Look Out, It’s a Flash Mob

The Joel Lane House Museum in Raleigh is a carefully preserved testament to the man who was instrumental in creating much of the early history of this now-flourishing region of the country. But until recently, a key part of that history was lost to most of us.

On March 23, a group of volunteers from the NCSU Libraries descended on the oldest house in Raleigh, and, in a decidedly nontraditional manner, “flash mobbed” the 232 books that the museum has collected but has never been able to make widely available in a systematic way to historians and to members of the community who are interested in the history of the colonial period.

The newly catalogued books include works on museum maintenance, antiques, colonial Americana, and the history of North Carolina and Raleigh. The collection includes a significant number of rare books and documents, including historical society newsletters and pamphlets and the original Lane family Bible.