Full issue (pdf file, 973 kb) - School of Information - The University of ...
Full issue (pdf file, 973 kb) - School of Information - The University of ...
Full issue (pdf file, 973 kb) - School of Information - The University of ...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Libraries<br />
&<br />
Culture<br />
a journal <strong>of</strong> library history<br />
Volume 35 / Number 1 / Winter 2000<br />
Editor: Donald G. Davis Jr.<br />
Assistant Editor: Bette W. Oliver<br />
Associate Editors: Robert L. Dawson, Alison K. Frazier,<br />
David B. Gracy II, Joan A. Holladay, David Hunter, Robert S.<br />
Martin, Francis L. Miksa, Irene Owens, Michael B. Winship<br />
Advisory Board: John Y. Cole, Library <strong>of</strong> Congress; Phyllis Dain,<br />
Columbia <strong>University</strong>; D. W. Krummel, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at<br />
Urbana-Champaign; Mary Niles Maack, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Los<br />
Angeles; Cheryl Knott Malone, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-<br />
Champaign, representing the Library History Round Table,<br />
American Library Association; Peter F. McNally, McGill<br />
<strong>University</strong>; Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin-Madison;<br />
Ian R. Willison, British Library<br />
Cover Story Editor: Judith A. Overmier<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press
Libraries & Culture is an interdisciplinary journal that explores the significance <strong>of</strong> collections<br />
<strong>of</strong> recorded knowledge—their creation, organization, preservation, and utilization—in<br />
the context <strong>of</strong> cultural and social history, unlimited as to time or place. It is<br />
edited at the Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science, <strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Texas at Austin, and is published quarterly by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press. All views or<br />
conclusions are those <strong>of</strong> the authors and not necessarily those <strong>of</strong> the editorial staff, the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, <strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin, or <strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas<br />
System. From its establishment in 1966 as the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History until 1976, the<br />
Journal was edited and published by the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Science, Florida State <strong>University</strong>,<br />
Tallahassee. It assumed its present title in 1988.<br />
<strong>The</strong> editor invites scholarly contributions for consideration by the editorial board and referees.<br />
Three copies <strong>of</strong> each manuscript and an abstract <strong>of</strong> no more than 100 words should<br />
be sent, accompanied by a self-addressed, manuscript-sized envelope, and unaffixed return<br />
postage for domestic contributors. Abstracts should employ standard indexing terminology.<br />
Manuscripts and notation must be double-spaced with notes gathered at the<br />
end, conforming to the Chicago Manual <strong>of</strong> Style, 14th edition.<br />
Manuscripts and editorial correspondence: <strong>The</strong> Editor, Libraries & Culture, Graduate<br />
<strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science, <strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin, Austin, TX<br />
78712-1276.<br />
Subscriptions and business correspondence: Libraries & Culture, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas<br />
Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819.<br />
Subscription rates: Individuals, $30/year; Institutions, $59/year. Canada and Mexico<br />
subscriptions add $10 additional for each order. For other foreign subscriptions add $20<br />
additional to each order. Single <strong>issue</strong>s: Individuals, $14; Institutions, $22. All prices are<br />
subject to change on September 1 <strong>of</strong> each year. See the last page <strong>of</strong> this journal for an<br />
order form.<br />
Claims Policy: Domestic and non-US claims for missing <strong>issue</strong>s must be received within<br />
90 days <strong>of</strong> the publication date. Issues returned ‘‘undeliverable’’ are available for reshipment<br />
at cost <strong>of</strong> new postage.<br />
Libraries & Culture is a member <strong>of</strong> the Conference <strong>of</strong> Historical Journals.<br />
L&C/JLH is indexed in America: History and Life; Book Review Index; Bulletin des Bibliothèques<br />
de France; Historical Abstracts; IBR (International Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Book Reviews); IBZ<br />
(International Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Periodical Literature); Journal <strong>of</strong> American History (Organization<br />
<strong>of</strong> American Historians); Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science Abstracts; Library Literature;<br />
MLA International Bibliography; Social Sciences Citation Index. Micr<strong>of</strong>orm copies <strong>of</strong> L&C/<br />
JLH can be purchased from <strong>University</strong> Micr<strong>of</strong>ilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor,<br />
MI 48106, and Micr<strong>of</strong>orms International, Fairview Park, Elmsford, NY 10523.<br />
Authorization to photocopy items for the internal or personal use <strong>of</strong> specific clients is<br />
granted by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, provided that the appropriate fee is paid directly<br />
to the Copyright Clearance Center. Prior to photocopying items for educational<br />
classroom use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive,<br />
Danvers, MA 01923, (508) 750-8400, http://www.directory.net/copyright.<br />
Libraries & Culture (ISSN 0894–8631) is published quarterly in February, May, August,<br />
and November by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, 2100 Comal, Austin, TX 78722-2550.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rates are $59/year for institutions and $30/year for individuals. Periodicals Postage<br />
Paid at Austin, Texas, and at additional mailing <strong>of</strong>fices. POSTMASTER: Send address<br />
changes to Libraries & Culture, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX<br />
78713-7819.<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, 2100 Comal, Austin, TX, 78722-2550.<br />
Visit our web site at: http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/journals.html.<br />
<strong>The</strong> paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements <strong>of</strong> American<br />
National Standard for <strong>Information</strong> Sciences—Permanence <strong>of</strong> Paper for Printed Library<br />
Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.<br />
This journal is printed on recycled paper.
LIBRARY HISTORY RESEARCH<br />
IN AMERICA<br />
Essays Commemorating<br />
the Fiftieth Anniversary <strong>of</strong><br />
the Library History Round Table<br />
American Library Association<br />
Edited by<br />
Andrew B. Wertheimer<br />
and Donald G. Davis, Jr.<br />
Authorized and Supported by<br />
the Library History Round Table<br />
Published by<br />
Libraries & Culture<br />
Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
2000
Contents<br />
Library History Research in America<br />
1 Introduction<br />
Andrew B. Wertheimer and Donald G. Davis, Jr.<br />
Critical Approach to Library History<br />
4 American Library History Literature, 1947–1997:<br />
<strong>The</strong>oretical Perspectives?<br />
Wayne A. Wiegand<br />
Pioneers <strong>of</strong> the Library History Round Table<br />
35 Louis Shores and Library History<br />
Lee Shiflett<br />
41 <strong>The</strong> Library History Round Table’s First Twenty-five Years:<br />
Reminiscences and Remarks on Recent Research<br />
John David Marshall<br />
New Directions for Library History<br />
51 Library Feminism and Library Women’s History: Activism and<br />
Scholarship, Equity and Culture<br />
Suzanne Hildenbrand<br />
66 International Dimensions <strong>of</strong> Library History: Leadership and<br />
Scholarship, 1978–1998<br />
Mary Niles Maack<br />
77 Toward a Multicultural American Public Library History<br />
Cheryl Knott Malone<br />
88 “<strong>The</strong>y Sure Got to Prove It on Me”: Millennial Thoughts on Gay<br />
Archives, Gay Biography, and Gay Library History<br />
James V. Carmichael, Jr.<br />
103 <strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> Youth Services Librarianship: A Review <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Research Literature<br />
Christine A. Jenkins
Library History and Cognate Fields<br />
141 <strong>The</strong> Failure or Future <strong>of</strong> American Archival History: A Somewhat<br />
Unorthodox View<br />
Richard J. Cox<br />
155 Historical Bibliography and Library History<br />
D. W. Krummel<br />
<strong>The</strong> LHRT and the State <strong>of</strong> Library History Research<br />
161 <strong>The</strong> Library Historian’s Field <strong>of</strong> Dreams: A Pro<strong>file</strong> <strong>of</strong> the First<br />
Nine Seminars<br />
Edward A. Goedeken<br />
173 Advancing the Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History: <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History and Libraries & Culture<br />
Jon Arvid Aho and Donald G. Davis, Jr.<br />
192 Clio’s Workshop: Resources for Historical Studies in American<br />
Librarianship<br />
John Mark Tucker<br />
215 Fifty Years <strong>of</strong> Promoting Library History: A Chronology <strong>of</strong> the<br />
ALA (American) Library History Round Table, 1947–1997<br />
Andrew B. Wertheimer and John David Marshall<br />
240 <strong>The</strong> Historical Sensibility<br />
Phyllis Dain<br />
244 <strong>The</strong> Cover—<strong>The</strong> Cavagna Collection: A Case Study in Special<br />
Collections<br />
Elizabeth R. Cardman<br />
251 Contributors
Introduction<br />
Andrew B. Wertheimer and Donald G. Davis, Jr.<br />
Anniversaries have been the occasion <strong>of</strong> some <strong>of</strong> the finest and also the<br />
poorest historical writings. Unfortunately, library history is no exception.<br />
We hope that you will find these writings on the state <strong>of</strong> historical<br />
research on librarianship to fall closer to the former category, bearing in<br />
mind that the variety <strong>of</strong> topics and approaches has resulted in a diversity<br />
<strong>of</strong> styles. <strong>The</strong> anniversary this <strong>issue</strong> belatedly celebrates is the fiftieth<br />
anniversary <strong>of</strong> the American Library Association’s Library History Round<br />
Table (LHRT), the oldest organization dedicated to the promotion <strong>of</strong> historical<br />
research in librarianship.<br />
<strong>The</strong> anniversary itself—commemorated at the American Library<br />
Association conference in Washington, D.C., at the Center for the Book<br />
at the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress on June 27, 1998—suggested many <strong>of</strong> the<br />
themes for this collection, such as the two studies <strong>of</strong> the LHRT, while<br />
others are a reflection <strong>of</strong> our interest in reconnecting library history with<br />
the larger pr<strong>of</strong>ession and other historians <strong>of</strong> print culture. In cognate<br />
fields we feature essays by Richard J. Cox from the perspective <strong>of</strong><br />
an archival historian and by scholar <strong>of</strong> the book and library history<br />
D. W. Krummel. We tried to include some additional scholarly bridge<br />
with the emerging group <strong>of</strong> historians <strong>of</strong> information science, but publication<br />
schedules and other details meant that we could not include the<br />
commissioned essay on this topic.<br />
Our volume is anchored by an excellent examination by Wayne A.<br />
Wiegand, who has done so much to raise the standards <strong>of</strong> historical<br />
research in library history. This new essay is a reflection <strong>of</strong> some <strong>of</strong> his<br />
recent concerns and opinions.<br />
Much <strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> the LHRT and library history research<br />
remains to be written; however, we are pleased to include essays by Lee<br />
Shiflett, who draws upon his biographical research on LHRT founder<br />
Louis Shores, and John David Marshall, who writes as an early pioneer<br />
<strong>of</strong> the round table. <strong>The</strong>se essays point out that two very important byproducts<br />
<strong>of</strong> the LHRT are the Library History Seminars and this journal,<br />
Libraries & Culture. <strong>The</strong>se are the foci <strong>of</strong> essays by Edward A.<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
2 L&C/Introduction<br />
Goedeken and by Jon Arvid Aho and Donald G. Davis, Jr. We also feature<br />
an essay by John Mark Tucker on reference tools in library history<br />
research, which should be extremely useful for students and publishers,<br />
among others.<br />
We tried to find some <strong>of</strong> the best-established and forthcoming library<br />
historians and asked them to reflect on different questions related to<br />
their own research area. As a result, some <strong>of</strong> the essay titles may sound<br />
like literature reviews, but most actually are groundbreaking examinations<br />
<strong>of</strong> key questions that have received comparatively little scholarly<br />
