40th Anniversary of the Stamp Honoring America's Libraries

Forty years ago on July 13, 1982 the United States Postal Service (USPS) issued a postage stamp honoring  America's libraries. It was the result of years of lobbying by the library profession for such a stamp. A first day of issue ceremony for the stamp was held in Philadelphia at the annual conference of the American Library Association (ALA). Originally the stamp was supposed to also honor the Library of Congress, but Librarian of Congress Daniel Borstin persuaded the USPS to issue a separate stamp for the Library of Congress. That stamp was issued on April 21, 1982. I previously wrote a post about that stamp. Both stamps were designed by Bradbury Thompson, one of the world's great graphic designers and typographers. ALA, led by its President Betty Stone, went all out to promote the America's Libraries stamp. This included producing a first day cover (FDC) for the stamp (shown above) which was sold in various configurations. The one above is signed by Stone and ALA Executive Director Robert Wedgeworth. The cover included an insert with information about ALA. ALA contracted with ArtCraft, the major publisher of FDCs, to design and print its FDC. Over a hundred other FDC producers (called cachet makers) also designed an FDC for the America's Libraries stamp. I collect the different FDCs for the America's Libraries stamp and I have developed an exhibit of those covers which I have shown at national level stamp shows. Among the most sought after FDCs by collectors are those that are hand drawn and painted. The one below was created by arguably the most famous cachet maker Dorothy Knapp.  I wrote an article titled "Bradbury Thompson's 1982 Library Stamps" for the July issue of PHILATELI-GRAPHICS, the publication of the Graphics Philately Association of the American Topical Association. 

The 1982 Library of Congress Stamp

On this day (April 21, 1982) forty years ago the United States Postal Service issued a stamp honoring the Library of Congress. It was significant in that it was the first United States stamp to specifically honor a library. Although there had been previous postage stamps on which library buildings had appeared, those were issued to commemorate academic and other institutions or architects. Originally, the proposed stamp was to commemorate all of America's libraries collectively and the Library of Congress individually. Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin wasn't happy with the design of the stamp, however, and the Postmaster General agreed to issue a separate stamp for the Library of Congress. The stamp honoring America’s Libraries collectively was issued on July 13,1982 at the conference of the American Library Association in Philadelphia. Both stamps were designed by noted graphics designer Bradbury Thompson. I have a large collection of first day covers for both stamps. One of my favorites for the Library of Congress issue is shown above. It was the Library of Congress Philatelic Club Cachet Number 1. The illustration on the envelope (called a cachet) is a pen and ink drawing by Paul Boswell.  Boswell was a staff member at the Library of Congress where he worked for 46 years. Bowell was also a poet and in 1994 Boswell published a book of his poems and drawings titled No Anchovies on the Moon: Three Score and Ten Washington Pictures and Poems. Boswell died in 1994. The first day cover is signed by Boswell and Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin. 

The Library of Congress Philatelic Club produced first day covers for 18 different stamp issues. Their second first day cover cachet was for the America’s Libraries stamp.

I also published a blog post on the 30th anniversary of the issue of the Library of Congress stamp.

Two Additional Library People on Postage Stamps

I’ve been collecting libraries and library people on postage stamps for more than 25 years.  I haven’t been as aggressive in my pursuit of these stamps in recent years so I was slow to realize the connection to libraries of two of the stamps in the United State Postal Service “Voices of the Harlem Renaissance” issue of 2020.  Both individuals on the stamps had strong connections to the New York Public Library (NYPL). The first person was Nella Larsen (1891-1964) who was honored as a novelist, but also was a librarian at the NYPL. She worked at three different branch libraries – the 135th Street Branch, the Seward Park Branch, and the Countee Cullen Branch.  She was the first black woman to graduate from the NYPL Library School.  Although not honored as a librarian, Larsen was the first (and only) person with professional librarian credentials to appear on a United States postage stamp.  Wikipedia has a comprehensive entry for Nella Larsen.  The “Little Known Black Librarian Facts” blog has an entry for Larsen with an excellent list of sources.  Bob Sink’s “NYPL Librarians” blog has an interesting post about Ernestine Rose’s role in the integration of branch library staffs including her connection to Larsen. 

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874-1938) was the second person on a stamp with a library connection.  The USPS description of his contributions: “By tirelessly collecting books, documents, artwork, and other materials, Schomburg rescued black history from obscurity and preserved priceless cultural knowledge for future generations.”  His collection was acquired by the New York Public Library and was the foundation for what became the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Wikipedia has a nice entry for Schomburg. It is noteworthy that the previously mentioned Ernestine Rose also played a significant role in acquiring and building the Schomburg collection at NYPL. 

