St. Louis Mercantile Library 125

 The St. Louis Mercantile Library celebrated its 125^th anniversary in 2021. According to its website: “Founded in 1846 and chartered by the State of Missouri in that year, the St. Louis Mercantile Library is the oldest general library in continuous existence West of the Mississippi River.”  The library is now located on the campus of the University of Missouri – St. Louis. Mercantile libraries are one of the major types of membership libraries. They were started by businessmen in behalf of young merchants’ clerks embarking on their careers. They began in Boston and New York in 1820 but were eventually established in most major cities in America including St. Louis. I have a philatelic exhibit featuring America’s membership libraries and mercantile libraries constitute a major component of the exhibit. I have a number of artifacts in the exhibit relating to the St. Louis Mercantile Library, some of which are shown below.  I have a previous blog post which discusses the bookplates of the Mercantile Library.  I also have a blog post about my visit to the library in 2015.

Life membership certificate for William E. Ware dated 1855. 

1895 postal card listing services and membership terms.

Stampless mourning cover sent to the St. Louis Mercantile Library on Sept. 7, 1850.

ALA Pinback Buttons

If you’ve ever attended a library conference the odds are that you’ve brought home a few of the pinback buttons that vendors give away in the exhibits.  I have an enormous library button collection that I’ve accumulated at library conferences and which have been given to me by other collectors.  Below are a few buttons from my collection related to the American Library Association. More examples from my collection can be found HERE.

More Vintage Library Cards

I’ve added a few more items to my collection of vintage library cards which are shown below. For more vintage library cards see a previous post and the page on my website devoted to vintage library postcards. 

Boston Mercantile Library, 1823

New Haven Young Men's Institute, 1879

Milwaukee Public Library, 1901

Stockton, CA Public Library, 1912

Cincinnati Public Library, 1939

Library Handwriting

Early Harvard College Library catalog card

Catalog card from a small Wisconsin public library

Last year OCLC, the global library cooperative that operates the world’s largest online union library catalog, announced that it was discontinuing its service of providing printed catalog cards to libraries.  This follows decades of libraries transitioning from physical card catalogs to computerized and online catalogs.  The Library of Congress which began distributing printed catalog cards to libraries in 1902 ended this service in 1997.  Before there were printed catalog cards and typewritten library cards they were handwritten.  In 1861 the Harvard College Library became the first library in the United States to use a public card catalog instead of a printed catalog as the primary method for library users to determine what books were available in the library. Harvard created its card catalog using female assistants to hand write the cards. By the start of the 20th century almost all libraries in the U.S. used card catalogs with most of the cards handwritten.  Legible handwriting was critical and what became known as “the library hand” was fostered.  Melvil Dewey was a proponent of a standardized “library hand”, and as late as 1916 the New York State Library School founded by Dewey was teaching Library Handwriting.  David Kaminski, an independent researcher, has undertaken an in-depth study of library handwriting.  His ongoing study is titled The Varieties and Complexities of American Handwriting and Penmanship: Library Hand and is available online.  In his online compilation of information related to library handwriting, Kaminski includes an excerpt from a discussion of which took place between Melvil Dewey and other library leaders at the American Library Association Lake George Conference in 1885 concerning handwritten catalog cards and their replacement by typewritten catalog cards.  Dewey was an advocate for the Hammond typewriter. Although typewritten and pre-printed catalog cards replaced handwritten catalog cards starting in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Some small libraries continued to use handwritten cards well into the 20th century. 

Gilbert H. Doane’s Book About Collecting Bookplates

I have written a previous post about Gilbert H. Doane who served as Librarian of the University of Wisconsin – Madison General Library from 1937 to 1956 and was one of the World War II “Monuments Men”. Doane was inducted into the Wisconsin Library Hall of Fame in 2014. In doing research on Doane I discovered that he was a collector of bookplates, and that he had written a book about collecting bookplates. I lucked out and was able to purchase a copy of his book at one of the online used book sites. Its title is About Collecting Bookplates: A Letter from Gilbert H. Doane, and it was published in 1941 by a small press named Black Mack. The book which is in the form of a long personal letter came about after a visit from Doane’s friend Bill who showed interest in his collection of bookplates. In his book Doane writes: “Were there a small book on the subject [bookplates] easily accessible to your hand, I’d recommend it to you; but, alas, most of the literature, aside from checklists of designers and engravers, is forty or more years old, out of print, and obtainable only through the medium of secondhand book dealers and not always quickly found at that. So here’s the story of bookplates put as briefly as I can put it, but told, I fear, in rather a haphazard way, with, I know, far too many references to examples I’ve been lucky enough to acquire. Do forgive me if, as a collector, I cannot curb my pride in an occasional bit of good luck. God knows, I’ve paid for some of my mistakes in other ways – as you will, Dear Chap, if you get this fever!” As Doane indicates his book/letter is illustrated with bookplates from his collection which any serious bookplate collector would appreciate. The one shown to the left was designed by bookplate designer Edwin D. French (1851-1906) for his own use.  Doane’s book is in itself a valued collectible. It is a small book in size (5” by 4”) and length (78 pages) and has its own case. The printing on special paper consisted of 360 numbered copies of which mine is number 30. As with Doane, “I cannot curb my pride in an occasional bit of good luck” in finding a copy of his book.

