Wednesday, May 6, 2009

National Postcard Week

This is National Postcard Week. Diana Dretske, collections coordinator for the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda, Illinois, provides some background information on National Postcard Week on her blog "Illuminating Lake County, Illinois History". I have previously posted about collecting library postcards on this blog. A big part of National Postcard Week is promoting the exchange of postcards. Librarians and library supporters have exchanged library postcards in the past and continue to do so today. The Library History Buff website has links to lists of past and current library postcard collectors and to the websites of library postcard collections. I have a modest collection of between 1,500 and 2,000 library postcards. Probably my most unusual library postcard is the one used by ALA in Siberia in WWI.
The French postcard above was mailed to Ithaca, New York through the Army Post Office near the end of World War II and has a personal message on the reverse. It was mailed "Free" and has been censored by an officer as was required during war time. One wonders what the two monks find so funny in the library book. Feel free to provide your own caption.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

According to Voltaire, God would never wear purple as it is a mixture of red, white, and blue.

Anonymous said...

I am an avid deltiologist (postcard collector) and an academic librarian. My collection of postcards numbers approximately 2-3,000. I have just recently begun to collect library postcards. The hitch for me is that I collect cards of modern library buildings (although I collect authentic cards, not reproductions). I know that Andrew Carnegie's generosity put the public library into the hands of the people, but the Carnegie libraries are the most oppressive of structures. I think that is part of the reason that we librarians are pigeon-holed as frumps! I rarely buy a Carnegie library postcard, unless I am interested in the library, itself.

Demaris Swint said...

Hi, I am a collector of National Postcard Week postcards. I also have a website dedicated to this topic. You can find it at www.npcw.multiply.com

I would love to have your NPCW postcard for my collection. If you no longer have any I would like a copy or scan of both sides for the website.

I am a former Children's Librarian but do not collect library postcards as such, unless they are part of the City of Chicopee, MA library system.

Thank you for any help you can give me. I will happily pay the postage or charge for the postcard. You can email me at: ezrestexas@aol.com for my mailing address.

Thank you
Demaris Swint