The Wisconsin Library Association (WLA) is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. It was one of the first state library associations created in the nation. However, there was a question about the exact order of the creation of these state library associations. I did some research on this topic and came up with the following information. The New Hampshire Library Association claims to be the first state library association, but a case can also be made that the New York Library Association was the first. New Hampshire’s claim rests on the fact that the New Hampshire state legislature passed a law on August 16, 1889 specifically authorizing the creation of a state library association. However, it was not until September 12, 1890, while meeting with the American Library Association in White Mountains, NH, that a group initiated the formation of the New Hampshire Library Association under the new law. Meanwhile under the leadership of Melvil Dewey, New York, with the knowledge of and based on the New Hampshire law, took action to create a state library association on July 11, 1890. Notwithstanding New Hampshire’s claim to be number one, I think from a technical/legal perspective New York has the edge. Iowa claims to be the second state library association created (after New York). It took actions in this regard on September 2, 1890. Based on Iowa's claim and date of establishment, New Hampshire would actually be the third state library association to be legally established. The Massachusetts Library Club was created on October 22, 1890, and the New Jersey Library Association was created on Dec. 29, 1890. Wisconsin became the sixth state library association to be created on February 11, 1891 followed closely by Connecticut on February 23, 1891, and Maine on March 1, 1891. A flood of state library associations followed in the next decade under the encouragement of Melvil Dewey and the American Library Association.
Sources:
Adamovich, Shirley Gray, ed. The Road Taken, The New Hampshire Library Association 1889-1989 (The New Hampshire Library Association, 1989).
Wiegand, Wayne A. Irrepressible Reformer, A Biography of Melvil Dewey (Americal Library Association, 1996).
Iowa Library Association website.
Dewey, Melvil. “Notes on American and State Library Associations”, Library Journal (June, 1891) p. 169-170.
Fairchild, S.C. “Outline of Modern Library Movement in America With Most Important Foreign Events”, Library Journal (February, 1901) p. 73-75.
Looking for a great gift for a library lover? I recommend Part of Our Lives - A People's History of the Public Library by Wayne A. Wiegand which was published recently by Oxford University Press. Well researched and documented by Wiegand, America's foremost library historian, it will appeal to the general reader as well as the serious student of library history. As one who is particularly interested in public libraries and their history, I found it to be especially enjoyable. I was also fortunate to hear two presentations by Wiegand on his new book, and both were well received by the audiences. Wiegand is currently on a 30 plus city book tour to promote the book, and I hope you also have the opportunity to hear him.
I've just completed reading Tom Glynn's new book Reading Publics: New York City's Public Libraries, 1754-1911 (Empire State Editions, Fordham University Press, 2015). I highly recommend it to library history buffs everywhere. The term "public libraries" used in the sub-title of the book refers to all types of libraries other than private/personal libraries not just free public libraries as we know them today. Indeed the New York Public Library was not legally established until 1895. As the sub-title indicates the time period for the book begins in 1754 with the founding of the New York Society Library and concludes with the construction of the flagship New York Public Library building at 5th Ave. and 42nd Street. As Wayne Wiegand indicates in a cover blurb the book is: "A deeply researched, well-written, and solid contribution to library history literature that will interest not only members of the library profession but also scholars and students of intellectual, cultural, social, urban, and print culture history whose own research has been heavily influenced by the rich collections Glynn discusses." I found the book to also be a good read. The complicated development of libraries in the nation's major urban city is a fascinating story, and Tom Glynn has done an excellent job of telling it. Purchase from Amazon.
During the 1920s one room school houses for multiple elementary grades in rural America were common. So it wasn't unusual that the members of the American Library Association (ALA) and the National Education Association (NEA) were interested in identifying the best books for these schools. In 1922 ALA published a small brochure (at left) titled "A Shelf of Books For A One Room School" which identified 25 of the best books for a one room school. The books had been selected by ballot by librarians and teachers at the conferences of ALA and NEA. The brochure lists the books in order of their popularity with the voters. Number 1 on the list was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Other high ranking books were: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Carroll); Life of Robinson Crusoe (Defoe); Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain); Treasure Island (Stevenson); Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln (Nicolay); Jungle Book (Kipling); Fairy Tales (Andersen); Aesop's Fables; Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (Pyle); and Child's Garden of Verses (Stevenson). Short descriptions and prices were provided for the books, and at the end there is a note that any book dealer should be able to supply the books.
