Church History Library Open House

Back in March, the Joseph Smith Papers moved over to our new home, the Church History Library, which is located across the street to the north of the Church Office Building and to the east of the Conference Center in Salt Lake.

It's a beautiful building, and I think it's a good symbol that the LDS Church thinks preserving its history is important. There is beautiful woodwork, handcrafted carpet and rugs, and original artwork at every turn. There's even a couple rooms kept at -4 degrees Farenheit for storing materials. This building is not where genealogy material is housed (that's over in the Family History Library), but the CHL does have over a half a million books, magazines, manuscripts, photographs, etc. in its collection. Oh yeah, and more than 3.5 million patriarchal blessings.

Anyway, if you are around this weekend, there's an open house on Friday, June 12 and Saturday, June 13 from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. They'll even have some of the collection's treasures on display - not sure what, but it'll probabaly be some cool stuff. (By the way, did you know an 1833 Book of Commandments is worth something like $1.7 million? I believe that inflated value is due to some rich collectors vying for possession. Those crazy Mormons.) And in case you've always wondered, the really cool stuff isn't kept up in the Granite Mountain Vault, it's all right here on North Temple Street.

For more information, check out churchhistorylibrary.org. Also Pres. Monson will be dedicating the building on Saturday, June 20. You can watch on BYU-TV at 11:00 am.