Library people especially librarians are rarely recognized on postage stamps for their contributions as library people. Those who are on postage stamps are usually recognized for some other contribution.  On my Library History Buff website which I no longer update because of obsolete software I have several sections devoted to the topic of library people on postage stamps.  They include “Library People on Postage Stamps – An Introduction”, “A Postage Stamp to Honor America’s Librarians”, “U.S. Library People on Postage Stamps”, and “World Library People on Postage Stamps”.

As a collector of libraries and library people on postage stamps I have benefited in my search for these stamps by my membership in the American Topical Association and the Graphics Philately Association.  The Graphics Philately Association publishes a comprehensive list of these and other graphics related postage stamps titled Winnegrad’s Printing on Stamps compiled by Bruce L. Johnson. The Graphics Philately Association also publishes a quarterly publication titled Philateli-Graphics which includes listing of new stamp issues of graphic interest which includes libraries.

IFLA Bibliophilately

The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) is holding its 82nd General Conference and Assembly in Columbus, Ohio this week.  The first such conference took place in Rome, Italy in 1928. At past conferences, several host countries have recognized the IFLA conference with postage stamps and other postal artifacts. These include:  Belgium in 1977 on the 50th anniversary of IFLA; the Philippines in 1980; Kenya in 1984; Japan in 1986; and Vatican City in 2009 when IFLA met in Milan, Italy.  Images of these items can be found in a previous post that I made about IFLA bibliophilately. Han Krol has more about the stamps on his Dutch Librariana website (translate with Google translator).  More about the history of IFLA can be found on its website. More about bibliophilately can be found HERE.

National Library Week and Meter Mail

Today is the first day of National Library Week with a national theme of “Libraries Transform”. In 1957 the National Book Committee, a joint committee of the American Library Association and the American Book Publishers Council, recommended the establishment of a National Library Week.  The first National Library Week was observed May 16-22, 1958 with the theme "Wake Up and Read". It has continued every year since 1958.  In 1974, the American Library Association became the sole sponsor of the event. Libraries and other organization that used meter postage machines for their mail were able to add slogans for special events such as National Library Week. Below are some examples of these slogans for previous National Library Week campaigns.

Oldest Public Library in the Americas?

There are several libraries that make claim to being the oldest public library in the United States of America, but one library claims to be the oldest public library in the Americas. That library is the Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla, Mexico. The Biblioteca Palafoxiana was founded in 1646 and was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2005. In 1996 Mexico issued a postage stamp (at the left) to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the library. According to Mexico's submission to the Memory of the World Register, the Biblioteca Palafoxiana "is noted for its authenticity and bibliographical wealth, building and bookcases, with more than 41,000 volumes among those that the library preserves as well as world unique manuscripts, there are 9 incunabula." The library was founded by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, a Catholic priest who served as bishop of Puebla from 1640 to 1655. The blog "All About Puebla" indicates that the library is noteworthy for its sheer beauty and includes finely carved bookshelves. Was the library truly a public library as we know it in the United States? Probably not. However, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza did establish the library by donating 5,000 of his own books to the Colegio de San Juan on the condition that they be made available to the general public. Currently it is more of a rare book and research library. Information about visiting the library can be found HERE.

Exhibiting in Little Rock

I've written several posts about America's presidential libraries including one on my philatelic exhibit about these libraries. My philatelic exhibit is on display this weekend at the American Philatelic Society's Winter stamp show that is taking place in Little Rock, Arkansas. The exhibit is being shown as a non-competitive exhibit at the invitation of the American Philatelic Society. The exhibit is primarily about the presidential libraries that are administered by the National Libraries and Archives Administration (NARA). It is an appropriate exhibit since the Clinton Presidential Library is located in Little Rock. I mailed the exhibit to Little Rock and won't be attending the show myself.  The First Day Cover (FDC) shown above is for the Presidential Libraries stamp that was issued on August 4, 2005. This FDC has a postmark for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, NY, and shows a picture of Roosevelt assisting with the mortaring of the wall of the library on Nov. 19, 1939.  A unique postmark was created for the stamp for each of the  the presidential library sites. The Presidential Libraries stamp commemorated the Presidential Libraries Act of 1955 which authorized the National Archives to take custody of the papers of U.S. presidents.

