Sleepy Eye (MN) Public Library Trio

I took advantage of the opportunity to acquire a bookmark for the Dyckman Free Library in Sleepy Eye, MN recently primarily because I already had in my collection of librariana a souvenir china piece and a postcard for the library. I mostly collect library souvenir items for Wisconsin libraries, but a friend had picked up the small china basket which had an illustration of the Sleepy Eye library in an antique store and gave it to me as a gift. I added the postcard from a local postcard show. The bookmark illustration celebrates the 1972 centennial of the City of Sleepy Eye, MN which is named for Chief Sleepy Eye, a Dakota Sioux chief.  The Dyckman Free Library is named for F. H. Dyckman, a local banker, who donated the library building to the city in 1900. The greatly expanded Dyckman Free Library incorporates the original building into its design.

1956, A Big Year for Public Libraries

As 2011 comes to a close, I wanted to mention a couple of events that occurred in 1956 that had a major impact on the development of public library service in the United States. The first was the publication of Public Library Service: A Guide to Evaluation With Minimum Standards (American Library Association, 1956). This was a landmark publication which basically made the case for larger units of public library service. As stated in the document: "Libraries working together, sharing their services and materials, can meet the full needs of their users. This co-operative approach on the part of libraries is the most important single recommendation of this document. Without joint action, most American libraries probably will never be ale to come up to the standard necessary to meet the needs of their constituencies." In the same year that this blueprint for better public library service was published, the first major federal aid program for public library service, the Library Services Act, was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law. The primary focus of the Library Services Act was to extend and improve library service to rural populations. Statewide plans for accomplishing this were required to receive the federal aid. A number of states including Wisconsin developed state plans that called for the creation of federated public library systems. In Wisconsin, demonstrations of county and regional library service using federal LSA funding led to the eventual passage of of the 1971 (40 years ago) Library Systems Law that has resulted in every citizen of Wisconsin having access to public library service. I have worked in two other states, Tennessee and South Carolina, where statewide public library service was also achieved primarily with the use of LSA and later LSCA funding. Today, the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) under the direction of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) continues the legacy of LSA started 55 years ago.

Louis Round Wilson, Library Educator

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."

Library of Congress Ornament

For those who put up and decorate Christmas trees, there are tens of thousands of ornaments to choose from. Libraries on occasion arrange for an ornament to commemorate a special occasion. The one highlighted in this post is from the Library of Congress and it incorporates some of the copper from the original 1897 roof of what is now the Thomas Jefferson Building. A nice keepsake even if you don't put it on a tree. Happy holidays!

William Frederick Poole, Great American Librarian

There are few American librarians with a more stellar resume than William Frederick Poole (1821-1894), and today is the 190th anniversary of his birth. His professional library career spanned 47 years. He was the head librarian for the Boston Mercantile Library, the Boston Athenaeum, the Cincinnati Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, and the Newberry Library in Chicago. He was recognized for his innovative index to periodicals at the 1853 conference of American librarians, and in 1876 at the library conference in Philadelphia he proposed a plan for making a new edition of that important index even more comprehensive. An active member of ALA, Poole served for ten years as the first Vice-President of ALA and then two terms as President. There is an excellent entry about Poole by William Landram Williamson in the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Libraries Unlimited, 1978). Williamson had this to say about Poole: "An imaginative thinker and inspiring leader, William Frederick Poole was one of the great founding librarians of the United States. To his contemporary librarians, one of his outstanding achievements was his contribution in making librarianship a recognized and respected profession. He could make this contribution because he was a man of strength, scholarship, warmth, and dedication." One of the more interesting artifacts in my collection related to Poole is an 1854 membership payment receipt for the Mercantile Library Association of Boston signed by Poole (shown above). I wrote a previous post about another Poole artifact in my collection.

Holiday Letter From A Library History Buff

Dan Lester (left) and Larry Nix, The Library History Buff

Holiday letters often receive a bad rap. My wife and I have sent one out for many years and are happy to receive them from others. They sure beat a holiday card with a written or printed signature and nothing else. So here's a holiday letter with some of my library history highlights.

Season's greetings from Middleton, Wisconsin


One of the highlights of my year was a visit with Dan Lester one of the world's great librariana collectors. My wife and I stopped for a visit with Dan on a trip to the Southwest in the Spring. Dan has donated most of his extensive librariana collection for the benefit of two library organizations, but still has one of the largest library postcard collections ever assembled.


A modified version of the philatelic exhibit on the Library of Congress which I showed for the first time last year received a number of awards this year: 4 gold medals, 1 vermeil medal, the American Philatelic Society's Research Award, and the Display Champion Award at the St. Louis Stamp Show. My Presidential Libraries & Museums exhibit received a silver medal and my Library Uses of Melvil Dewey's Postal Card received a silver medal. I made a presentation on my exhibit to the Washington (D.C.) Stamp Collectors Club in conjunction with NAPEX, the D.C. area stamp show in June.


The Wisconsin State Law Library celebrated its 175th anniversary. I was pleased to help out with a presentation on early Wisconsin library leaders and a small exhibit of Wisconsin library memorabilia. My presentation (and that of the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court) was videotaped by the Wisconsin version of C-Span.


