library - right off Memorial Drive - topo maps for all of New England and ?all of USA are in the room to right just inside the front door - they used to have the NTIS Indexes also for Technical Reports - ?open to public
Wentwoth Institute in Boston - Library - did have Emergency Magazine and ?Fire Engineering Magazine
Northeastern University - Library - ?had fire magazines
Harvard University - Medical Area in Boston - ?had EMS magazines
Local Public Libraries - most local libraries now have Internet access for the public plus lots of local government documents, old local newspapers, etc. - some can also get fire books and reports from the Natl Fire Academy via InterLibrary loans - they can also borrow fire books from other local public libraries. Some libraries also have Sanborn Insurance maps on microfilm (Robbins Library in Arlington has these highly detailed maps for Arlington for the ?1920s and ?1940s.)
Insurance Industry Library - on State Street in downtown Boston - if you send them a FAX (?or written request) they will do research for the public - 7/30/99
Factory Mutual Library - Norwood MA - mostly have property protection material
Worcester Polytech Institute - look for them on the Internet - their library is open to the public for research - they must have a good collection of fire material since they teach fire courses at the ?graduate level
Libert Mutual / Aakwright / John Hancock - ?all of these insurance companies are HQed in the Boston area - they probably have good libraries
Written 5/9/99 by Peter Szerlag
Updated - 6/29/99 - 7/30/99