Research Services

Grundy Archive Research Services

The Margaret R. Grundy Memorial Library offers several research services for patrons with information needs that go beyond the scope of the Library’s public resources.

The following is a list of available Grundy Archive Research Services.


BRISTOL HISTORY RESEARCH CONSULTATION 

Patrons who require archival materials beyond what is publicly available in the Library, may request access to original items from the Library’s clippings file and closed archival collections. If needed, a staff member will arrange an appointment with you and the Archivist. For more information related to accessing our archival collections, please consult our Archive Research Procedures.

To make a research appointment, please submit an Archival Research Consultation form.


OBITUARY AND REMOTE HISTORY RESEARCH SERVICE

For those patrons unable to come to Grundy Library for an in-person appointment, Archive staff will conduct limited collection research on their behalf. Archive staff is available to perform quick look ups (less than 15 minutes) for free. For more extensive research (up to one hour) there is a non-refundable research fee of $10.00. This fee covers postage and all other related activities for the research request. Research results will not be released until receipt of payment. Number of photocopies and other limitations may apply. Please limit the amount of research topics to three–if the request exceeds this limit, additional fees will apply. 

The Library has an Obituary Index Database for select years of the Bucks County Courier Times/Bristol Courier as well as for several other regional newspapers. If no index is available for the time period of interest, the Library requires a specific date and will search up to two weeks before and two weeks after that date for the obituary/article.

Requests are limited to three individuals or articles at one time, with a limit of three research requests per month. This limitation may vary based on the scale of each request at the discretion of Archive staff.

To request remote research or obituary information completed by staff, please submit an Archival Research Request form or an Obituary/Article Retrieval form. For obituaries, a minimum of exact year and month or four-week consecutive period must be provided for each search. Requests that can be readily retrieved from the library’s online newspaper databases are free of charge. For obituary requests that are not available online and must be completed via microfilm, a $10.00, non-refundable fee applies that must be received in advance of research results. Digital copies of research results are included in this fee. Number of physical photocopies and other limitations may apply. Please limit the amount of articles/obituaries to five–if the request exceeds this limit, additional fees will apply. 

For additional information about local history research, please visit the Library’s Information Desk or call 215-788-7891 ext. 6.