Library Lion in Winter

The two lions that grace the entrance to the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue are world famous. In 2000 the United Postal Service was set to issue a stamp to pay the pre-sorted first class postage rate that featured one of the lions without reference to the NYPL. However, the lion image is trademarked by the NYPL, and the USPS was required to identify the New York Public Library on the stamp. Among the postal librariana items that I collect are first day covers and postal uses of the NYPL lion stamp. One of the first day covers (shown above) has a cachet (illustration) by Tom's Cachet Designs which features one of the lions with a Christmas wreath around its neck. I thought this would be an appropriate item to feature on the blog at this time of the year. Season's greetings to all!

Libraries on Cinderellas

Stamp collectors refer to pseudo stamps or labels with no postal value as "cinderellas". I have a small collection of library cinderellas which is shown below.

Boston Public Library

Erie (PA) Public Library

New York University Library (now Hall of Fame)

Springfield (VT) Public Library

Columbus (OH) Public Library 

St. Paul (MN) Public Library

New York Public Library

New York Public Library 

Riverside (CA) Public Library

 

Library Power and Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683)

At the American Library Association Conference in Chicago this summer I attended the Edward G. Holley Lecture of the Library History Round Table. It waa a presentation by Jacob Soll, Professor of History and Accounting at the University of Southern California. The title of his presentation was "Library of Power, Library of Enlightenment: Libraries as Foundations to the Modern State 1400-1806". The lecture was far more entertaining than its title would indicate. A big portion of the lecture dealt with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a 17th century Frenchman who was one of the first significant political figures to realize the power of libraries and to make use of that power.  Starting in 1661 he served in a number of capacities under King Louis XIV, most notably as Controller General and Finance. As Superintendent of Buildings he was supervisor of the Royal Library, the predecessor of the Bibliotheque Nationale.  Colbert also built an extensive personal library that he used to help administer the French State.  Soll is author of The Information Master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert's Secret Intelligence System (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2011).  According to Soll Colbert, "Believed that all knowledge had practical value for politics." I collect postage stamps stamps that depict librarians or other library people.  Colbert is one of those people. He was depicted on a French stamp issued in 1944 (see above). Thanks to Soll I know a lot more about Colbert. For my list of library people on postage stamps (outside of the U.S.) go HERE.

The Whole Library Handbook 5

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. 

Postal Items from a German WWII POW Camp

Woldenberg Oflag IIC was a German World War II prisoner of war camp for Polish officers. The Articles of the Geneva Convention entitled POWs to the right of self-government which led to the development of postal services and library services in some POW camps including Woldenberg. As part of the postal services at Woldenberg, the prisoners developed their own postage stamps and postmarks. A special postmark (shown above) was designed for DNI KSIAZKI or Book Week which took place August 29 to September 4, 1943 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the printing of the first Polish book.  An exhibit at the camp library was also organized by the the Council for the Camp's Library for Cultural Instructions to celebrate the occasion.  The postmark and stamp above are on part of an envelope given to me by friend and fellow bibliophilatelist Jerzy Duda of Krakow Poland. It was Jerzy who also made me aware of the story behind the items on the envelope. Roman Sobus is an expert on the postal history of Woldenberg Oflag IIC and has developed a philatelic exhibit on this topic. Ironically,
as Sobus points out in the introduction to his exhibit, the postage stamps and special postmarks that were created by the Polish prisoners of war "are most often of a strong cultural or religious nature, depicting events or persons from Poland's history, and its battles for independence, a fact seemingly lost on the prisoners' captors." I also have in my collection a postal card sent by the camp library to one of the prisoners (shown below). For more on these and other similar postal items click here.

Another Presidential Library is Being Dedicated

I'm a big fan of presidential libraries and museums so I'm excited that the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is being dedicated on Thursday. It will open to the public on May 1st. This will make the 13th library and museum that falls under the purview of the Office of Presidential Libraries of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). I've been able to visit eight of these and I'm looking forward to visiting the rest. Although these libraries have been described by some as presidential temples or pyramids, I think they provide valuable looks at important segments of our history. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum, dedicated in 1939, was the first of the NARA presidential libraries. The Herbert Hoover Library and Museum was created retroactively. Up until 1978 the archives and artifacts of a president were actually considered to be the personal property of the president. So the papers of early presidents were often dispersed widely and inconsistently. Fortunately the Library of Congress has managed to acquire extensive archival materials for the first 23 presidents. The presidential libraries and museums are well represented in my collection of librariana and I even have a philatelic exhibit about them. Many postal artifacts were created as a result of the 2005 presidential libraries postage stamp which added significantly to my collection. Click HERE to see a previous blog post about presidential libraries.