attention to date. Pr<strong>of</strong>essors Suzanne Hildenbrand, Mary Niles Maack,<br />
Cheryl Knott Malone, James V. Carmichael, Jr., and Christine Jenkins<br />
each raise some important questions on gender, international aspects,<br />
ethnicity, sexuality, and children that will be <strong>of</strong> interest to other scholars<br />
<strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>essions.<br />
We owe a deep gratitude to the LHRT 50th Anniversary Committee:<br />
Donald G. Davis, Jr. (chair), Michele V. Cloonan, David B. Hovde, Joy A.<br />
Kingsolver, John Mark Tucker, and Andrew B. Wertheimer. <strong>The</strong> committee,<br />
along with John Y. Cole <strong>of</strong> the Center for the Book, Library <strong>of</strong><br />
Congress, oversaw an excellent program on the fiftieth anniversary <strong>of</strong><br />
the round table that provided initial drafts <strong>of</strong> some <strong>of</strong> the essays collected<br />
here. <strong>The</strong>se presentations were reactions to papers read at the<br />
first meeting <strong>of</strong> the Library History Round Table by Stanley Pargellis and<br />
Louis Shores, published as “Long Life to the Library History Round<br />
Table” (Wilson Library Bulletin 22 [April 1948]: 601–3, 607) and “<strong>The</strong><br />
Importance <strong>of</strong> Library History” (in John David Marshall, ed., American<br />
Library History Reader [Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961], 3–7).<br />
Phyllis Dain’s current comments, selected from the commemoration’s<br />
papers, provide a fitting meditation on historiography.<br />
Other features in this collection enhance the appeal <strong>of</strong> this unique<br />
work. <strong>The</strong> extensive chronology <strong>of</strong> LHRT, from 1947 to 1997, compiled by<br />
Andrew B. Wertheimer and John David Marshall, consists <strong>of</strong> as complete<br />
a record as possible <strong>of</strong> programs, awards, and <strong>of</strong>ficers <strong>of</strong> the round table.<br />
Liz Cardman’s essay on the bookplate, which goes well beyond the usual<br />
L&C cover essay, also adds to this work.<br />
We would also like to thank the chairs <strong>of</strong> the LHRT who secured financial<br />
and other support while this volume took shape: Louise S. Robbins,<br />
David B. Hovde, and Sybil E. Moses. Because <strong>of</strong> their support, this volume<br />
also is being published as a monograph under the imprint <strong>of</strong> the<br />
LHRT and the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
and <strong>Information</strong> Science. An additional thanks goes to David Hovde’s<br />
family, whose contribution made an index to the hard-cover volume a<br />
reality. <strong>The</strong> index itself is the fine work <strong>of</strong> Hermina G. B. Anghelescu
and is <strong>of</strong> great benefit, as it is our hope that this work will be used as a<br />
reference tool.<br />
Our final thank you goes out to the contributors <strong>of</strong> the individual<br />
essays. <strong>The</strong>y have been a pleasure to work with, and, more importantly,<br />
without them we would not have the rich scholarly <strong>of</strong>ferings that now<br />
await you.<br />
3
American Library History Literature,<br />
1947–1997: <strong>The</strong>oretical Perspectives?<br />
Wayne A. Wiegand<br />
An examination <strong>of</strong> fifty years <strong>of</strong> published research literature in<br />
American library history that was facilitated by the Library History Round<br />
Table reveals a significant and welcome increase in the diversity <strong>of</strong> coverage<br />
but a relative dearth <strong>of</strong> theoretical perspective. <strong>The</strong> author argues that<br />
after establishing a substantial base <strong>of</strong> quality literature, the time has now<br />
come for American library historians to harness ideas articulated by critical<br />
theorists in order to examine a social construction <strong>of</strong> reality and a<br />
process <strong>of</strong> cultural consumption. He also argues that American library historians<br />
need to join with social and cultural historians to help locate the<br />
library in a larger context <strong>of</strong> social and cultural forces.<br />
Hard to believe it’s been twenty-five years since I was introduced to a<br />
personalized world <strong>of</strong> American library history. <strong>The</strong> occasion was the<br />
1974 ALA conference in New York; I was a month away from getting my<br />
M.L.S. and Ph.D. in American history and had been invited to an informal<br />
gathering <strong>of</strong> American library historians in a hotel suite. Mike<br />
Harris set up the meeting. His article, “<strong>The</strong> Purpose <strong>of</strong> a Public<br />
Library, a Revisionist Interpretation,” had appeared in Library Journal<br />
the previous September and had set on edge the world <strong>of</strong> American<br />
library history, until then so used to celebrating itself. 1 His thesis was<br />
simple: American public libraries were agents <strong>of</strong> social control exercised<br />
by members <strong>of</strong> the upper classes, who sought to influence the behavior<br />
<strong>of</strong> the masses that frequented them. Mike was eager to engage a dialogue<br />
on revisionist ideas about American library history he had developed<br />
from theoretical perspectives imported from educational and<br />
social history, so he had gathered to the meeting some <strong>of</strong> American<br />
library history’s giants.<br />
In one chair was Jesse Shera, whose solidly researched Foundations <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Public Library (1949) had temporarily interrupted the celebration <strong>of</strong><br />
American library history. 2 “Judged by every standard and measured by<br />
every criterion,” Jesse had concluded in his book (I actually memorized<br />
the sentence before attending the meeting), “the public library is<br />
revealed as a social agency dependent upon the objectives <strong>of</strong> society. It<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
followed—it did not create—social change.” In another chair was Sidney<br />
Ditzion, whose Arsenals <strong>of</strong> a Democratic Culture (1947) represented a valiant<br />
attempt by a consensus historian to link library history to a new social<br />
history just then emerging. 3<br />
In a third chair was Laurel Grotzinger, whose biography <strong>of</strong> Katharine<br />
Sharp had sent out a clarion call that women’s contributions to American<br />
library history would no longer be ignored. 4 Also there was Dee Garrison,<br />
who had just finished a history dissertation that eventually turned into<br />
Apostles <strong>of</strong> Culture, which would marry the solid scholarship <strong>of</strong> Shera and<br />
Ditzion with the revisionism <strong>of</strong> Harris. 5 Sitting on a divan was Phyllis<br />
Dain, whose history <strong>of</strong> the New York Public Library had set a new standard<br />
for the history <strong>of</strong> public library institutions. 6 And there was Don<br />
Davis, already plotting a series <strong>of</strong> bibliographical projects to bring organization<br />
to a wandering literature. Pretty heady company for someone<br />
just starting a career in the craft. <strong>The</strong> animated conversation that took<br />
place in that room convinced me that American library history had a<br />
promising future. I was anxious to become part <strong>of</strong> it.<br />
<strong>The</strong> year before that meeting I had tried to introduce myself to<br />
American library history through its literature. I admit I wasn’t very<br />
impressed. Other than the bright spots mentioned above, most history<br />
(it seemed to me) sought to celebrate, not analyze, and most was based<br />
on analysis <strong>of</strong> secondary or published primary sources available in any<br />
good research library, not on unique unpublished primary sources in<br />
manuscript collections housed in archival depositories across the nation.<br />
Most also seemed narrowly focused, not historically contextualized to the<br />
culture in which its subject matter existed and <strong>of</strong> which it was only a<br />
part. And a lot <strong>of</strong> it was contained in dissertations, master’s theses, and<br />
seminar papers <strong>of</strong> marginal quality. Scarecrow had published many <strong>of</strong> the<br />
dissertations as monographs, but at the time the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
carried the lion’s share <strong>of</strong> the literature, with Library Quarterly running a<br />
distant second. Both were fed copy via a series <strong>of</strong> forums. Every summer<br />
the American Library History Round Table sponsored programs at ALA<br />
conferences. In addition, Library History Seminars that moved around<br />
the country were held quinquennially.<br />
Certainly this sizable secondary literature did a good job <strong>of</strong> unearthing<br />
most <strong>of</strong> the details <strong>of</strong> American library history, but it didn’t do much for<br />
perspective. My American history doctoral training had taught me to<br />
value extensive research into primary source materials (no matter where<br />
they were located) and then to relate the results <strong>of</strong> that research to a<br />
wider body <strong>of</strong> American history literature. <strong>The</strong> purpose <strong>of</strong> studying history,<br />
I believed, was to augment understanding <strong>of</strong> the present, and critical<br />
analysis was crucial to that enterprise. Because celebrating the past<br />
simply couldn’t do the whole job, I could understand why the library<br />
5
6 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ession did not take its own history very seriously, at least not until<br />
Mike’s 1<strong>973</strong> essay.<br />
In this special commemorative <strong>issue</strong> on the fifty-year history <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Library History Round Table, L&C editors have asked me to review from<br />
theoretical perspectives the American library history literature published<br />
in the last half century in about twenty pages. In terms <strong>of</strong> volume, that’s<br />
a difficult task that will allow me only to concentrate on the best or the<br />
most unique. In terms <strong>of</strong> theoretical perspectives, however, that’s relatively<br />
easy. Like librarians in general, American library historians have<br />
assumed a basic social good in the institutions, the pr<strong>of</strong>essional expertise,<br />
and the people they study and have tended to look at their arena <strong>of</strong><br />
scholarship from the inside out. To stretch a metaphor, they generally<br />
study the history <strong>of</strong> individual trees with little attention to the ecological<br />
patterns and changes in the much larger forest in which these trees are<br />
rooted, grow, and survive, prosper, or die. And because librarianship itself<br />
has not generated influential or significant theoretical perspectives (it is<br />
focused mostly on process, seeking to answer “how” rather than “why”<br />
questions), American library history has lacked theoretical diversity. I<br />
conclude that, with few exceptions (like Mike Harris’s essay and Dee<br />
Garrison’s book), this in large part explains why it has been <strong>of</strong> marginal<br />
value to the pr<strong>of</strong>ession and <strong>of</strong> limited value to historians working in other<br />
sectors <strong>of</strong> American history.<br />
In a way, it’s a bit awkward for me even to recount the history <strong>of</strong><br />
American library history literature published in the last half century,<br />
since for the past twenty-five years I’ve spent my pr<strong>of</strong>essional life<br />
attempting to contribute actively to its quantity and (I hope) its quality.<br />
In fact, a good share <strong>of</strong> this brief journey through American library history<br />
literature published between 1947 and 1997 feels like autobiography.<br />
And because I know and am friends with most <strong>of</strong> the people I cite here,<br />
I am probably more inclined to dull the critical edge that distance (in<br />
time and place) makes more likely. In addition, as a coeditor I stand with<br />
Ken Carpenter at the front end <strong>of</strong> what we hope will be a multivolume<br />
history <strong>of</strong> librarianship in the United States that will build on the literature<br />
<strong>of</strong> the past but at the same time locate the roles libraries, librarians,<br />
and librarianship have played in the nation’s social, cultural, intellectual,<br />
and institutional multicultural history. 7<br />
In general, in this essay I ignore master’s theses and doctoral dissertations<br />
(I hope the best <strong>of</strong> the latter will eventually be published as books)<br />
and also concentrate more on books than articles. To organize my discussion<br />
<strong>of</strong> the literature I adopt some categories familiar to readers <strong>of</strong><br />
American library history (e.g., bibliographies and reference literature,<br />
biography, education, associations), but because I perceive the structure<br />
<strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession somewhat differently than many <strong>of</strong> my colleagues, I also
create a few new categories (e.g., “institution,” which will cover libraries<br />
<strong>of</strong> all types; “expertise,” which will cover literature addressing public and<br />