A Major Addition To My Bookplate Collection

Bookplate collecting is a serious endeavor which is normally undertaken by serious collectors. I don’t consider myself a serious collector of bookplates so it is surprising that I have made 18 previous posts to this blog with the label “bookplates” (this one makes 19). I have also ended up with a fairly significant collection of bookplates for institutional libraries (as opposed to personal libraries). I added a major addition to that collection last year when I purchased an album of over 300 bookplates from a dealer at a stamp show.  The dealer who knew about my interest in library history had previously offered to sell the album to me, but the price was more than I was willing to pay. He finally got tired of lugging the album around and made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse. The album includes only part of someone’s former collection. The bookplates are for libraries starting with A and going through libraries starting with M.  The bookplates are tipped or pasted into the album and I still need to safely remove them. Most of the bookplates are unused and were probably acquired by exchange with libraries or other collectors. The image of the page from the album for the Bangor (ME) Public Library shown above is indicative of that approach. A few of the bookplates in the album were removed from books. A bookplate from the library of the Bureau of Statistics and Labor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, also shown above, is an example of those bookplates. The Massachusetts  bookplate was added to the library on April 2, 1906.  I have no clue who compiled this collection of bookplates, but it is a fair assumption that it was a librarian. I previously obtained a collection of library bookplates that was assembled by Essae Martha Culver who was executive secretary of the Louisiana Library Commission and later Louisiana State Librarian.  Some examples from the Culver collection are located HERE. It is always nice to make a connection with a previous or current collector of librariana.

Library Card Predecessors

1733 receipt for subscription fee. Image used by permission of The Library Company of Philadelphia

One of my blog readers recently asked me if I knew why library cards were created and if I had any information about the first library card/s. Here is my stab at answering those questions. Basically. a library card (also ticket, certificate of membership) is proof of the right to access a library. Although not always, it is most commonly the authorization to borrow or remove books (and other items) from the library. It is also usually tied to information about the holder of the library card that is kept on file at the library to facilitate the retrieval of materials taken if not returned on time.  Libraries requiring payment for access were most likely the first libraries to require a document of some kind to gain access to the library (and to remove materials).  Those libraries, broadly described as membership libraries, first developed in the 18th century. The first of these libraries in the United States was the Library Company of Philadelphia which was founded by Benjamin Franklin and friends in 1731. There were earlier examples of membership libraries in England. It is my contention that the first library cards were probably receipts for payment of membership dues to these libraries. The receipt for payment of a subscription fee for "use and service" of the Library Company of Philadelphia dated January 20, 1733 (shown above) is one of the earliest examples of those receipts. Library cards or tickets developed because they were more practical. The larger the library the more critical was the need for library users to have a document identifying themselves as an authorized user of the library. This was especially the case for free public libraries which developed in the later half of the 19th century in the United States. Klas August Linderfelt, Librarian of the Milwaukee Public Library, wrote in 1882: "In the great majority of libraries, when a new member becomes entitled to the privilege of using its contents, whether through some other person's guaranty, a money deposit, or an annual fee, a card is given him as a certificate that he has complied with all the requirements of the management and which must be produced in all his transactions with the library ...". Further: "In some libraries this card serves no other purpose than the one indicated, or possibly as a reminder to the borrower of the time when his book must be returned, while in other libraries it forms an integral part of its charging system. This latter is a risky arrangement, as my experience, at least, is that an ordinary borrower has even less regard, if possible, for the card than for the book itself, and considers its loss of no importance whatever." The American Library Association website has a nice page about library cards. The Library History Buff website has a page showing examples of vintage library cards. I would be happy to hear from others with more information about the early use of library cards and/or receipts for membership payments.

1841 version of a Library Company of Philadelphia receipt from my collection.

Vintage Library Cards

One of the categories of librariana that I collect is library cards. Below are some recent additions to my collection. More vintage library cards can be found HERE. Early library cards were sometimes called "tickets". 

