this is where our archivist lora pohl works. she has pulled out the names, two of the original collections, the two that we can actually locate that were miraculous we saved because they missed the fire of 1776 when the hessians and the british came through during the battle of trenton and they burn burned down the original library. these two were actually in the homes of trenton residents and after the newspaper had put out a request for individuals who had any of the original collections to return, they were able to salvage at least these two. we know that there are rumored to be numerous other copies of the original from ben franklin from his donation however the library is going through an inventory and we hope to be able to find as many of them as possible. this building was rebuilt in june of 1900 when the groundbreaking began and we didn't officially open until june 9, 1902. 1976 the new it addition was built. this beautiful marble staircase begins of course and are a tram and that leads into our reading room which is loc