technical services in libraries; general historical studies <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />
and its activities; and “print culture history,” which represents a new<br />
interdisciplinary area <strong>of</strong> scholarship that I think has tremendous potential<br />
to help contextualize the more accurate and comprehensive role that<br />
American libraries have played in a larger world <strong>of</strong> social, intellectual,<br />
and cultural history). And within “biography” I also address “collective<br />
biographies” <strong>of</strong> women’s and African-American library history literature,<br />
the vast majority <strong>of</strong> which found its way into print only after 1974. Mike<br />
Harris’s essay certainly did signal a shift in American library history literature.<br />
It not only gave historical understanding to the rebels fighting<br />
the ALA establishment at the time, but it also encouraged voices heret<strong>of</strong>ore<br />
residing outside a WASP heterosexual male–dominated literature to<br />
make their own history known to the pr<strong>of</strong>ession.<br />
Bibliographies and Reference Literature<br />
<strong>The</strong> starting point for anyone interested in secondary sources in<br />
American library history should be the biennial literature review essays<br />
included since 1967 in the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History and its successor,<br />
Libraries & Culture. Mike Harris wrote the first essay, Ed Goedeken the<br />
last one published. 8 In between Mike paired with Don Davis for one<br />
essay, then I took over for six essays from the late 1970s to early 1990s<br />
and was succeeded by Joanne Passet for one essay, who was then succeeded<br />
by Ed. Largely from these essays and earlier bibliographical work,<br />
Harris and Davis compiled American Library History: A Bibliography (1978),<br />
later superseded by Don Davis and Mark Tucker’s American Library<br />
History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (1989). 9 Anyone interested in<br />
the published literature should start with Davis and Tucker, then supplement<br />
it with subsequently published biennial essays. Because so much<br />
American library history literature exists in unpublished form (much <strong>of</strong><br />
which Davis and Tucker cite), scholars can amass additional factual<br />
material from the seminar papers, master’s theses, and dissertations<br />
listed first in two editions <strong>of</strong> Mike Harris’s Guide to Research in American<br />
Library History, later revised and greatly expanded in Art Young’s American<br />
Library History: A Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Dissertations and <strong>The</strong>ses. 10<br />
Other useful bibliographies more focused chronologically or by type <strong>of</strong><br />
library include Libraries in American Periodicals before 1876, Robert Winans’s<br />
Descriptive Checklist <strong>of</strong> Book Catalogues Separately Printed in America,<br />
1693–1800 (which includes listings <strong>of</strong> private and social library collections),<br />
and Bob Singerman’s American Library Book Catalogues, 1801–1875. 11<br />
And since 1933 the H. W. Wilson Company’s Library Literature has<br />
7
8 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
indexed the American library history literature published in selected<br />
library periodicals.<br />
A few general encyclopedias exist. <strong>The</strong> third edition <strong>of</strong> the World<br />
Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Services contains much historical<br />
information, but more historically focused is the one-volume Encyclopedia<br />
<strong>of</strong> Library History that Don Davis and I completed in 1994. 12 Also useful is<br />
the International Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> <strong>Information</strong> and Library Science and the<br />
multivolume Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science. 13 American<br />
library history has also been served by a number <strong>of</strong> textbooks. 14 Betty<br />
Stone’s American Library Development, 1600–1899 is a useful compendium <strong>of</strong><br />
basic data. 15<br />
Biography<br />
For the most part, American library history biographers have placed a<br />
highly positive spin on their protagonists. <strong>The</strong> best attempt more balance<br />
and discuss the strengths and weaknesses <strong>of</strong> their subjects. This<br />
section subdivides into four categories: general biographical reference<br />
works, separately published biographies, separately published autobiographies,<br />
and works <strong>of</strong> collective biography on women and African<br />
Americans in American library history. I conclude with a brief subsection<br />
subtitled “Blind Spots.”<br />
Biographical Reference Works<br />
<strong>The</strong> starting point for biographical sketches <strong>of</strong> notable librarians<br />
remains the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography (library historians<br />
refer to it as “DALB”), edited in 1978 by Bohdan Wynar, and its<br />
Supplement, which I edited in 1990. 16 <strong>The</strong> former contains 302 biographical<br />
sketches, the latter adds 51 more. Both include all deceased<br />
Librarians <strong>of</strong> Congress and presidents <strong>of</strong> the American Library<br />
Association; both generally celebrate more than contextualize their subjects.<br />
To each sketch is attached a brief bibliography that lists relevant<br />
primary source material. Additional biographical sketches <strong>of</strong> living and<br />
deceased librarians can be found in the ALA World Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
and <strong>Information</strong> Services. Coverage <strong>of</strong> American librarians has been<br />
increased in the recently published American National Biography, worthy<br />
successor to the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Biography. 17 Future American<br />
library history biographical reference tools should model their scholarship<br />
on ANB sketches.<br />
Between 1924 and 1953 the American Library Association published<br />
an American Library Pioneer series that also tended to celebrate the<br />
lives <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s heroes rather than analyze their roles. Only the
iography <strong>of</strong> Charles C<strong>of</strong>fin Jewett and Emily Danton’s Pioneering Leaders<br />
in Librarianship have been published since 1947. 18 In 1975 Libraries<br />
Unlimited started a Heritage <strong>of</strong> Librarianship Series and in the next five<br />
years published rather positive biobibliographical volumes on Jewett,<br />
Ainsworth Rand Sp<strong>of</strong>ford, Charles Ammi Cutter, Melvil Dewey, and<br />
Justin Winsor. 19<br />
Biographies<br />
Two works published in 1963 established new standards for American<br />
library history biography: Ed Holley’s award-winning Charles Evans:<br />
American Bibliographer and Bill Williamson’s William Frederick Poole and the<br />
Modern Library Movement. 20 Both are grounded in research into primary<br />
source materials, both attempt to contextualize their protagonists in a<br />
larger pr<strong>of</strong>essional world, both identify and address their subject’s<br />
strengths and weaknesses. A worthy predecessor to Holley and<br />
Williamson is E. M. Fleming’s work on R. R. Bowker. 21 Worthy successors<br />
include Laurel Grotzinger’s favorable biography <strong>of</strong> Katharine Sharp,<br />
Peggy Sullivan’s admirable work on Carl Milam, Marion Casey’s excellent<br />
Charles McCarthy, John Richardson’s careful piece on Pierce Butler,<br />
and Lee Shiflett’s recently published work on Louis Shores. 22<br />
Perhaps no figure in American library history has drawn so much<br />
attention as Melvil Dewey, our pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s most enigmatic pioneer.<br />
Grosvenor Dawe’s authorized and highly reverential biography was published<br />
shortly after Dewey’s death in 1931. It was followed in 1944 by<br />
Fremont Rider’s brief work for the American Library Pioneer series. In<br />
1978 Sarah Vann did a very favorable sketch <strong>of</strong> Dewey in the Heritage <strong>of</strong><br />
Librarianship Series; in 1981 Forest Press hosted a seminar on Dewey<br />
and his classification, then later published the proceedings. <strong>The</strong> latest<br />
addition to Dewey biographical coverage is my own Irrepressible Reformer,<br />
which carefully examines Dewey in the context <strong>of</strong> his time, looks at the<br />
whole man (halos and warts, including his anti-Semitism and sexual<br />
harassment), and at the same time grounds a narrative <strong>of</strong> his fascinating<br />
past and the influential role he played in structuring the American<br />
library pr<strong>of</strong>ession in an analysis <strong>of</strong> scores <strong>of</strong> relevant archival collections<br />
across the country. 23<br />
Autobiographies<br />
American library history now has a creditable body <strong>of</strong> autobiographies.<br />
Charles Compton’s Memories <strong>of</strong> a Librarian is still worth a read. 24 Larry<br />
Powell’s Fortune and Friendship (and the sequel Life Goes On), Keyes<br />
Metcalf’s Random Recollections, Ralph Ellsworth’s Ellsworth on Ellsworth,<br />
9
10 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
Robert Downs’s Perspectives on the Past, and Bill Eschelman’s No Silence!: A<br />
Library Life are also useful, if not particularly forthcoming and critical. 25<br />
Autobiographies <strong>of</strong> Edith Guerrier, Annie McPheeters, and Mary V.<br />
Gaver document work lives in a feminized pr<strong>of</strong>ession, yet in general all<br />
three sidestep the <strong>issue</strong>s <strong>of</strong> gender that affected their work and careers. 26<br />
McPheeters’s book is particularly interesting; in it she reflects on her life<br />
as a black woman dedicated to serving the black community in an institution<br />
administratively controlled by whites. Jane Pejsa’s Gratia<br />
Countryman quotes so extensively from her protagonist’s letters that her<br />
book nearly constitutes autobiography. 27 Careful but brief autobiographical<br />
statements <strong>of</strong> nine late-twentieth-century American library women<br />
can also be found in Women View Librarianship. 28<br />
Collective Biography: Women<br />
In 1974 Margaret Corwin published her analysis <strong>of</strong> female leadership<br />
in state and local library associations in Library Quarterly. 29 Within a<br />
decade it was followed by two anthologies on the history <strong>of</strong> the role and<br />
status <strong>of</strong> women in librarianship, one edited by Kathleen Weibel and<br />
Kathleen Heim, the other edited by Heim alone. 30 In 1979 Dee<br />
Garrison published Apostles <strong>of</strong> Culture: <strong>The</strong> Public Librarian and American<br />
Society, 1876–1920. Unlike much previous biographical coverage <strong>of</strong><br />
women in librarianship, Garrison’s research attempted to locate library<br />
women in a larger pr<strong>of</strong>essional world at the turn <strong>of</strong> the century. She<br />
divided her much-cited book into four sections. <strong>The</strong> first covers a<br />
“Missionary Phase,” characterized by a predominance <strong>of</strong> New England<br />
gentry men who wanted to resist the changes brought about by immigration,<br />
industrialization, and urbanization and instead preserve the<br />
moral climate with which they were more familiar. <strong>The</strong>se men assumed<br />
that exposing the masses to what they defined as good literature would<br />
help maintain the social order and minimize the chance for social revolution<br />
(echoes <strong>of</strong> Harris here).<br />
A second section discusses the “fiction problem.” Here Garrison<br />
hypothesizes that librarians were ultimately forced to admit that the<br />
masses did not want the sophisticated literature advocated by the genteel<br />
set but instead preferred “recreational reading” more in tune with<br />
their tastes and levels <strong>of</strong> comprehension. A third section provides an<br />
extended biographical sketch <strong>of</strong> Dewey, the first to take a critical look at<br />
Dewey’s sexism and anti-Semitism. A final section, however, entitled<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Tender Technicians,” has driven much <strong>of</strong> the scholarship on women<br />
in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession in the last twenty years. Here Garrison argues that the<br />
feminization <strong>of</strong> the public library pr<strong>of</strong>ession forced limitations on the<br />
progress <strong>of</strong> the institution because women who filled positions merely
extended their traditional motherly role to a different arena and were<br />
passively willing to work for low wages.<br />
Scholars like Mary Niles Maack, Barbara E. Brand, Phyllis Dain, and<br />
especially Suzanne Hildenbrand have been reacting to Garrison’s thesis<br />
ever since. A 1982 American Library History Round Table program entitled<br />
“Women in Library History: Liberating Our Past” drew the lines <strong>of</strong><br />
debate and generated a number <strong>of</strong> essays that have now been read by<br />
hundreds (if not thousands) <strong>of</strong> LIS students in the past fifteen years. 31 By<br />
the end <strong>of</strong> the century, however, the initial debate had tempered, and in<br />