Baltimore Mercantile Library Association, 1864

Hastings Library Association (Hastings, MN), 1874

Good Fellows Library Association, San Francisco, 1876

Seattle Public Library, 1911

Washington, D.C. Public Library, 1919

Little Rock Public Library, 1946

Library Brand Canned Foods - Champaign, IL

Librariana comes in multiple varieties and formats. One of the more unusual examples of librariana is the label from a can of sweet corn which is shown above. Library Brand Canned Foods was a label for the Eisner Grocery Co. of Champaign, Illinois. Eisner Food Stores was a chain of stores headquartered in Champaign, but located throughout central Illinois. The chain was acquired by the Jewel Companies in 1957. The building shown on the label is the library building of the University of Illinois completed in 1897 now known as Altgeld Hall. It now houses the Mathematics Library of the University of Illinois. 

Library History Buff Holiday Letter 2014

Exhibit at Hales Corners Public Library, 1 of 10 month long exhibits in 2014

Seasons Greetings from the Library History Buff!

This holiday letter focuses on my library history promotional activities in 2014.

One of the more interesting activities for me this year was facilitating the transfer of the Daniel W. Lester Library Postcard Collection to the American Library Association Archives at the Universisty of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.

A number of my activities revolved aroung the Wisconsin Library Heritage Center (WLHC), a program of the Wisconsin Library Association Foundation. I am completing my sixth and final year as Chair of the Steering Committee for the WLHC. I am particularly proud of my involvement with the selection of inductees into the Wisconsin Library Hall of Fame which is a project of the WLHC. This year five additional individuals were inducted.

Another project of the WLHC is the sponsorship of an exhibit of Wisconsin library memorabilia. This year my wife and I set up the exhibit at ten different libraries around the state for a one month period at each. To do this we traveled almost 3,000 miles.

The WLHC sponsored a booth in the exhibits area at the WLA Annual Conference in Wisconsin Dells, and I set up and staffed the booth.

I entered exhibits related to postal librariana at stampshows in Denver, St. Louis, and Milwaukee this year. My one frame exhibit on the American Library Association in World War I won gold medals at all three. My ten frame exhibit on libraries and the mail in 20th century American won vermeil medals (the level between gold and silver) at all three stampshows.

Of course, I continued to blog on The Library History Buff Blog by posting more than 50 articles. I also continued to maintain the Library History Buff website.

All in all a good year for promoting library history.

Happy holidays to all!

Season's Greetings from Libraries and Librarians

I've already started receiving this year's cards extending season's greetings from friends and family. I've recently greatly expanded my collection of these cards sent by libraries and librarians to other libraries and librarians in years past. The expansion occurred as a result of a donation from fellow librariana collector Norman D. Stevens. Thanks Norman. Sometimes the cards are sent by a library institution, sometimes by a library's staff collectively, and sometimes by the library director or other library administrator. Some library vendors also routinely send out cards of the season. Below are a few from my collection. 

Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine on a Winter's Eve
Harvard Medical School
Library Staff, 1964
Painting by William Commerford 

Palmer Library, Connecticut College
Director and staff

Bessemer (AL) Public Library
Holiday card and report for years (1945-1946 & 1946-1947)

Library of Congress, Winston Tabb, Assoc. Librarian, 1999
Detail from painting of home of Longfellow, 1904
Entire painting is shown on interior of card

Sent by Director of the National Central Library, Taipei
Republic of China

       And season's greetings from the Library History Buff to all my followers.

Autographs of Famous Librarians

One of the categories of librariana that Norman D. Stevens discusses in his book A Guide to Collecting Librariana (Scarecrow Press, 1986) is autographs of librarians. He highlights the James I. Wyer (1869-1955) Autograph Collection which is housed in the American Library Association Archives. Wyer served as President of ALA in 1910-1911. His autograph collection includes letters from 46 ALA presidents as well as correspondence from other librarians. Stevens notes that autograph collecting was once a popular hobby, but has gone out of favor. He provides tips on autograph collecting. Although, I don't specifically seek autographs of librarians, famous or not, I have managed to accumulate a nice selection. Some of those are shown below.

Melvil Dewey (1851-1931), ALA Leader & President Lake Placid Club

Herbert Putnam (1861-1955), 8th Librarian of Congress

Susan Grey Akers (1889-1984), Library School Dean

Ainsworth Spofford (1835-1908), 6th Librarian of Congress

Justin Winsor (1831-1897), ALA's First President

Norman D. Stevens, Molesworth Institute Director Emeritus

                                       

