In September 2020, while in the depths of the global COVID 19 pandemic when we were all still remaining “socially distanced” from other people, I received an email, out of the blue, from a reference librarian at the Library of Michigan in Lansing. As in, the State of Michigan Library.
The librarian had stumbled upon the Blue Water Woman website and wanted to know if he could purchase all of the back issues and then subscribe to the magazine because part of their job is to, and I quote from his email: “collect print material about Michigan people, places and things as well as collected printed material published by Michiganders.”
Blue Water Woman magazine fit the bill.
We exchanged a number of emails and I promised him a) there would be no charge to the State of Michigan and b) I would send him a copy of every past issue of Blue Water Woman. No rush, he said, because he was working from home and packages wouldn’t be touched for who-knows-how-long.
So, no rush it was.
When I had the opportunity to go to Lansing yesterday to attend an event at the Capitol, I decided that would be the library’s lucky day. I packaged up all 10 years’ worth of past issues of Blue Water Woman magazine and loaded them in the car with me.
While at the library, I met with Matt Pacer, the original reference librarian who reached out to me, and also Mindy Babarskis, another reference librarian on staff.
Mindy gave me a tour of the Michigan periodicals area of the reference section and explained to me that the issues of Blue Water Woman magazine I brought to the library would most likely be bound into hard covered volumes and would someday soon be available as reference material.
Matt asked me to be sure and continue to send them future issues of Blue Water Woman so that the “HerStory” of the Blue Water Area can be cataloged in the Library of Michigan for future generations to reference when learning about the history of the phenomenal women in our community.
It is my honor and privilege to publish this magazine and I hope that someday this publication helps someone understand the value of women’s contributions to life in the Blue Water Area of Michigan we all call home.