its place solid scholarship that documents role more than contribution<br />
and analyzes more than celebrates women in librarianship began to provide<br />
a richer literature. Here I include Joanne Passet’s Cultural Crusaders<br />
and Alison Parker’s Purifying America, which compares WCTU and ALA<br />
women’s turn-<strong>of</strong>-the-century procensorship reform efforts. 32 Essays in<br />
Reclaiming the American Library Past: Writing the Women In, an anthology<br />
edited by Suzanne Hildenbrand in 1996, document accomplishments <strong>of</strong><br />
female librarians long forgotten, but most also tend to admire more than<br />
analyze. 33<br />
In this section I also include an emerging scholarship on the history <strong>of</strong><br />
children’s and youth services librarianship, a sector <strong>of</strong> our pr<strong>of</strong>ession that<br />
has always been dominated by women. For example, Frances Sayers’s<br />
reverential biography <strong>of</strong> Anne Carroll Moore and Miriam Braverman’s<br />
Youth, Society, and the Public Library are now being superseded by solid<br />
interdisciplinary scholarship coming from the word processors <strong>of</strong> Anne<br />
MacLeod, Christine Jenkins, and Anne Lundin. 34 <strong>The</strong> spring <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Trends that Karen Smith edited—subtitled “Contributions <strong>of</strong><br />
Women to American Youth Services and Literature”—is reverential but<br />
revealing. 35 With scholarship like this, coverage <strong>of</strong> women in American<br />
library history has now begun to emerge from simply celebrating their<br />
contributions to move toward deeper and more critical evaluations <strong>of</strong> the<br />
roles they played in a larger historical context. All <strong>of</strong> it adds significantly<br />
to our understanding <strong>of</strong> the present.<br />
Collective Biography: African Americans<br />
Another area <strong>of</strong> collective biography that has emerged in the last quarter<br />
century is African-American library history literature. E. J. Josey, a<br />
pioneering civil rights activist who in the 1960s and 1970s <strong>of</strong>ten forced<br />
American librarianship to confront its own racism, published a number<br />
<strong>of</strong> works that identified black library pioneers. 36 More recently, Ismail<br />
Abdullahi has edited an anthology <strong>of</strong> essays about Josey and his contributions.<br />
37 Sketches <strong>of</strong> Jean Blackwell Hutson and Dorothy Porter Wesley<br />
also appear in Reclaiming the Past. 38 Jessie Carney Smith covers “Black<br />
11
12 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
Women Librarians, 1882–1992,” and in What a Woman Ought to Be and Do,<br />
Stephanie Shaw includes discussions <strong>of</strong> librarians among her coverage <strong>of</strong><br />
black pr<strong>of</strong>essional women workers during the Jim Crow era. 39 Elinor Des<br />
Verney Sinnette’s biography <strong>of</strong> Arthur Schomburg is also worth a read. 40<br />
Collective Biography: Blind Spots<br />
Collective biographical work on women and African Americans published<br />
in the past quarter century has amply enriched American library<br />
history and demonstrated how research that reveals a set <strong>of</strong> blind spots<br />
can partially correct a jaundiced perspective <strong>of</strong> the past. But much more<br />
needs to be done, especially with the history <strong>of</strong> librarianship that has<br />
affected Hispanic, Asian, and Native Americans. A hint <strong>of</strong> the possibilities<br />
here is evident in Daring to Find <strong>The</strong>ir Names, a series <strong>of</strong> essays Jim<br />
Carmichael recently gathered to document the lesbigay presence<br />
(another vastly understudied population) in American librarianship in<br />
the last quarter century. 41 <strong>The</strong>re is an irony here. For a pr<strong>of</strong>ession dedicated<br />
to multiculturalism, our historical literature demonstrates too<br />
much tunnel vision. At this point in its own history, librarianship knows<br />
relatively little <strong>of</strong> its role in retarding or facilitating multiculturalism’s<br />
nineteenth- and twentieth-century progress.<br />
Institutions<br />
Although Shera’s and Ditzion’s germinal works on the library as an institution<br />
are much in need <strong>of</strong> revision after half a century, they nonetheless<br />
remain standard treatments. In this section I divide my discussion <strong>of</strong><br />
the historical literature <strong>of</strong> American library institutions into categories<br />
already familiar to readers <strong>of</strong> L&C literature review essays: (1) private<br />
libraries; (2) predecessors to the public library; (3) public libraries;<br />
(4) academic and research libraries (including archives); (5) special<br />
libraries (including state library agencies); and (6) school libraries.<br />
Private Libraries<br />
A number <strong>of</strong> works in social, intellectual, and cultural history published<br />
in the past half century have included private libraries in their<br />
coverage. Among them are Louis B. Wright’s Cultural Life <strong>of</strong> the American<br />
Colonies, Samuel Eliot Morison’s Intellectual Life <strong>of</strong> Colonial New England,<br />
and Richard Beale Davis’s Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, from which<br />
he drew his data for A Colonial Southern Bookshelf. 42 More recently, Kevin<br />
Hayes published A Colonial Woman’s Bookshelf to show that women as well<br />
as men had active reading interests before the American Revolution. 43
Print culture history has also generated increased interest in the personal<br />
library collections <strong>of</strong> several famous American authors, including<br />
Mark Twain, Flannery O’Connor, Henry James, and Henry David<br />
Thoreau. 44 Students <strong>of</strong> American library history should also consult<br />
Kevin Hayes’s <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> William Byrd <strong>of</strong> Westover. 45<br />
Predecessors to the Public Library<br />
Solid works treating predecessors to the public library include David<br />
Kaser’s A Book for a Sixpence, which covers the history <strong>of</strong> the circulating<br />
library in the United States, Haynes McMullen’s research on social<br />
libraries before 1876, and Edward Stevens’s analysis <strong>of</strong> the relationships<br />
between wealth and social library membership in early-nineteenthcentury<br />
Ohio. 46 Other works worthy <strong>of</strong> mention include Charles<br />
Laugher’s Thomas Bray’s Grand Design, Joe Kraus’s analysis <strong>of</strong> nineteenthcentury<br />
YMCA libraries, and C. S. Thompson’s Evolution <strong>of</strong> the American<br />
Public Library, 1653–1876. 47 Solid analyses <strong>of</strong> nineteenth-century school<br />
district and Sunday school libraries remain to be written.<br />
Public Libraries<br />
Public library history enjoys a generous literature. Shera outlined the<br />
origins <strong>of</strong> the public library before it evolved into an institution; Ditzion<br />
took it from there with his Arsenals <strong>of</strong> Democracy, which set the tone for<br />
viewing the public library as an agency that facilitated democratic culture<br />
and an informed citizenry. His perspective dominated the literature<br />
<strong>of</strong> public library history for the next quarter century and was evident in<br />
the public library histories for Boston, Detroit, Baltimore, New York,<br />
Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Buffalo that followed. 48 Works on continuing<br />
education services to adults in public library history literature echo<br />
the tone <strong>of</strong> these favorable treatises. 49<br />
But Harris’s 1<strong>973</strong> essay signaled a shift in public library historiography.<br />
No subject within public library history demonstrates this shift better<br />
than the literature surrounding the library philanthropy <strong>of</strong> Andrew<br />
Carnegie. For example, George Bobinski’s Carnegie Libraries outlines the<br />
philanthropy but sidesteps <strong>issue</strong>s <strong>of</strong> motive and intent. 50 David I.<br />
Macleod does a bit better in his study <strong>of</strong> Carnegie libraries in<br />
Wisconsin. 51 A new, more critical history, however, appears in Carnegie<br />
Denied, which consists <strong>of</strong> a series <strong>of</strong> essays edited by Bob Martin that<br />
examine the reasons scores <strong>of</strong> communities rejected Carnegie grants. 52<br />
Essay authors find gender, race, and class <strong>issue</strong>s (among others) laced<br />
throughout community reactions. More recently, Abigail Van Slyck<br />
looked at the architecture <strong>of</strong> typical Carnegie library buildings from a<br />
13
14 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
social history perspective and found gender and class distinctions built<br />
into the structures and designed into the furniture and appliances. 53 Her<br />
conclusions provide an excellent example <strong>of</strong> how to marry library history<br />
with social, cultural, and institutional history. I think the historiographical<br />
distance between her and Bobinski mirrors the potential <strong>of</strong> our craft<br />
for growth.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rough outlines <strong>of</strong> some <strong>of</strong> that growth were already evident in the<br />
late 1970s with the publication <strong>of</strong> Rosemary Du Mont’s Reform and<br />
Reaction: <strong>The</strong> Big City Public Library in American Life and Garrison’s Apostles<br />
<strong>of</strong> Culture. 54 Evelyn Geller’s Forbidden Books in American Public Libraries,<br />
1876–1939 followed shortly thereafter, thus creating a literature that not<br />
only accommodated but also welcomed newer works like Joanne Passet’s<br />
Cultural Crusaders, Deanna Marcum’s Good Books in a Country Home (which<br />
covers Mary Titcomb’s librarianship in Hagerstown, Maryland), and<br />
Doug Raber’s Librarianship and Legitimacy: <strong>The</strong> Ideology <strong>of</strong> the Public Library<br />
Inquiry. 55 Marcum’s work constitutes a case study <strong>of</strong> one small public<br />
library in rural America, a ubiquitous institution whose history remains<br />
vastly understudied. Raber’s work contextualizes the Public Library<br />
Inquiry, a midcentury study funded by the Carnegie Corporation that<br />
yielded works still read and reverentially referred to in public library<br />
research studies. 56<br />
Academic and Research Libraries<br />
Academic and research libraries also have a rich (though less substantial)<br />
literature. Standard treatments for the former published in the<br />
last half century include Kenneth Brough’s Scholar’s Workshop: Evolving<br />
Conceptions <strong>of</strong> Library Service, Arthur T. Hamlin’s <strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong> Library<br />
in the United States, and Lee Shiflett’s Origins <strong>of</strong> American Academic<br />
Librarianship. 57 All provide standard data, but all also need updating. <strong>The</strong><br />
last two especially need to incorporate findings <strong>of</strong> more recent scholarship<br />
on higher education in the United States that examines the influence<br />
<strong>of</strong> twentieth-century corporate/government partnerships with<br />
universities. Robin Winks’s Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War,<br />
1939–1961 and Ellen W. Schrecker’s No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism & the<br />
Universities hint at the rich possibilities here. 58 Roger Geiger’s analysis <strong>of</strong><br />
American research universities since World War II would help set the<br />
context. 59<br />
Thomas Harding’s College Literary Societies: <strong>The</strong>ir Contribution to Higher<br />
Education in the United States, 1815–1876 is still useful for its analysis <strong>of</strong> the<br />
role the library played in the history <strong>of</strong> the college literary society, but<br />
existing library circulation records left by many <strong>of</strong> these societies remain<br />
to be exploited. 60 Other titles that cover particular dimensions <strong>of</strong> acade-
mic librarianship include Neil A. Radford’s Carnegie Corporation and the<br />
Development <strong>of</strong> American College Libraries, 1928–1941, Roland Person’s A New<br />
Path: Undergraduate Libraries at United States and Canadian Universities,<br />
1949–1987, Charles Osburn’s work on patterns <strong>of</strong> collection development,<br />
Dave Kaser’s recent study <strong>of</strong> academic library architecture, and an<br />
anthology <strong>of</strong> essays edited by Richard Johnson for the library pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s<br />
centennial in 1976. 61 Jessie Carney Smith’s Black Academic Libraries and<br />
Research Collections is helpful. 62 So is a series <strong>of</strong> biographical sketches <strong>of</strong><br />
influential academic library leaders (1925–75) that I edited in 1983. 63<br />
Individual academic libraries receive useful treatment in works by<br />
Ken Peterson (California-Berkeley), Charles R. Schultz (Texas A&M),<br />
William S. Dix (Princeton), Ellsworth Mason (Colorado), Douglas Ernest<br />
(Colorado State), Roscoe Rouse (Oklahoma State), Betty Young (the<br />
Women’s College at Duke), and William Betinck-Smith (Harvard). 64<br />
