Library Postcards

This postcard depicts the City Hall, Carnegie Library, Municipal Building, and Fire Hall in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. The message reads, "I understand that you have the library habit so send you this delightful combination which certainly is unusual." It was mailed to Anna Felt of Galena, Illinois who was a collector library postcards and was instrumental in the building of the Carnegie Library in Galena.

Picture postcards of libraries is one of the most common and most popular librariana collecting areas. This has also been the case in the past. Probably the most extensive library postcard collection of all time was that of Norman D. Stevens who donated his 25,000 plus collection to the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Canada. There are several personal collections exceeding 10,000 postcards. The Library Postcard page on the Library History Buff website provides links to library postcard collections on the web. I also maintain a list of active and former library postcard collectors. Probably my favorite library postcard site is that of Judi Aulik. I recently became aware of a new library postcard site established by the architectural firm of J. Stewart Roberts Associates. The American Library Association Archives is in the process of digitizing the collection of Sjoerd Koopman of The Netherlands which includes over 4,000 postcards.

I have a fairly modest collection of around 1,500 library postcards. I focus my collecting around several special areas. These include Wisconsin libraries, the ALA Library War Service in World War I, bookmobiles, and postcards that have a message on the reverse that has a library connection.