
Saturday, August 29, 2009
UK Library Association in Paris 1892

Thursday, August 27, 2009
Happy Birthday May Hill Arbuthnot

Thursday, August 20, 2009
Libraries on Coins

Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Boston Athenaeum 1848 Ticket

I recently added this 1848 library ticket (card) for the Boston Athenaeum to my collection of librariana. The ticket is signed by Athenaeum Librarian Charles Folsom. Folsom was librarian of the Harvard College Library from 1823 to 1826 and librarian of the Boston Athenaeum from 1845 to 1856. The Boston Athenaeum which was founded in 1807 was a type of membership library which initially required an annual subscription of $10. In the beginning, the Athenaeum emphasized its reading room which was "furnished with all the celebrated political literary, and commercial journals of the day, foreign and domestic." Among its rules and regulations was "no book, pamphlet, or newspaper is ever to be permitted to be taken from the room by subscribers; so that patrons of the institution may be certain at all times of finding any publications which they may have occasion to read or refer to." The Athenaeum changed from an annual subscription library to one which required the purchase of shares which were limited in number to 1,049 by its charter. Purchasers of shares were called "Proprietors". In the ticket above Proprietor Alvan Lamson (who held share # 189) has authorized use of the library by his son Artemas Ward Lamson who inherited his father's share in 1865. Athenaeums in the United States were mostly institutions for the elite and were very different from the free public libraries that evolved in this country in the second half of the 19th century. A good article in the New York Times on the remaining athenaeums including the Boston Athenaeum is located here.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Number One Hundred
Monday, August 17, 2009
Package Libraries
Saturday, August 15, 2009
H. W. Wilson's Cumulative Reference Library


Friday, August 14, 2009
Phebe Swan's Reference by Mail Lending Library

Further digging around in Google has resulted in more information about Phebe Swan. The Semi-Centennial History of the Illinois State Normal University, 1857-1907 which was published in 1907 has the best information. She was a member of the class of 1881 at ISNU, now Illinois State University. She is listed as Lizzie Phebe Swan and her occupation is given as Librarian and Proprietor of a Reference Library in Beloit, Wisconsin. According to the ISNU history, she was an assistant (library ?) at ISNU from 1886 to 1892. She was a student of the Library Department of Armour Institute (predecessor of the University of Illinois Library School), 1893-94 and worked as a librarian at the University of Wisconsin from 1894 to 1902. She became Librarian of the Gleaners' Library in Beloit in 1902, a library which she founded. Handbooks of the American Library Association list her as member number 1,507. She evidently became a life member of the National Education Association in 1897.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Log Cabin Library Update

Tuesday, August 11, 2009
NYPL Postcards


Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Carnegie Library Bed & Breakfasts



Saturday, August 1, 2009
Wisconsin's Log Cabin Libraries



On a recent trip "Up North" in Wisconsin, I had a chance to visit one of Wisconsin's log cabin libraries. In this instance it was the Forest Lodge Library in Cable, Wisconsin. I have an old postcard of the library and I originally wrote about the library on the Wisconsin Library Heritage Center website thinking it was the only, or at least the oldest, such library in the state. I was quickly informed that there was another older log cabin library in Wabeno, Wisconsin which is the Wabeno Public Library. I then posted an additional entry on the WLHC website about the Wabeno log cabin library. Both libraries are on the National Register of Historic Places. Both libraries are also on the Wisconsin Library Heritage Trail.