Mark Olsen and Louis-Georges Harvey have done some fascinating work<br />
in Harvard’s circulation records for the years 1773–82. 65 <strong>The</strong>ir research<br />
demonstrates the potential that analyses <strong>of</strong> library circulation records<br />
have for understanding how particular groups <strong>of</strong> library users appropriate<br />
the information resources made available to them.<br />
Research libraries also have a sizable literature. A good place to start<br />
is Libraries and Scholarly Communication in the United States: <strong>The</strong> Historical<br />
Dimension, a series <strong>of</strong> essays Phyllis Dain and John Cole edited from a<br />
symposium on the subject in Washington in 1987. 66 A number <strong>of</strong> authors<br />
have covered the history <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress in the last half century.<br />
David C. Mearns told <strong>The</strong> Story Up to Now in 1947, and a quarter<br />
century later Charles Goodrum updated the Library’s history to the<br />
1970s. 67 <strong>The</strong> most impressive addition to the literature covering the LC’s<br />
history published since midcentury is Jane Aikin Rosenberg’s <strong>The</strong> Nation’s<br />
Great Library, which covers the years Herbert Putnam served as Librarian<br />
<strong>of</strong> Congress (1899–1939). 68 Rosenberg does a masterful job <strong>of</strong> locating<br />
Putnam’s influence on the Library and then contextualizing that influence<br />
in the pr<strong>of</strong>essionalization <strong>of</strong> librarianship as it evolved across the<br />
nation in the first half <strong>of</strong> the twentieth century. In his biography <strong>of</strong><br />
Archibald MacLeish, Scott Donaldson devotes several reverential chapters<br />
to MacLeish’s tenure as Librarian <strong>of</strong> Congress (1939–45). 69<br />
Although the historical literature <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress is large, I<br />
cannot leave a paragraph discussing it without noting the yeoman’s work<br />
done since 1975 by John Y. Cole, current director <strong>of</strong> the Center for the<br />
Book in the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, who has published scores <strong>of</strong> articles and<br />
edited numerous books with the Library’s history as their focus.<br />
Other national libraries located in the District <strong>of</strong> Columbia area have<br />
also merited historical attention. Donald McCoy and Herman Viola have<br />
written solid works on the National Archives, while chronicles exist to<br />
15
16 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
document the history <strong>of</strong> the National Agricultural Library and the<br />
National Library <strong>of</strong> Medicine. 70 Kenneth Hafertepe covers the first<br />
thirty-eight years <strong>of</strong> the Smithsonian. 71 Burton K. Adkinson takes a<br />
broad look at the federal information many <strong>of</strong> these libraries dispersed,<br />
some for more than two centuries. 72 Although not located in the District<br />
<strong>of</strong> Columbia, the growing number <strong>of</strong> presidential libraries and museums<br />
documenting the lives <strong>of</strong> men who occupied the White House receives<br />
some historical coverage in Fritz Veit’s Presidential Libraries and<br />
Collections. 73<br />
Other research libraries have also merited considerable attention.<br />
New York has several. <strong>The</strong> model for an institutional history <strong>of</strong> a<br />
research library’s origins remains Phyllis Dain’s work on the New York<br />
Public Library. Pam Richards does a good job documenting the history <strong>of</strong><br />
the New-York Historical Society Library. 74 So does Doris Dale, who covers<br />
the history <strong>of</strong> the United Nations Library. 75 <strong>The</strong> City <strong>of</strong> Brotherly Love<br />
has several significant research libraries, and library historians will find<br />
a few histories <strong>of</strong> these institutions helpful. 76 In Boston, the Boston<br />
Atheneum and the Massachusetts Historical Society have adequate<br />
chronicles; so do the John Crerar and Newberry Libraries located in<br />
Chicago. 77 On the West Coast, Don Dickenson’s history <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Huntington in San Marino, California, should stand for another generation;<br />
so should <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and<br />
Peace, edited by Peter Duignan. 78<br />
Special Libraries (Including State Library Agencies)<br />
A. H. MacCormick and Rudolph Engelbarts have done adequate work<br />
on prison libraries. 79 Ellis E. Mount’s work on the Engineering Societies<br />
Library in New York remains staple, but Anthony Kruzas’s general treatment<br />
<strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> business and industrial libraries is badly in need <strong>of</strong><br />
updating. 80 So is Ada Winfred Johns’s work on special libraries in general.<br />
81 Larry McCrank’s Mt. Angel Abbey covers a century <strong>of</strong> existence <strong>of</strong><br />
an Oregon monastery and its library. 82 <strong>The</strong> history <strong>of</strong> state library agencies<br />
is poorly covered, as I discovered when I was asked more than a<br />
decade ago to contribute the lead article to an anthology on state library<br />
agencies. 83 Nonetheless, readers will still find useful chronicles on state<br />
libraries in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and especially New York. 84<br />
<strong>School</strong> Libraries<br />
As <strong>of</strong> this writing there are nearly 100,000 school libraries in the<br />
United States, yet no adequate general history exists to contextualize<br />
their origins to a larger world <strong>of</strong> elementary and secondary education.
Henry L. Cecil and Willard A. Heaps’s <strong>School</strong> Library Service is a useful<br />
starting point. 85 Margaret I. Rufsvold’s History <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Libraries in the<br />
South is also helpful but badly dated. 86 So is Frederic D. Aldrich’s <strong>School</strong><br />
Library in Ohio. 87 Harriet Long covers the history <strong>of</strong> public library service<br />
to schools; a smattering <strong>of</strong> scholarly articles helps fill in a few gaps. 88<br />
Expertise<br />
Under this heading I include literature that covers the history <strong>of</strong> cataloging<br />
and classification, public services (including reference), collection<br />
development, and library appliances and technology. Most <strong>of</strong> the literature<br />
lacks cultural context; little <strong>of</strong> it draws from relevant conclusions<br />
that emanate from the secondary literature <strong>of</strong> social and intellectual<br />
American history.<br />
Cataloging and classification have the richest historical literature<br />
in the area <strong>of</strong> library expertise. Staple fare includes the works <strong>of</strong><br />
W. C. Berwick Sayers and Leo Montagne, which in part laid the groundwork<br />
for John Comaromi’s landmark study <strong>The</strong> Eighteen Editions <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Dewey Decimal Classification. 89 But Comaromi’s work was not definitive;<br />
debate about the origins <strong>of</strong> Dewey’s classification continues. 90 Historians<br />
<strong>of</strong> classification will also find useful two sourcebooks, one on cataloging,<br />
the other on subject analysis. 91 Fran Miksa’s monumental Subject in the<br />
Dictionary Catalog from Cutter to the Present updates Julia Pettee’s Subject<br />
Headings and should be the definitive history on that subject for some<br />
time to come. 92 Miksa also covers the development <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>of</strong><br />
Congress classification scheme in a briefer piece. 93 Donald Lehnus and<br />
John Comaromi analyze book numbers in separate works, while Jim Ranz<br />
chronicles the history <strong>of</strong> the printed book catalog in eighteenth- and<br />
nineteenth-century American libraries. 94 No area in the practice <strong>of</strong><br />
librarianship has been more affected by automation than cataloging and<br />
classification, and no organization has had a greater impact on this area<br />
<strong>of</strong> library expertise in the past quarter century than OCLC. For a<br />
historical discussion documenting this impact, OCLC, 1967–1997 is<br />
helpful. 95<br />
Sam Rothstein’s Development <strong>of</strong> Reference Services through Academic<br />
Traditions superseded Louis Kaplan’s Growth <strong>of</strong> Reference Service in the United<br />
States from 1876 to 1891, but both are now badly in need <strong>of</strong> updating. 96 So<br />
is Scott Adams’s Medical Bibliography in an Age <strong>of</strong> Discontinuity, which<br />
covers a literature whose format and organization have changed rapidly<br />
in the last decades <strong>of</strong> the twentieth century. 97 Klaus Musmann provides<br />
an anecdotal history <strong>of</strong> technological innovations in library services<br />
between 1860 and 1960; Barbra Higginbotham adequately covers the history<br />
<strong>of</strong> library preservation between 1876 and 1910. 98<br />
17
18 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
Library Education<br />
No area <strong>of</strong> American library history literature has been more consistently<br />
critical and analytical than coverage <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional library education.<br />
Readers should start with Sarah Vann’s <strong>The</strong> Williamson Report: A<br />
Study and follow it with Carl White’s Historical Introduction to Library<br />
Education. 99 Vann’s Training for Librarianship before 1923 is a helpful chronicle;<br />
so is Charles Churchwell’s Shaping <strong>of</strong> American Library Education and<br />
C. Edward Carroll’s Pr<strong>of</strong>essionalization <strong>of</strong> Education for Librarianship. 100 More<br />
interpretive essays can be found in the 1986 <strong>issue</strong>s <strong>of</strong> Library Trends and<br />
the Journal <strong>of</strong> Education for Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science, both <strong>of</strong> which<br />
commemorate the centennial <strong>of</strong> formal library education in the United<br />
States in 1986. 101 More recently, Bob Martin and Lee Shiflett analyzed<br />
the ALA’s role in the library education <strong>of</strong> African Americans between<br />
1925 and 1941. 102 Several individual library schools have received historical<br />
treatment, including Columbia, Case Western Reserve, Illinois,<br />
North Carolina Central, and Chicago. 103 <strong>The</strong> last, authored by John<br />
Richardson, is clearly the best <strong>of</strong> the lot. Ironically, all but Illinois and<br />
NCU have closed. Margaret Stieg’s Change and Challenge in Library Science<br />
Education includes some historical perspective. 104<br />
Library Associations<br />
Understandably, the American Library Association—the world’s oldest<br />
and largest—has received most historical treatment. In 1976 the ALA’s<br />
centennial celebration occasioned too much celebratory literature,<br />
including Dennis Thomison’s work on the association’s history through<br />
1972, which is uneven and underresearched. 105 Much better is Ed<br />
Holley’s Raking the Historic Coals, which reprints primary documents generated<br />
by organizers <strong>of</strong> the 1876 meeting at which the ALA organized. 106<br />
My own Politics <strong>of</strong> an Emerging Pr<strong>of</strong>ession uses many primary source materials<br />
not previously consulted to construct the ALA’s story from that<br />
date through World War I. 107 Art Young does an excellent job <strong>of</strong> covering<br />
the association’s participation in the war effort. 108 Gary Kraske analyzes<br />
the association’s role in U.S. cultural diplomacy between 1938 and 1949,<br />
but much more analytical and contextualized is Louise Robbins’s<br />
Censorship and the American Library, which builds from Evelyn Geller’s work<br />
to look at the ALA’s response to intellectual freedom threats between<br />
1939 and 1969 within a paradigm <strong>of</strong> cultural pluralism. 109<br />
Several other library associations also have histories. Don Davis covers<br />
the Association <strong>of</strong> American Library <strong>School</strong>s (now the Association for<br />
Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science Education) through the late 1960s. 110<br />
Alma C. Mitchell has edited a series <strong>of</strong> essays on the first fifty years <strong>of</strong>
the Special Libraries Association, but more analytical is Elin B.<br />
Christianson’s Daniel Nash Handy and the Special Library Movement. 111 Irene<br />
Farkas-Conn’s work on the history <strong>of</strong> the American Society for<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science is also helpful. 112 Abbreviated histories <strong>of</strong> other pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
associations can be found scattered throughout the scholarly<br />
periodical literature. 113<br />
General Historical Studies <strong>of</strong> the Pr<strong>of</strong>ession and Its Activities<br />
Scores <strong>of</strong> good American library history books published in the last<br />
half century exist that cross the categories <strong>of</strong> literature I list above. Here<br />
I mention either the best or the most useful, because at the time <strong>of</strong> this<br />