There was a recent discussion on the
ALA Library History Round Table (LHRT)
listserv about the Alexandria Library in Virginia honoring the
75th anniversary of the 1939 Civil Rights sit-in at the library. I have
written a
previous post about the sit-in. In the listserv discussion it was noted that
the most definitive study about library service to African Americans in the
South prior to 1941 was conducted by Eliza Atkins Gleason. Gleason was the first
African American to receive a PhD in Library Science and the study was the basis
for her dissertation at the University of Chicago. Her study also resulted in
the publication of the book The Southern Negro and the Public Library
(Univ. of Chicago, 1941). I have a copy of the book in my personal library and
Gleason's description of library service to African Americans in the South
during this period is appalling to say the least. Gleason found that in 1939
only 99 out of 774 public libraries in the 13 southern states provided library
service to African Americans, and that only 21 percent of the total African
American population had access to such service. That service was substantially
inferior to the service provided to the white population in those states. Eliza
Atkins Gleason (1909-2009) was an exceptional librarian and her contributions to
the library profession
have been documented in the blog Little Known Black Librarian Facts.
Two other interesting items came out in the LHRT listserv discussion. The
doctoral dissertation of Brenda Mitchell-Powell, a student at the Graduate
School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College, will address the
1939 sit-in at the Alexandria Library. Also Wayne Wiegand and his wife Shirl are
in the process of finishing research on a book about the desegregation of public
libraries in the American South which should get published in 2015. I will look
forward to the publication of both of these efforts.
In 1919 after the end of World War I the American Library
Association published a small book titled Books
At Work In The War During The Armistice and After in which ALA tells the
story in words and pictures of its role in providing library service during and
after the War. One of the more dramatic illustrations in this publications is an
image of a painting by Denman Fink of one soldier reading to another soldier who
is in a wheel chair and whose eyes are covered with bandages. Nearby is a box of
books with the ALA logo. A scan of that image from a copy of the books in my
personal library is shown above. In trying to find out more about the painting I
came across an article
about Fink's painting in the January, 1919 issue of Library Journal by Frank
Parker Stockbridge titled "The Spirit of Library War Service on Canvas". Fink's
painting was one of seven paintings executed by well known artists on the steps
of the New York Public Library during the 1919 United War Work Campaign. The
painting was on a huge canvas that measured 9 x 17 feet. Stockbridge's article
indicates that after being exhibited at the New York Public Library the painting
was also to be exhibited in several large cities as part of ALA's efforts to appeal
for books for wounded soldiers in hospitals and convalescent camps. The final
resting place for the painting was to be the ALA Headquarters in Chicago. The
ALA Archives at the University of Illinois has a glass
slide related to the Fink painting. What eventually happened to the painting is
unknown to me.
The blog for the New York Historical Society Museum & Library has a very nice post about the Library War Service of the American Library Association.
This year, the Military Libraries Division of the Special Libraries Association is celebrating its 60th anniversary so I thought I would feature a couple of artifacts in my collection to honor this occasion. The first artifact (shown above) is a letter written by J. H. Offley, the Librarian of the War Department Library, on November 11, 1839 to Hilliard Gray in Boston in regard to several missing volumes of the Works of Benjamin Franklin which the library had previously ordered. The War Department Library was established in 1832. The War Department existed from 1790 to 1947 and is now the Defense Department. The successor to the War Department Library is the Pentagon Library which was created in 1944 when 28 departmental libraries and information centers were consolidated into a single library. The second artifact is a reprint of an article about the Pentagon Library and other military libraries in Library Journal for February 16, 1966 for National Library Week (see below). See some of my other posts about military libraries.
