The collections at the Jones Library are an excellent source for researching local history, particularly for the town of Amherst. The collections include some official town records, for example tax evaluation and assessment lists, which have been placed on deposit at the Jones Library though ownership has been retained by the town. In many cases finding aids have been created, but the primary source of access is through the card catalog.
Diaries are a case in point.
Although diaries are housed as part of an individual's or family's papers, the Diaries Collection provides access to diary material at the repository. The card catalog is supplemented by finding aids. Some collections, like the Amherst First Church Records, which do not have a formal finding aid, have been included in this compendium because they are well described in the card catalog. Like some of the other public repositories both within and beyond the scope of this guide, the Jones Library has an excellent collection of materials for genealogical research. Much of this material is secondary sources, like town histories, but there is some printed primary source material as well, including 19th-century vital statistics for many Massachusetts towns.