writing, American library history lacked anything better. In the area <strong>of</strong><br />
censorship, I have already mentioned Geller and Robbins, but readers<br />
should also consult Marjorie Fiske’s germinal Book Selection and Censorship,<br />
which analyzes censoring practices <strong>of</strong> California school and public librarians<br />
in the 1950s. 114 L. B. Woods demonstrates that censorship imposed<br />
from outside the pr<strong>of</strong>ession is every bit as effective as censorship effected<br />
from the inside. 115 Pam Richards’s analysis <strong>of</strong> the World War II Allied-<br />
German rivalry for scientific information is a model case study <strong>of</strong> comparative<br />
history. 116 Dave Kaser covers a different war, a different time, as<br />
do I with An Active Instrument for Propaganda, which looks at public library<br />
activity on behalf <strong>of</strong> the state during World War I. 117 Kathleen Molz<br />
addresses National Planning for Library Service, 1935–1975, while Fred<br />
Stielow and Mary Lee Bundy have edited a series <strong>of</strong> essays covering<br />
Activism in American Librarianship, 1962–1<strong>973</strong>. 118 Ed Holley and Bob<br />
Schremser contribute a series <strong>of</strong> interviews with members <strong>of</strong> the nation’s<br />
library community who were integral to the passage <strong>of</strong> the Library<br />
Services and Construction Act <strong>of</strong> 1964, which has had a significant<br />
impact on the practice <strong>of</strong> librarianship ever since. 119<br />
Several works cover the library as a pr<strong>of</strong>ession and selectively draw<br />
upon its history for evidence to support conclusions. Works by Lloyd J.<br />
Houser and Alvin Schrader, George E. Bennett, and Michael F. Winter<br />
are worthwhile; so is Mike Harris and Stan Hannah’s Into the Future: <strong>The</strong><br />
Foundations <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Services in the Post-Industrial Era. 120 <strong>The</strong><br />
best <strong>of</strong> the set, however, is Andrew Abbott’s System <strong>of</strong> Pr<strong>of</strong>essions, which<br />
uses the concept <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional jurisdiction to compare the history <strong>of</strong><br />
librarianship with several other pr<strong>of</strong>essions. 121<br />
Print Culture History<br />
As I prepared this essay I had occasion to read an article entitled “<strong>The</strong><br />
Business <strong>of</strong> Reading in Nineteenth-Century America: <strong>The</strong> New York<br />
19
20 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
Mercantile Library” in the June 1998 <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> American Quarterly. It’s written<br />
by Thomas Augst, whom I had met in November 1997 shortly after<br />
he had finished his American studies dissertation at Harvard, from which<br />
the AQ article is taken. 122 In it Tom demonstrates how the Mercantile<br />
Library’s users commodified their reading into categorizations like “useful<br />
knowledge” and “rational amusement,” how the largely middle-class<br />
males who constituted its patrons then used the act <strong>of</strong> reading as an<br />
agent to manifest their “character,” and finally how in the process <strong>of</strong><br />
adapting to these interests the managers <strong>of</strong> the Mercantile Library articulated<br />
a new rationale for understanding these new dynamics for reading<br />
to justify it as a civic enterprise worthy <strong>of</strong> private and public support. In<br />
short, Tom’s work demonstrates how one nineteenth-century library<br />
crafted a socially acceptable philosophy to justify and perpetuate the services<br />
it provided to its users. <strong>The</strong> article is unique in American library<br />
history because it views the institution through the eyes <strong>of</strong> the people<br />
who used it, not through the eyes <strong>of</strong> the people who ran it.<br />
<strong>The</strong> perspective Tom takes is characteristic <strong>of</strong> a rapidly growing literature<br />
that is <strong>of</strong>ten referred to as print culture studies or print culture<br />
history, a large part <strong>of</strong> which attempts to look at the act <strong>of</strong> reading from<br />
the reader’s viewpoint, then to determine how readers appropriated<br />
what they read for their own needs. 123 Tom’s endnotes are loaded with<br />
citations to this literature, including Steven Mailloux’s Interpretative<br />
Conventions: <strong>The</strong> Reader in the Study <strong>of</strong> American Fiction, Jane Tompkins’s<br />
Sensational Designs: <strong>The</strong> Cultural Work <strong>of</strong> American Fiction, 1790–1860, Cathy<br />
Davidson’s Revolution and the Word: <strong>The</strong> Rise <strong>of</strong> the Novel in America, Ron<br />
Zboray’s A Fictive People: Antebellum Economic Development and the American<br />
Reading Public, Michael Denning’s Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and<br />
Working-Class Culture in America, and Jan Radway’s Reading the Romance:<br />
Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. 124<br />
Much <strong>of</strong> print culture studies itself is built on close readings <strong>of</strong> critical<br />
theorists like Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Antonio Gramsci,<br />
Barbara Hernnstein Smith, and Michel de Certeau, who argue that<br />
people construct their own reality and that within that reality they evolve<br />
particular value systems evident in unique “languages” in which words<br />
take on coded deep meanings generally understood best by group members<br />
heavily invested in using them. 125 <strong>The</strong> literature <strong>of</strong> print culture history<br />
is also built on the work <strong>of</strong> reception theorists like Wolfgang Iser,<br />
Stanley Fish, Benedict Anderson, and Janice Radway, who argue that for<br />
most readers, meaning in a text—whether it be print, visual, audio, or<br />
electronic—is important not just as an object to be described but also as<br />
an effect to be experienced. 126 <strong>The</strong>y argue that readers actively search<br />
for meaning in the texts they select and <strong>of</strong>ten “poach” to re-create meanings<br />
unique to their own lives.
I think most <strong>of</strong> what these print culture scholars say about their subject<br />
matter has direct relevance for the study <strong>of</strong> American library history.<br />
Unfortunately, however, Tom’s perspective is largely absent in American<br />
library history literature. 127 In fact, in his article Tom could cite only<br />
Shera, Ditzion, Kruzas, and a 1978 doctoral dissertation by William Boyd<br />
as secondary works that contain data relevant to his subject. 128 His<br />
inability to find a larger literature within American library history that<br />
spoke to his perspective points, I think, to American library history’s<br />
greatest shortcoming. On the one hand, it concentrates too much on the<br />
library from the inside out and focuses too much on the institution, the<br />
people who practice librarianship within that institution, and the expertise<br />
used by the people within the institution itself. On the other hand, it<br />
does not concentrate enough on the library from the outside in, nor does<br />
it focus sufficiently on people who used (or did not use) the institution,<br />
why they used (or did not use) it, and whether the expertise honed<br />
within that institution mirrored a particular “language” that was inclusive<br />
for some, exclusive for others. My Wisconsin colleague Doug Zweizig<br />
has a useful way to characterize this dichotomy. For too long, he argues,<br />
our pr<strong>of</strong>ession has “looked at the user in the life <strong>of</strong> the library, rather<br />
than the library in the life <strong>of</strong> the user.” 129 And for the past half century,<br />
I would argue, the literature <strong>of</strong> American library history has largely been<br />
servant to the former.<br />
Even those few times when library historians have approached the act<br />
<strong>of</strong> reading, they have been unwilling to explore its greater significance<br />
for American library history. For example, when the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Chicago’s Graduate Library <strong>School</strong> faculty began “scientific” investigations<br />
<strong>of</strong> reading in the 1930s, they generally overlooked fiction, thus<br />
ignoring the types <strong>of</strong> reading the vast majority <strong>of</strong> users obtained from<br />
their libraries. 130 In 1965 and 1985 Esther Jane Carrier published two<br />
volumes on Fiction in Public Libraries. 131 Both adequately documented the<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s anxieties about popular fiction reading between 1850 and<br />
1950. Neither, however, attempted to analyze cultural reasons for these<br />
anxieties; neither tried to do what Tom Augst has done with the New<br />
York Mercantile Library.<br />
Perhaps it’s time for a change. Perhaps what we need at the beginning<br />
<strong>of</strong> the twenty-first century is a shift like the one Mike Harris occasioned<br />
in 1<strong>973</strong> when he used theoretical perspectives developed outside the pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />
to explain some <strong>of</strong> the problems enveloping it at that time.<br />
Perhaps what we need to do is import some new theoretical perspectives<br />
that we can then apply to questions contemporary to our own generation.<br />
I am convinced that the theoreticians cited above (most <strong>of</strong> whom cannot<br />
now be found in the notes <strong>of</strong> current American library history research)<br />
provide the valuable frameworks necessary to address these broader<br />
21
22 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
kinds <strong>of</strong> questions, the answers to which would better help contemporary<br />
librarians understand what the role <strong>of</strong> the library currently is before they<br />
plan a future for the institution based solely on localized knowledge and<br />
expertise and the rosy predictions <strong>of</strong> a vocal group <strong>of</strong> information technology<br />
evangelists who have a vested interest in predicting a particular<br />
future as if it were a certainty.<br />
After twenty-five years I am still convinced that the purpose <strong>of</strong> studying<br />
history is to augment understanding <strong>of</strong> the present, and one <strong>of</strong> the<br />
best ways American library historians can do this at the beginning <strong>of</strong><br />
the twenty-first century is to concentrate much more attention on how<br />
people use (and have used) the texts libraries provide (and have provided)<br />
them. Partnering with print culture scholars would vastly accelerate<br />
the enterprise and increase the relevance <strong>of</strong> American library history<br />
to the pr<strong>of</strong>ession at large. And just as contemporary libraries are excellent<br />
sites for the study <strong>of</strong> the use <strong>of</strong> texts, so American library history is<br />
an excellent site for the study <strong>of</strong> print culture history. <strong>The</strong> theorists cited<br />
by print culture scholars can easily provide excellent frameworks for augmenting<br />
our understanding <strong>of</strong> how the millions <strong>of</strong> people that thousands<br />
<strong>of</strong> American libraries have served for more than three centuries have<br />
used the information resources made available to them.<br />
We’ve come a long way in the past half century and have built a substantial<br />
literature. Since 1<strong>973</strong> this literature certainly has increased in<br />
diversity, although not significantly in theoretical perspective. And over<br />
the years American library history has benefited substantially from<br />
annual LHRT programs, quinquennial Library History Seminars, the<br />
pages <strong>of</strong> Libraries & Culture and Library Quarterly, and the willingness <strong>of</strong><br />
Scarecrow, Greenwood, Libraries Unlimited, and the American Library<br />
Association to publish its monographs. But to make our craft more relevant<br />
to our pr<strong>of</strong>ession at the beginning <strong>of</strong> the twenty-first century, we<br />
now have to take it to another level, one at which we use the ideas critical<br />
theorists have articulated to examine a social construction <strong>of</strong> reality<br />
and the process <strong>of</strong> cultural consumption; we also have to learn from the<br />
social and cultural historians around us who have applied these ideas to<br />
the environments in which the libraries, librarians, and librarianship<br />
that we study existed in given times and given places. Print culture<br />
studies has demonstrated the potential; American library historians need<br />
only to seize the opportunity.<br />
I hope that when the Library History Round Table celebrates its centennial<br />
in 2047, my successor can report that the beginning <strong>of</strong> the<br />
twenty-first century ushered in significant theoretical diversity that<br />
substantially assisted the library pr<strong>of</strong>ession to understand historically<br />
not just the user in the life <strong>of</strong> the library but also the library in the life<br />
<strong>of</strong> the user.