The American Library Association (ALA Editions) has just published The Whole Library Handbook 5 edited by George M. Eberhart. Like its four predecessors this encyclopedia of library information contains an unbelievable amount of useful and interesting information about libraries and librarianship. I highly recommend it. As a library history buff and collector of librariana, I am especially appreciative of the many items in the handbook that relate to library history. Not to mention an entire section on "Librariana". It, of course, also includes up to date information on library statistics, technology, and dozens of other topics. The handbook would make an excellent text for an introduction to librarianship course in library schools. The handbook can be used as a reference source for all kinds of elusive information about libraries, but it can also just be read as an entertaining overview of our library profession. The material contained in this edition according to Eberhart is 98 percent new or substantially revised from previous editions. I have all of the previus editions and continue to find them very useful. The first edition contains Eberhart's article on "Biblio-philately" which had a life changing impact on me. It was the stimulus for my becoming a collector of postal librariana which led in turn to my becoming a library history buff and ardent promoter of library history. I was pleased that my article "Bibliophilately revisited" was included in the third edition of the handbook. I also have an article on postal librariana in the fourth edition. In each edition, Eberhart has invited a collector of library postcards to pick out their ten favorite library postcards. I was honored to be asked to take on this task for the fifth edition. The Whole Library Handbook 5 has two "Web Extras". One is a list of 100 great libraries of the world and the other is a compilation of libraries and librarians in film and TV.
In my collection I have Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Journal of The Library Workers Association which is dated May, 1920. The Library Workers Association had its first organizational meeting on April 30, 1920 in Atlantic City, NJ. The purpose of the Association was "to promote the well-being of library workers who have not enjoyed the benefits of library school training". Most of the charter members were from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The Association's journal made note of those things the Association was not about. It was not a labor or trade union. It would not depress standards of library work. It would not duplicate work performed "in an adequate manner" by the American Library Association. Although the primary purpose of the Association was to improve the benefits of non-library school trained library workers, the Association argued that this would also lead to an increase in the benefits of library school trained library workers. At the same time the Library Workers Association was formed the American Library Association was looking at the possibility of national certification of librarians. The Library Workers Association opposed those efforts. The Association sought affiliation with the American Library Association but ALA denied that status until the Library Workers Association could more fully demonstrate its ability to meet the criteria for affiliation. A casual search of the Internet failed to provide much information about the eventual fate of the Library Workers Association.
Whenever I have the chance I acquire early catalogs of library supply companies. Among the catalogs in my collection are several from Gaylord Brothers, a library supply and furniture company that was established in 1896 and continues today. My earliest catalog for Gaylord Brothers is its 1912 catalog. A specialty for Gaylord from its beginning was the repair of books. Its catalogs are filled with products that assisted libraries in the in-house repair of worn and damaged books. In Gaylord's 1912 catalog it offered a comprehensive Book Binding Kit which it argued allowed a library to repair books for one to four cents. The cost of the kit was only $9.75. In its 1926 catalog Gaylord referred to its book repair system as "The Toronto Method of Book Repairing". Gaylord published a 1924 pamphlet on this method which is digitized in the Hathi Trust Digital Library. In Gaylord's 1933 catalog they offered a "Bookcraft Box" (see below) which could be ordered with everything a library needed for its book repair operation or empty to be stocked by the library. One of my early library jobs included the repair of books for a large public library and I used many of the products offered by Gaylord. Do any libraries still repair their own books? Gaylord is known for a number of innovative products including its well known charging machine.
The extension of public library service to rural areas in the United States has been a goal of state governments for more than twelve decades (the Massachusetts Free Public Library Commission was established in 1890). The passage of the federal Library Services Act in 1956 was a major impetus to achieving this goal and in many states 100 percent of the state's residents have access to public library service. I have several items in my collection that document the efforts to extend public library service to rural areas in the 1920s. One of those is a U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers Bulletin issued in April, 1928. The conclusion of the bulletin states: "The purpose of this bulletin will be accomplished if rural people, State legislatures, local officials, and library agencies, in view of demonstrated accomplishments, cooperate to make rural library service, as compared with other forms of public service, equal, efficient, and complete." The bulletin has been digitized and is available through the Hathi Trust. Of the many illustrations related to rural library service and its promotion in the bulletin, I was most taken with an image of a participant in a parade dressed as a book promoting county libraries in California and an image of a small building at a county fair papered in book jackets promoting county library service. Personal editorial: Even with decades of effort there are still millions of people in rural areas in the U.S. without access to free public library service. I think this is a national travesty. Why is it that the library profession can be so passionate about the censoring of a single book and yet tolerates a situation in which so many people have no free access to books and other materials in a public library.