100 Years of Parcel Post

Since today marks the 100th anniversary of the provision of parcel post by the U.S. Post Office Department (now the United States Postal Service), I thought I would repost an entry that I wrote about parcel post and libraries in 2009.               

Parcel post, the delivery of packages through the mail, began in the United States on January 1, 1913. Libraries had long lobbied for a special rate for library materials sent through the mail, and in 1914 the postmaster general authorized the shipment of books at the parcel post rate. This decision opened up significant possibilities for library service to geographically remote poputlations. One of the first librarians to realize the potential of parcel post and library service was Matthew S. Dudgeon, the Secretary of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission (WFLC). Under Dudgeon's leadership the WFLC began implementing a system in which any resident of the state could request a book from the major libraries in Madison including the University of Wisconsin Library and the State Historical Society Library. There was little red tape involved. All that was required was a letter requesting a book along with the postage. Under the new postal rates a book could be sent anywhere within a 150 of Madison for an average of six cents and for greater distances for eight cents. Implementation of this system was facilitate by the fact that the President of the University of Wisconsin and the Secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society served on the Wisconsin Free Library Commission board. An article about Didgeon's parcel post system appeared in the December, 1915 issue of American Review of Reviews.

The National Postal Museum has extensive coverage of parcel post on its website.

People in Libraries on Postage Stamps

I'm a collector of libraries and librarians on postage stamps which is sometimes called bibliophilately. Of the hundreds of thousands of postage stamps that have been issued by the countries of the world, less than a thousand fall into this category. Of that group only 30 to 40 depict people inside of a library (this does not include images of celebrities in a library). I'm an advocate for a United States postage stamp or group of postage stamps honoring public libraries. Stamps showing people using public libraries would be a great way to do this. Below are some of the stamps in my collection showing people in libraries.

Bophuthatswana, Issued 1990

Greenland, Issued 1980

Iceland, Issued 1968

Kenya, Issued 1984

Norway, Issued 1985

Poland, Issued 1954

Barbados, Issued 1972

Postal Recognition of IFLA Conferences

The World Library and Information Conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) will take place in Helsinki, Finland on August 11-17. This will be the 78th IFLA General Conference and Assembly. The first such conference took place in Rome, Italy in 1928. In the past, several host countries have  recognized the IFLA conference with postage stamps and other postal artifacts. These include:  Belgium in 1977 on the 50th anniversary of IFLA; the Philippines in 1980; Kenya in 1984; Japan in 1986; and more recently Vatican City in 2009 when IFLA met in Milan, Italy. Han Krol has more about the stamps on his Dutch Librariana website (translate with Google translator). Some items from my postal librariana collection are shown below.

10th International Library Week, Ryukyus, 1968

In 1968 the Postal Services Agency of the Government of the Ryukyu Islands issued a postage stamp to commemorate the 10th anniversary of International Library Week. The Ryukyu Islands had been occupied by the United States since 1945 following the defeat of Japan in World War II. Okinawa is the largest island in the chain of islands. Ryukyu reverted back to Japan in 1972. The text on the first day cover for the stamp shown above reads: "International Library Week was adopted in 1959 to be observed jointly by Ryukyuan librarians, educators, booksellers, and newspapers and American military librarians on Okinawa. The importance of libraries to the community has become increasingly apparent to the public. The numbers are increasing and even small villages are establishing library rooms in their community centers." National Library Week in the United States was established in 1958. The bookmark on the left includes the same slogan used for National Library Week in 1968 - "Be all you can be ... Read".

30th Anniversary of America's First Stamp Commemorating a Library

Thirty years ago during National Library Week in April, 1982, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp commemorating the Library of Congress. Although there had been previous postage stamps on which library buildings had appeared, those were issued to commemorate academic and other institutions or architects.  Originally, the proposed stamp was to commemorate all of America's libraries collectively and the Library of Congress individually. A publicity photo of that stamp is shown above. Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin wasn't happy with the stamp, however, and the Postmaster General agreed to issue a separate stamp for the Library of Congress. That stamp is shown at the left. The America's Libraries stamp was issued in July of 1982 during the ALA Conference in Philadelphia. Both stamps were designed by noted graphic designer Bradbury Thompson. I wrote an earlier post about Thompson on the 100th anniversary of his birth. I wrote an article about the two 1982 library stamps in the August, 2007 issue of American Libraries for the 25th anniversary of the stamps. Both stamps appear of the First Day Cover for the America's Libraries stamp shown below. It is signed by both Daniel Boorstin and the ALA President Betty Stone. To see other U.S. libraries on stamps click HERE.