Notes<br />
1. Michael H. Harris, “<strong>The</strong> Purpose <strong>of</strong> the American Public Library: A<br />
Revisionist Interpretation <strong>of</strong> History,” Library Journal 98 (September 1<strong>973</strong>):<br />
2509–14.<br />
2. Jesse Shera, Foundations <strong>of</strong> the Public Library: <strong>The</strong> Origins <strong>of</strong> the Public Library<br />
Movement in New England, 1629–1855 (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1949).<br />
Quotation taken from p. 248.<br />
3. Sidney Ditzion, Arsenals <strong>of</strong> a Democratic Culture: A Social History <strong>of</strong> the<br />
American Public Library Movement in New England and the Middle Atlantic States from<br />
1850 to 1900 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1947).<br />
4. Laurel A. Grotzinger, <strong>The</strong> Power and the Dignity: Librarianship and Katharine<br />
Sharp (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1966).<br />
5. Dee Garrison, Apostles <strong>of</strong> Culture: <strong>The</strong> Public Librarian and American Society,<br />
1876–1920 (New York: Free Press, 1979).<br />
6. Phyllis Dain, <strong>The</strong> New York Public Library: A History <strong>of</strong> Its Founding and Early<br />
Years (New York: New York Public Library, 1972).<br />
7. This project is discussed in Kenneth E. Carpenter, Readers and Libraries:<br />
Toward a History <strong>of</strong> Libraries and Culture in America (Washington, D.C.: Library <strong>of</strong><br />
Congress, 1996); and Wayne A. Wiegand, “Tunnel Vision and Blind Spots: What<br />
the Past Tells Us about the Present: Reflections on the Twentieth-Century<br />
History <strong>of</strong> American Librarianship,” Library Quarterly 69 (January 1999): 1–32.<br />
8. Michael H. Harris, “<strong>The</strong> Year’s Work in American Library History, 1967,”<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 3 (October 1968): 342–52; Edward A. Goedeken, “<strong>The</strong><br />
Literature <strong>of</strong> American Library History, 1995–1996,” Libraries & Culture 33 (Fall<br />
1998): 407–45.<br />
9. Michael H. Harris and Donald G. Davis, Jr., American Library History: A<br />
Bibliography (Austin: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, 1978); Donald G. Davis, Jr., and<br />
John Mark Tucker, American Library History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature<br />
(Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1989).<br />
10. Michael H. Harris, A Guide to Research in American Library History, 2d ed.<br />
(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974); Arthur P. Young, American Library History:<br />
A Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Dissertations and <strong>The</strong>ses, 3d ed., rev. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow<br />
Press, 1988).<br />
11. Larry J. Barr, Haynes McMullen, and Steven G. Leach, Libraries in<br />
American Periodicals before 1876: A Bibliography with Abstracts and an Index (Jefferson,<br />
N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1983); Robert G. Winans, A Descriptive Checklist <strong>of</strong> Book<br />
Catalogues Separately Printed in America, 1693–1800 (Worcester, Mass.: American<br />
Antiquarian Society, 1981); Robert L. Singerman, American Library Book<br />
Catalogues, 1801–1875: A National Bibliography (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois<br />
Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science Occasional Papers Nos.<br />
203, 204, April 1996).<br />
12. Robert Wedgeworth, ed., World Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong><br />
Services (Chicago: American Library Association, 1993); Wayne A. Wiegand and<br />
Donald G. Davis, Jr., Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library History (New York: Garland Publishing,<br />
1994).<br />
13. John Feather and Paul Sturges, International Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> <strong>Information</strong> and<br />
Library Science (London: Routledge, 1997); Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong><br />
Science (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1968–).<br />
14. Latest in a long line is Michael H. Harris, History <strong>of</strong> Libraries in the Western<br />
World, 4th ed. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995).<br />
23
24 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
15. Elizabeth W. Stone, American Library Development, 1600–1899 (New York:<br />
H. W. Wilson Company, 1977).<br />
16. Bohdan S. Wynar, ed., Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography (Littleton,<br />
Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1978); Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Supplement to the<br />
Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited,<br />
1990).<br />
17. Allen Johnson, ed., Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Biography, 26 vols. (New York:<br />
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964); John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds.,<br />
American National Biography, 24 vols. (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1999).<br />
18. Joseph Borome, Charles C<strong>of</strong>fin Jewett (1816–68) (Chicago: American Library<br />
Association, 1951); Emily M. Danton, ed., Pioneering Leaders in Librarianship<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1953).<br />
19. Michael H. Harris, ed., <strong>The</strong> Age <strong>of</strong> Jewett: Charles C<strong>of</strong>fin Jewett and American<br />
Librarianship, 1841–1868 (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1975); John Y.<br />
Cole, ed., Ainsworth Rand Sp<strong>of</strong>ford: Bookman and Librarian (Littleton, Colo.:<br />
Libraries Unlimited, 1975); Francis L. Miksa, ed., Charles Ammi Cutter: Library<br />
Systematizer (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1977); Sarah S. Vann, ed.,<br />
Melvil Dewey: His Enduring Presence in Librarianship (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries<br />
Unlimited, 1978); and Wayne Cutler and Michael H. Harris, eds., Justin Winsor:<br />
Scholar Librarian (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1980).<br />
20. Edward G. Holley, Charles Evans: American Bibliographer (Urbana:<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1963); William L. Williamson, William Frederick Poole<br />
and the Modern Library Movement (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press, 1963).<br />
21. E. M. Fleming, R. R. Bowker: Militant Liberal (Norman: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Oklahoma Press, 1952).<br />
22. Peggy A. Sullivan, Carl H. Milam and the American Library Association (New<br />
York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1976); Marion Casey, Charles McCarthy, Librarianship<br />
and Reform (Chicago: American Library Association, 1981); John V. Richardson,<br />
Jr., <strong>The</strong> Gospel <strong>of</strong> Scholarship: Pierce Butler and a Critique <strong>of</strong> American Librarianship<br />
(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1992); Orvin Lee Shiflett, Louis Shores: Defining<br />
Educational Librarianship (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996).<br />
23. Grosvenor Dawe, Melvil Dewey: Seer, Inspirer, Doer (Lake Placid, N.Y.: Lake<br />
Placid Club, 1932); Fremont Rider, Melvil Dewey (Chicago: American Library<br />
Association, 1944); Gordon Stevenson and Judith Kramer-Greene, eds., Melvil<br />
Dewey: <strong>The</strong> Man and the Classification (Albany, N.Y.: Forest Press, 1983); Wayne A.<br />
Wiegand, Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography <strong>of</strong> Melvil Dewey (Chicago: American<br />
Library Association, 1996).<br />
24. Charles H. Compton, Memories <strong>of</strong> a Librarian (St. Louis: St. Louis Public<br />
Library, 1954).<br />
25. Lawrence Clark Powell, Fortune and Friendship: An Autobiography (New York:<br />
R. R. Bowker, 1968), and Life Goes On: Twenty More Years <strong>of</strong> Fortune and Friendship<br />
(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1986); Keyes De Witt Metcalf, Random<br />
Recollections <strong>of</strong> an Anachronism, or Seventy-Five Years <strong>of</strong> Library Work (New York:<br />
Readex Books, 1980), and My Harvard Library Years, 1937–1955: A Sequel to Random<br />
Recollections <strong>of</strong> an Anachronism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Library, 1988);<br />
Ralph E. Ellsworth, Ellsworth on Ellsworth: An Unchronological, Mostly True Account <strong>of</strong><br />
Some Moments <strong>of</strong> Contact between “Library Science” and Me, since Our Confluence in 1931,<br />
with Appropriate Sidelights (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1980); Robert B.<br />
Downs, Perspectives on the Past: An Autobiography (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press,<br />
1984); William R. Eschelman, No Silence!: A Library Life (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow<br />
Press, 1997).
26. Edith Guerrier, An Independent Woman: <strong>The</strong> Autobiography <strong>of</strong> Edith Guerrier<br />
(Amherst: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Massachusetts Press, 1992); Annie L. McPheeters,<br />
Library Service in Black and White: Some Personal Recollections, 1921–1980 (Metuchen,<br />
N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988); Mary Virginia Gaver, A Braided Cord: Memoirs <strong>of</strong> a<br />
<strong>School</strong> Librarian (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988).<br />
27. Jane Pejsa, Gratia Countryman: Her Life, Her Loves, and Her Library<br />
(Minneapolis: Nodin Press, 1995).<br />
28. K. R. Lundy, ed., Women View Librarianship: Nine Perspectives (Chicago:<br />
American Library Association, 1980).<br />
29. Margaret A. Corwin, “An Investigation <strong>of</strong> Female Leadership in State<br />
Library Organizations and Local Library Associations, 1876–1923,” Library<br />
Quarterly 44 (April 1974): 133–44.<br />
30. Kathleen Weibel and Kathleen M. Heim, eds., <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> Women in<br />
Librarianship, 1876–1976: <strong>The</strong> Entry, Advancement, and Struggle for Equalization in One<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>ession (Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1979); Kathleen M. Heim, ed., <strong>The</strong> Status <strong>of</strong> Women<br />
in Librarianship: Historical, Sociological, and Economic Issues (New York: Neal-<br />
Schuman, 1983).<br />
31. <strong>The</strong> fall 1983 <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History (vol. 18) contains most<br />
<strong>of</strong> these essays. See, for example, Laurel A. Grotzinger, “Biographical Research:<br />
Recognition Denied” (372–81); Suzanne Hildenbrand, “Some <strong>The</strong>oretical<br />
Considerations on Women in Library History” (382–90); Barbara E. Brand,<br />
“Librarianship and Other Female-Intensive Pr<strong>of</strong>essions” (391–406); and Phyllis<br />
Dain, “Women’s Studies in American Library History: Some Critical Reflections”<br />
(450–63). See also Roma Harris, Librarianship: <strong>The</strong> Erosion <strong>of</strong> a Woman’s Pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />
(Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1992).<br />
32. Joanne E. Passet, Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West,<br />
1900–1917 (Albuquerque: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New Mexico Press, 1994); Alison M.<br />
Parker, Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform, and Pro-Censorship Activities,<br />
1873–1933 (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1997).<br />
33. Suzanne Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past: Writing the<br />
Women In (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishers, 1996).<br />
34. Frances C. Sayers, Anne Carroll Moore: A Biography (New York:<br />
Atheneum, 1972); Miriam Braverman, Youth, Society, and the Public Library<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1979); Anne Scott MacLeod, American<br />
Childhood: Essays on Children’s Literature <strong>of</strong> the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries<br />
(Athens: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Georgia Press, 1994); Christine Jenkins, “‘Since So<br />
Many <strong>of</strong> Today’s Librarians Are Women . . . ’: Women and Intellectual<br />
Freedom in U.S. Librarianship, 1890–1990,” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the<br />
American Library Past, 221–49, and “From Queer to Gay and Back Again: Young<br />
Adult Novels with Gay/Lesbian/Queer Content, 1969–1997,” Library Quarterly<br />
68 (July 1998): 298–334; Anne Lundin, “Anne Carroll Moore: ‘I Have Spun<br />
Out a Long Thread,’” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past,<br />
187–204, and “Victorian Horizons: <strong>The</strong> Reception <strong>of</strong> Children’s Books<br />
in England and America, 1880–1900,” Library Quarterly 64 (January 1994):<br />
30–59.<br />
35. Karen Patricia Smith, ed., “Imagination and Scholarship: <strong>The</strong><br />
Contributions <strong>of</strong> Women to American Youth Services and Literature,” Library<br />
Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 679–895.<br />
36. See E. J. Josey, ed., <strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1970), and <strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in America Revisited (Metuchen,<br />
N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994).<br />
25
26 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