According to The Cookbook Library, a new book on the history of printed cookbooks by Anne Willan and Mark Cherniavsky (Univ. of California Press), cookbooks date back to medieval times. It is not that uncommon for Friends of Libraries groups or other library supporters to compile cookbooks to raise funds for a library. I recently acquired a hansom example that was published this year by the Friends of Matheson Memorial Library in Elkhorn, WI. I have a much older example of a library cookbook that was compiled in 1929 by the Members of the Ripon (WI) Library Association. My 1929 copy is the fourth edition of the publication. The first edition was published way back in 1892. It got me to wondering when the first library cookbook was published. It might even be the 1892 Ripon cookbook. I found a citation for a Grinnell Iowa Free Library Cookbook in WorldCat that was published in 1896 and a citation for cookbook published by the Aldrich Free Public Library Friends in Moosup, CT in 1897. I currently only have three cookbooks in my librariana collection, but a quick search of eBay leads me to believe that one could put together a nice collection of these books. According to a brief history of the Ripon Public Library, the Ripon Library Association (a subscription library) was created in 1884 and turned its book collection over to the city for a free public library in 1898. The Library Association evidently continued as a library support organization.
I recently acquired a postcard (see above) which shows the Delta Sigma Theta bookmobile in front of the King St. Branch Library of of the West Georgia Regional Library in Carrollton, GA. The caption on the back of the postcard indicates that the bookmobile served Carroll, Douglas, Haralson, and Heard Counties in Georgia. The postcard was mailed on September 5, 1956. The Delta Sigma Theta sorority was founded in 1913 at Howard University and has a long history of public service as it relates to the African American community. In 1937 it initiated the National Library Project which had the goal of providing library service to African Americans in the rural South. In doing some background research on the postcard I came across a history of the West Georgia Regional Library titled Yonder She Comes! A Once Told Li'bry Tale by Edith Foster (Gateway Printing Co., 1985) which has been placed online in pdf format. Edith Foster was the original director of the West Georgia Regional Library and served in that capacity from 1944 to 1976. Chapter 8 of the book tells about Foster's efforts to establish the King Street Branch Library and the bookmobile service to serve the African American community at a time when the South was still segregated. For two years Foster drove the Delta Sigma Theta bookmobile herself and set up service points for African Americans in all counties. Foster recounts that in order to be prepared to respond to the question "Are you mixing the books?" each book for the King Street Branch was marked with a triangle symbol. The King Street Branch Library ceased operation in 1967 with the completion of the Neva Lomason Memorial Library in Carrollton which served the entire community.
McFarland & Company has just published The Laughing Librarian: A History of American Library Humor by Jeanette C. Smith. The book is a must have for anyone interested in library history and/or library humor. The book has forewords by the two greatest living library humorists - Will Manley and Norman D. Stevens which is more than enough to recommend the book. Smith is a New Mexico State University Library faculty member and a collector of library humor for almost four decades. My copy of the book is on order from Amazon, but Amazon provides a surprising amount of content via its "search inside this book" feature. Before ordering I was able to look at the table of contents and the index, read the two forewords and the introduction, and also read parts of some of the chapters. The book documents the history of library humor from 1876 up to the present. Some of the chapters include: Humors and Blunders; Batgirl Was a Librarian - Library Superheroes; Librarian Types and Stereotypes - She's a Keeper; Library Staff - They Also Serve; Shhh! - The Unforgivable Sin; The Fear Factor; For SEX, See the Librarian; and Joyfully Subversive. There are also chapters on Will Manley and Norman D. Stevens as well as on Edmund Lester Pearson, "The Main Guy". Smith is a Fellow of the Molesworth Institute and the first recipient of the Edmund Lester Pearson Library Humor Award. I have to say that I am biased in recommending this books since I am also a Fellow of the Molesworth Institute and a recipient of the Edmund Lester Pearson Library Humor Award. I can't wait to get my hands on the actual book!
