A Place Where Past, Present and Future Meet

We had the opportunity to get a sneak peek at the newly installed Rooftop Photvoltaic System (in plain speak: solar panels) on the expanded State Archives and Records building at 9 Ratification Way in Concord.  The folks in our group had the treat of climbing a ladder up to the rooftop to get a very close look at the panels, even though they were snow-covered a the time and had not yet gone “live.”  The panels are laid out in rows and ready to absorb the energy that emits from the sun.

Solar power is measured in Kilowatts (kW). The initial purchase of panels allowed for a 45 kW system. Through funding from an Energy Saving Performance Contract, the project was increased to a 60 kW system.  An additional 6.6 kW was added by way of repurposing panels originally intended for the NH DMV headquarters, but not used there for safety concerns.  Rather than discard those panels, they were re-purposed across town at the State Archives and Records building – waste not, want not!

At the time we toured, the panels had not yet been “switched” on. We’ll check back in and let you know when that takes place.

Meanwhile, there’s more to tell about this interesting newly enlarged building. Things are now all in place, but the nearly 80,000 boxes of records from all of the state’s various agencies and divisions will not be unpacked until someone wants to see their contents. According to State Archivist, Brian Nelson Burford, visitors come daily who are researching various topics – primarily records having to do with their ancestry. They sit in the large research library and pore over the treasured documents, which must be kept varying lengths of time according to law and guidelines.“We were simply out of space,” said Burford. “There are tens of thousands of boxes that we could not take from agencies because we didn’t have the space,” he said. With the expansion there is now room for an additional 90,000 boxes. Rows of metal shelves are lined up in spacious storage rooms awaiting the records.

There is also a special vault in the building that will be home to the state’s most precious documents, including the original document that ratified the US Constitution and the original US Bill of Rights. The vault has sophisticated climate control and a fire safety system that extinguishes with chemicals rather than water that would ruin the pearls of history.

In the end, the NH Archives and Records Building is a perfect blend of the old and the new. We encourage you to make a visit there.