George M. Eberhart, American Libraries Direct Editor

Betty Stone & Rogert Wedgeworth, Former ALA President & ALA Executive Director

Exhibits for National Library Week

Library of Congress exhibit at Hartford, WI library

Wisconsin library memorabilia exhibit at Suring, WI library

One of the more enjoyable activities in my efforts to promote library history is displaying portions of my collection of librariana at libraries around Wisconsin. I do this under the auspices of the Wisconsin Library Heritage Center, a program of the Wisconsin Library Association Foundation. This year the exhibits are being displayed at fourteen different public libraries around the state. To help celebrate National Library Week which runs from April 13 to April 19 exhibits will be on display for the month of April at two very different public libraries - the Jack Russell Memorial Library in Hartford, WI and the Suring Area Public Library in Suring, WI. The Hartford library is located in the southeastern part of the state and serves more than 30,000 people and and occupies a large new facility. The Suring library is located in northeastern Wisconsin and serves about 3,800 people and is housed in a joint use facility with several other village departments. The exhibit at the Hartford library features memorabilia and souvenirs for the Library of Congress.  The exhibit occupies a small display case prominently located in the front of the circulation desk. The exhibit at the Suring library features memorabilia for Wisconsin libraries. The Suring library has four nice display cases located in the lobby of the joint use facility and the cases were large enough to display a significant portion of my Wisconsin library memorabilia collection.  My wife Kathy helps me with the exhibits and we had a wonderful early Spring drive up North to Suring which still had lots of snow and lakes frozen enough to support cars and trucks for ice fishers. Our exhibits are available to libraries on a first come first serve basis regardless of size and we have had exhibits at the metropolitan Milwaukee Public Library and at libraries in communities even smaller than Suring. Every library has a different display case configuration which represents an interesting challenge each time we install the exhibits. The exhibits are always appreciated by the libraries and their users which makes it all worth while. 

Library War Service Library in Paris in WWI

Before the American Library in Paris was founded in 1920 it served as the central library for the American Library Association's Library War Service for France during World War I. I recently added an advertising card (see above) promoting the opening of ALA's library in Paris to my collection of librariana. The card has a map on the back showing the location of the library. The ALA library opened in July, 1918 and was located in the former residence of the Papal Nuncio to the French Republic at No. 10 rue de l'Elysee.  Burton Stevenson head of the Library War Service in Europe later said, "I dare say no public library was ever before installed amid such glittering surroundings." I was really pleased to get the card because it will go well in a philatelic exhibit I'm putting together for the stamp show in Denver, CO which takes place in May. The exhibit is titled appropriately "The American Library Association and World War I" and consists of sixteen 8 1/2 by 11 inch pages on which a variety of philatelic and other paper artifacts are mounted. I've written blog posts about many of the items in the exhibit which can be found HERE. Another post about the American Library in Paris can be found HERE. Arthur P. Young's Books for Sammies, The American Library Association and World War I (Beta Phi Mu, 1981) was a source for some of the information in this post. 

The 1894 ALA Conference in Lake Placid

Following its extremely successful annual conference in 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair the American Library Association met in 1894 at Lake Placid, New York. Melvil Dewey had pushed to hold the conference in this resort community located in the lake country of the Adirondack mountains.  He had an ulterior motive for doing so. Dewey and his wife Annie had purchased land in the area with the intent of creating a private retreat for librarians and other professionals.  The ALA conference was a perfect opportunity for showcasing the beauty of the area. The Library Journal for October, 1894 reported that "The meeting of the A.L.A. at Lake Placid will be remembered as one of the best ever held." There were 205 registered attendees with a little more than half being women. Attendees were from 18 states and Canada. The Library Journal report indicated that sessions were divided between the Grand View and Mirror Lake hotels and that the two hotels "vied with each other in making their guests comfortable and more". Melvil and Annie Dewey did succeed in creating their Lake Placid resort for professionals which I wrote about here and here. The ribbon to the left is part of my collection of ALA librariana.

Cincinnati Library Ticket (Card) 1868

I recently added another library ticket (shown here) to my collection of vintage library cards. It is for the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati and it was issued to D. J. Fallis in January, 1868. I've written a previous post about the Cincinnati Mercantile Library which continues to exist today. There is a very interesting story about its facility which is provided rent free in a multi-story building in downtown Cincinnati. Library cards were called library tickets in some early libraries.

ALA WWI Bookmark to Bookplate Promotion

The American Library Association went to great lengths to promote its Library War Service during World War I. A primary goal of these promotions was to solicit gifts of books and magazines that could be distributed to servicement through ALA's camp libraries, hospital libraries, and deposit collections. ALA used postcards, posters, and other media for this purpose. I recently acquired a bookmark (shown here) that was evidently placed in books in bookstores. The bookmark is perforated in the middle so the top half could be used as a bookplate. The buyer of the book was encouraged to donate the book after reading it for use by men in uniform by taking the book to any public library or bookstore. The back of the bookmark has information about the scope of ALA's Library War Service. To see my other posts about ALA's Library War Service click HERE.

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