In his book Paper Machines: About Cards & Catalogs, 1548-1929 (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2011) Markus Krajewski tells the fascinating story (to a library history buff) of how the idea of putting information on individual pieces of paper and filing them in a prescribed manner became a significant tool in the world of business in the U.S. and Europe. Krajewski's story begins with Konrad Gessner, a 16th century doctor, and the methodology he used to compile his publication Bibliotheca Universalis. It is Krajewski's description of the role played by the Library Bureau company, founded by Melvil Dewey, in transferring library catalog card methodology to the business world, however, that I found most interesting. Krajewski recounts both the development of the use of catalog cards by libraries in the U.S. and the early struggles of Library Bureau as a business. Krajewski reveals that it was E. W. Sherman, a female accountant working for Library Bureau, and not Dewey, who recognized the practical application of library catalog card filing methodology to business. Her experimentation with the use of catalog cards for accounting records was the initial stimulus for Library Bureau's expansion into the business world which proved immensely successful. Krajewski writes: "In 1909 Library Bureau controls more that 10 factories, 32 agent offices in American and European cities, and 3,000 office workers. A small department for library supplies overcomes financial plights and turns into a thriving corporation, opening a hitherto virtually nonexistent market." The business world adopted the methodology of the catalog card and index to such a degree that by 1929, the ending point of Krajewski's history, a card file is on practically every business desk. Krajewski quotes this testimonial from a 1929 German business equipment catalog: "Card catalogs can maintain order among tens of thousands of small and large items in the warehouse management of large industrial plants, they can structure any number of addresses in personnel departments, they can control the movement of hundreds of thousands of people in urban registration offices, they can make themselves useful in bookkeeping departments of commercial offices, i.e. as open account catalogs, etc. etc. Card catalogs can do anything!" Markus Krajewski is Associate Professor of Media History at the Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany. I first became aware of his work when he commented on one of my most popular posts about the playing cards repurposed by the French as library catalog cards in the late 18th century. My description of Karjewski's book doesn't do it justice. I highly recommend that you read it yourself. The 18th century french catalog card repurposed from a playing card shown below is from my collection of three such cards.
 |
| Woman's Building Library |
Earlier this week I had the good fortune to attend the Annual Lecture of the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture at the School of Library and Information Studies at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. This year it featured Sarah Wadsworth, Associate Professor of English at Marquette University, and Wayne Wiegand, Professor Emeritus at Florida State University, talking about their new book Right Here I See My Own Books: A Woman's Building Library at the World's Columbian Exposition (Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2012). The Woman's Building Library came on my radar screen in 2006 with a special issue (Winter issue) of Libraries & Culture which was devoted to the library and was edited by Sarah Wadsworth. The library consisted of over 8,000 volumes from around the world written, illustrated, edited, or translated in the 400 years leading up to the exposition. In the "Acknowledgments" section of the new Wadsworth and Wiegand book, the development of the book is chronicled. It began with Wiegand's discovery of a cache of letters between Melvil Dewey and Bertha Honore Palmer, chair of the Board of Lady Managers of the World's Columbian Exposition and the driving force behind a Woman's Building at the Exposition, while doing research on his biography of Dewey at Columbia University in the early 1980s. Wadsworth joined with Wiegand in 2000 to pursue the project because of her interest in nineteenth-century American women's literature. Together they obtained a grant to create a relational database of the contents of the Woman's Building Library. That relational database is now available online at Marquette University. I found the book that Wadsworth and Wiegand produced after years of effort and research to be extremely interesting and I recommend it highly. I found the portion of the book related to Melvil Dewey's involvement with the Woman's Building Library and its staffing with "Dewey's girls" to be especially interesting. Wadsworth and Wiegand are donating the royalties from their book to the National Women's History Museum. They have been lecturing about the book around the country. An interesting blog post about the kick-off of their lecture tour at the Library of Congress is located HERE. I wrote a previous blog post about the library that featured a postal card in my postal librariana collection in 2009.