Congratulations to the Wisconsin Library Association on its 120th anniversary. I'm Chair of the Steering Committee for the Wisconsin Library Heritage Center. The Center sponsors the Wisconsin Library Hall of Fame and we inducted our fourth group of library leaders into the Hall of Fame in November at the WLA's annual conference in Milwaukee.


The Wisconsin Library Memorabilia Exhibit which I curate for the Wisconsin Library Heritage Center was on display at the Hales Corners Public Library to help them celebrate their 35th anniversary and at the T. B. Scott Free Library in Merrill, WI to help them celebrate the 100th anniversary of their Carnegie building.


I put together an online exhibit in honor of the 135th anniversary of the American Library Association.


Melvil Dewey was among many former library leaders with significant anniversaries this year. I have an online exhibit of some of my Dewey librariana to commemorate this occasion.


I served as one of the judges for the 2011 Salem Press Library Blog Awards. I was selected for this task because of the 2nd place finish of The Library History Buff Blog in the Quirky Library Blogs category in the 2010 selections.


The Library History Buff Blog celebrated two milestones this year - its third anniversary and the 400th post to the blog.


I continue to maintain the Library History Buff website although it receives less of my attention new than in the past due to my focus on the blog.


This year was the 60th anniversary of the dedication of the Dag Hammarskjold Library of the United Nations in New York.


Congratulations to the Society of American Archivists on their 75th anniversary. I really like their trading cards project.

The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped celebrated its 80th anniversary this year.


This is the centennial year of the New York Public Library's iconic building at 5th Ave. & 42nd St.. I put together an online exhibit of stamps depicting the building for this occasion.


The Carnegie Corporation of New York celebrated its centennial this year.


I'm looking forward to 2012 and the library history celebration opportunities it holds.

Happy holidays to all!

The Library History Buff

Happy 125th Birthday Pierce Butler

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.

Happy 125th Birthday Althea Warren

Today is the 125th anniversary of the birth of Althea Hester Warren (1886-1958), a former president of the American Library Association (1943-1944) and Los Angeles City Librarian (1933-1947). I learn about significant birth anniversaries of former library leaders from the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Libraries Unlimited, 1978) and its two supplements. The excellent entry in the DALB for Warren was written by Martha Boaz. Warren also served as Head Librarian for the San Diego Public Library (1916-1926). The book Turning the Pages: San Diego Public Library History (1882-1982) by Clara E. Breed (Friends of the San Diego Public Library, 1983) has a nice chapter about Warren and her time at San Diego. For an online biography of Warren by Leeanne Morrow check HERE. Althea Warren's career spanned two world wars and she played a significant role in each. Under Warren's leadership at the San Diego Public Library during World War I, the library provided a wide range of services to the members of the armed forces. These included supporting branch libraries at nearby military bases. During World War II Warren took a leave as Los Angeles City Librarian to head up the national Victory Book Campaign supported by the American Library Association. That effort resulted in the collection of millions of books for men and women in the armed services.  While president of ALA, Boaz indicates that Warren worked hard to get federal aid for libraries and for changes in the ALA organization. One of her major concerns was the discrimination against African Americans in hotels of some cities that hosted ALA meetings. Breed includes several quotes from Warren that reflect her administrative philosophy. I liked this one: "The welcoming attitude of a library staff is fortunately contagious, and once a librarian has rooted out all assistants with drooping mouths and snappy voices, she will find that new employees quickly absorb an equable atmosphere. Never hesitate to discharge the most competent of workers if she is incurably sulky, for one will corrupt a multitude, and only she rightly belongs in our profession who is not only willing, but glad to 'smile off her face and run off her feet for the minimum wage.'"  The postcard above showing the Central Library of the Los Angeles Public Library was mailed in 1942 while Warren was City Librarian.

Christmas in Vladivostok 1918 Revisited

This post is a slightly modified version of a post that I made on Dec. 14, 2008. It's a nice Christmas story about one of our librarian predecessors who went beyond the call of duty.

The caption on the rare postcard above sends Christmas [1918] Greetings from the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia and Library War Service of the American Library Association. In December of 1918, Harry Clemons found himself in Vladivostok, Siberia as the sole representative of the American Library Association Library War Service. His role was to provide library service to the members of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in Siberia. As described in one report of the circumstances on his arrival: "That there were unusual opportunities for library service was apparent. The troops were comfortably housed in winter quarters; the thrill of the war was over and the men wanted to get home." Clemons wrote to ALA War Service Headquarters on December 22,1918, shortly after his arrival: "I hope to be able to send sets [of books] to all the detachments, large and small, of the Expedition during Christmas week. Thus we introduce the short story into the long Siberian night. In my position of 'middleman' I am sure I can send to you and the others who are making the war work possible the grateful Christmas greetings of the Expeditionary Force in Siberia." A report from Clemons about his service in Siberia appeared in the Bulletin of the American Library Association for 1919.  A compilation of Clemons' letters back to the ALA headquarters were distributed to participants of the 1919 ALA Conference in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Greetings of Yule and New Year - Boston Public Library

This bookmark with a seasonal tribute to the Boston Public Library was copyrighted in 1913 by Solatia M. Taylor. I don't know if it was distributed by the Boston Public Library or was sold or given away by Taylor. A neat item for this time of the year, and a welcome addition to both my collection of library bookmarks and my collection of Boston Public Library librariana.