Forty-nine years ago I took a job as a page/clerk at the Public Library of Nashville and Davidson County. I've been involved one way or the other in working for, working with, or observing public libraries for most of the years since. It is with that background that I recently read Wayne A. Wiegand's new book Main Street Public Library (Univ. of Iowa Press, 2011) which has the subtitle "Community Places and Reading Spaces in the Rural Heartland, 1876-1956". If you are at all interested in the history and/or the role of the American public library, I recommend that you read this book. If for nothing else, the book is well worth reading for the excellent histories of the four Midwestern public libraries on which the book is based. They are the public libraries in Sauk Centre, MN; Osage, IA; Lexington, MI; and Rhinelander, WI. Wiegand uses the experiences of these libraries to challenge some of the basic rhetoric about the value and purpose of public libraries. The final paragraph in the book sums up his findings: "The purpose and mission of the Main Street public libraries studied here were not primarily to supplement formal education, to pursue a policy of 'not censorship, but selection,' or to provide information considered essential for the marketplace or the politics of democracy. Those were secondary goals, and because the library was an institution that local citizens did not have to patronize, these goals were regularly and necessarily compromised, despite, professional rhetoric. Their actual primary purpose and mission - as crafted over the generations by local leaders and users - was to foster the kinds of social harmony that community spaces and stories, experienced shared, provide." Obviously, the experience of four small Midwestern public libraries is not sufficient to make broad generalizations about the entirety of public libraries in America. However, it is not a revelation to me that the rhetoric of the value and role of the public libraries by the library profession is often mismatched with the reality of actual public library service this country. I'm not willing to acquiesce to the entirety of Wiegand's arguments though. I believe that public libraries can and do change lives in a positive way through reading (and reading alternatives) yes, but also by being an educational institution and a source of reliable information. In my opinion public libraries have moved too far in the direction of being popular materials centers. I advocate a more balanced approach. Public libraries have an opportunity to play a major role in early childhood education. Is it more important to provide the latest popular movies on DVD? A blog post is not an adequate venue for a debate on the role of the public library, however. Thanks Wayne for creating the basis for such a debate. An article by Wiegand in American Libraries about Main Street Public Library. Another review of Main Street Public Library.
Although he was affiliated directly with only two American library institutions, Louis Round Wilson (1876-1979) had a significant impact on the entire library world. Today is the 135th anniversary of his birth. Wilson became Librarian of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1901 at the age of 25. While at UNC he founded their library school in 1931. His contribution at UNC was significant enough to have the library building at UNC which he helped build named for him. In 1932 he joined the library school at the University of Chicago as Dean. He retired from the University of Chicago in 1942, but returned to the University of North Carolina where he engaged in a variety of post-retirement activities for another 30 years. He died in December, 1979, just days shy of his 103rd birthday. Along the way, he helped found the North Carolina Library Association in which he served as President in 1909, 1920-21, and 1929-30. He was also active in the American Library Association and served as its President in 1935-36. Maurice F. Tauber is author of a biography about Wilson titled Louis Round Wilson, Librarian and Administrator (Columbia Univ. Press, 1967). In his biography Tauber referred to Wilson as the dean of American university librarianship, but indicated that he was concerned with librarianship in all types of institutions. He quoted Robert Burton House who said Wilson was "one of the most constructive persons of his generation in the entire university world."
Another significant December library related birthday. Today is the 125th anniversary of the birth of Lee Pierce Butler (1886-1953), library educator at the University of Chicago and author of An Introduction to Library Science (University of Chicago Press, 1933 & subsequent editions). Like many library school students of my generation my introduction to Butler's An Introduction to Library Science classic came in my first library science course. I still have my copy of the required text which is marked up extensively. To get an idea of how long ago this was, it only cost me $1.25. My copy has an introduction by Lester E. Asheim, another well known library educator. Basically, Butler tried to provide a theoretical basis for library science to counter the "simplicity of their [the library profession's] pragmatism". In his introduction Asheim indicates Butler's "little booklet" "seemed dangerously revolutionary to many librarians at the time [1933]". Hard to believe any library science text could have been considered to be dangerously revolutionary.