37. Ismail Abdullahi, ed., E. J. Josey: An Activist Librarian (Metuchen, N.J.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1992).<br />
38. See Glendora Johnson-Cooper, “African-American Historical Continuity:<br />
Jean Blackwell Hutson and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black<br />
Culture,” and Helen H. Britton, “Dorothy Porter Wesley: Bibliographer, Curator,<br />
Scholar,” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past, 25–51, 163–83.<br />
39. Jessie Carney Smith, “Sweet Sixteen: Black Women Librarians,<br />
1892–1992,” in Stanton F. Biddle, ed., Culture Keepers: Enlightening and Empowering<br />
Our Communities, Proceedings <strong>of</strong> the First National Conference <strong>of</strong> African American<br />
Librarians, Sept. 4–6, 1992 (Westwood, Mass.: Faxon Col, 1993), 118–26; Stephanie<br />
J. Shaw, What a Woman Ought to Be and Do: Black Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Women Workers during the<br />
Jim Crow Era (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1996).<br />
40. Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Schomburg, Black Bibliophile and Collector:<br />
A Biography (Detroit: Wayne State <strong>University</strong> Press, 1989).<br />
41. James V. Carmichael, Jr., Daring to Find <strong>The</strong>ir Names: <strong>The</strong> Search for Lesbigay<br />
Library History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998).<br />
42. Louis B. Wright, <strong>The</strong> Cultural Life <strong>of</strong> the American Colonies, 1607–1763 (New<br />
York: Harper, 1957); Samuel Eliot Morison, <strong>The</strong> Intellectual Life <strong>of</strong> Colonial New<br />
England (New York: New York <strong>University</strong> Press, 1965); Richard Beale Davis,<br />
Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585–1763, 3 vols. (Knoxville: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Tennessee Press, 1978); Richard Beale Davis, A Colonial Southern Bookshelf: Reading<br />
in the Eighteenth Century (Athens: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Georgia Press, 1979).<br />
43. Kevin J. Hayes, A Colonial Woman’s Bookshelf (Knoxville: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Tennessee Press, 1996).<br />
44. Alan D. Gribben, ed., Mark Twain’s Library: A Reconstruction, 2 vols. (Boston:<br />
G. K. Hall, 1980); Arthur F. Kinney, ed., Flannery O’Connor’s Library: Resources <strong>of</strong><br />
Being (Athens: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Georgia Press, 1985); Leon Edel and Adeline R.<br />
Tintner, eds., <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> Henry James (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press,<br />
1987); Robert A. Gross, Books and Libraries in Thoreau’s Concord (Charlottesville:<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Virginia Press, 1988).<br />
45. Kevin J. Hayes, <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> William Byrd <strong>of</strong> Westover (Madison, Wis.:<br />
Madison House, 1994).<br />
46. David Kaser, A Book for a Sixpence: <strong>The</strong> Circulating Library in America<br />
(Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1980); Haynes McMullen, <strong>The</strong> Founding <strong>of</strong> the Social and<br />
Public Libraries in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois through 1850 (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Illinois Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Science, Occasional Paper No. 51, 1958),<br />
“Social Libraries in Antebellum Kentucky,” Register <strong>of</strong> the Kentucky State Historical<br />
Society 58 (April 1960): 97–128, and “<strong>The</strong> Founding <strong>of</strong> Social Libraries in<br />
Pennsylvania, 1731–1876,” Pennsylvania History 32 (April 1965): 130–52; Edward<br />
Stevens, “Relationships <strong>of</strong> Social Library Membership, Wealth, and Literary<br />
Culture in Early Ohio,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 16 (Fall 1981): 574–94.<br />
47. Charles T. Laugher, Thomas Bray’s Grand Design (Chicago: American<br />
Library Association, 1<strong>973</strong>); Joe W. Kraus, “Libraries <strong>of</strong> the Young Men’s<br />
Christian Association in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 10<br />
(January 1975): 3–21; Charles S. Thompson, Evolution <strong>of</strong> the American Public Library,<br />
1653–1876 (Washington, D.C.: Scarecrow Press, 1952).<br />
48. Walter Whitehill, Boston Public Library: A Centennial History, 1854–1954<br />
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1956); Frank B. Woodford,<br />
Parnassus on Main Street: A History <strong>of</strong> the Detroit Public Library (Detroit: Wayne State<br />
<strong>University</strong> Press, 1965); Dain, New York Public Library; Clarence Cramer, Open<br />
Shelves and Open Minds: A History <strong>of</strong> the Cleveland Public Library (Cleveland: Western
Reserve <strong>University</strong> Press, 1972); Bruce Benidt, <strong>The</strong> Library Book: Centennial History<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Minneapolis Public Library (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Public Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Center, 1984); and Joseph B. Rounds, <strong>The</strong> Time Was Right: A History <strong>of</strong><br />
the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, 1940–1975 (Buffalo, N.Y.: Grosvenor<br />
Society, 1985). <strong>The</strong> history <strong>of</strong> hundreds <strong>of</strong> other public libraries can be found in<br />
master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, the vast majority <strong>of</strong> which can be<br />
accessed through the bibliographies in Davis and Tucker, American Library History,<br />
and Young, American Library History.<br />
49. Robert E. Lee, Continuing Education for Adults through the American Public<br />
Library, 1833–1934 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1966); Margaret E.<br />
Monroe, <strong>The</strong> Library Adult Education: Biography <strong>of</strong> an Idea (New York: Scarecrow<br />
Press, 1963); and L. E. Birge, Serving Adult Learners: A Public Library Tradition<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1981).<br />
50. George Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries: <strong>The</strong>ir History and Impact on American<br />
Public Library Development (Chicago: American Library Association, 1969); Joseph<br />
Frazier Wall, Andrew Carnegie (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1970).<br />
51. David I. Macleod, Carnegie Libraries in Wisconsin (Madison: State Historical<br />
Society <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin, 1968). See also Raymond Bial and Linda LaPuma Bial, <strong>The</strong><br />
Carnegie Library in Illinois (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1991), and<br />
<strong>The</strong>odore Jones, Carnegie Libraries across America (New York: John Wiley, 1997),<br />
both <strong>of</strong> which lack the critical perspective contained in works cited in the next<br />
two notes. On the history <strong>of</strong> public library architecture, see also Kenneth A.<br />
Breisch, Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America: A Study in<br />
Typology (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997); Patricia W. Belding, Where the<br />
Books Are: <strong>The</strong> History and Architecture <strong>of</strong> Vermont’s Public Library (Barre, Vt.: Potash<br />
Brook, 1996); and Donald E. Oehlerts, Books and Blueprints: Building America’s<br />
Public Libraries (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991).<br />
52. Robert Sidney Martin, ed., Carnegie Denied: Communities Rejecting Carnegie<br />
Library Construction Grants, 1898–1925 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993).<br />
53. Abigail A. Van Slyck, Free to All: Carnegie Libraries & American Culture,<br />
1890–1920 (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1995); Ellen Condliffe<br />
Lagemann, <strong>The</strong> Politics <strong>of</strong> Knowledge: <strong>The</strong> Carnegie Corporation, Philanthropy, and Public<br />
Polity (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan <strong>University</strong> Press, 1989).<br />
54. Rosemary Ruhig Du Mont, Reform and Reaction: <strong>The</strong> Big City Public Library<br />
in American Life (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977).<br />
55. Evelyn Geller, Forbidden Books in American Public Libraries, 1876–1939: A<br />
Study in Cultural Change (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984); Deanna B.<br />
Marcum, Good Books in a Country Home: <strong>The</strong> Public Library as Cultural Force in<br />
Hagerstown, Maryland, 1878–1920 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994);<br />
Douglas Raber, Librarianship and Legitimacy: <strong>The</strong> Ideology <strong>of</strong> the Public Library Inquiry<br />
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997).<br />
56. Bernard Berelson and Lester E. Asheim, <strong>The</strong> Library’s Public: A Report <strong>of</strong><br />
the Public Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press, 1949); Oliver<br />
Garceau, <strong>The</strong> Public Library in the Political Process (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong><br />
Press, 1949); Robert D. Leigh, <strong>The</strong> Public Library in the United States: <strong>The</strong> General<br />
Report <strong>of</strong> the Public library Inquiry (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press, 1950);<br />
and Alice Bryan, <strong>The</strong> Public Librarian (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press,<br />
1952).<br />
57. Kenneth J. Brough, Scholar’s Workshop: Evolving Conceptions <strong>of</strong> Library Service<br />
(Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1953); Arthur T. Hamlin, <strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong><br />
Library in the United States (Philadelphia: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Pennsylvania Press, 1981);<br />
27
28 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
Orvin Lee Shiflett, Origins <strong>of</strong> American Academic Librarianship (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex<br />
Publishing, 1981).<br />
58. Robin Winks, Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939–1961 (New<br />
York: William Morrow and Co., 1987); Ellen W. Schrecker, No Ivory Tower:<br />
McCarthyism & the Universities (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1986).<br />
59. Roger L. Geiger, Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Universities since<br />
World War II (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1993).<br />
60. Thomas S. Harding, College Literary Societies: <strong>The</strong>ir Contribution to Higher<br />
Education in the United States, 1815–1876 (Brooklyn: Pageant-Poseidon, 1971).<br />
61. Neil A. Radford, <strong>The</strong> Carnegie Corporation and the Development <strong>of</strong> American<br />
College Libraries, 1928–1941 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1984);<br />
Roland Conrad Person, A New Path: Undergraduate Libraries at United States and<br />
Canadian Universities, 1949–1987 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988);<br />
Charles B. Osburn, Academic Research and Library Resources: Changing Patterns in<br />
America (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979); David Kaser, <strong>The</strong> Evolution <strong>of</strong><br />
the American Academic Library Building (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1997);<br />
Richard D. Johnson, ed., Libraries for Teaching, Libraries for Research: Essays for a<br />
Century (Chicago: American Library Association, 1977).<br />
62. Jessie Carney Smith, Black Academic Libraries and Research Collections: An<br />
Historical Survey (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977).<br />
63. Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Leaders in American Academic Librarianship,<br />
1925–1975 (Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1983).<br />
64. Kenneth G. Peterson, <strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California Library at Berkeley,<br />
1900–1945 (Berkeley: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California Press, 1970); Charles R. Schultz,<br />
Making Something Happen: Texas A&M <strong>University</strong> Libraries, 1876–1976 (College<br />
Station: Texas A&M <strong>University</strong> Libraries, 1979); William S. Dix, <strong>The</strong> Princeton<br />
<strong>University</strong> Library in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton <strong>University</strong><br />
Press, 1978); Ellsworth Mason, <strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Colorado Library and Its Makers,<br />
1876–1972 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994); Douglas Ernest, Agricultural<br />
Frontier to Electronic Frontier: A History <strong>of</strong> Colorado State <strong>University</strong> Libraries, 1870–1995<br />
(Fort Collins: Colorado State <strong>University</strong>, 1996); Roscoe Rouse, Jr., A History <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Oklahoma State <strong>University</strong> Library (Stillwater: Oklahoma State <strong>University</strong> Press,<br />
1991); Betty I. Young, <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> the Women’s College, Duke <strong>University</strong>, 1930–1972<br />
(Durham, N.C.: Regulator Press, 1978); William Betinck-Smith, Building a Great<br />
Library: <strong>The</strong> Coolidge Years at Harvard (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press,<br />
1976).<br />
65. Mark Olsen and Louis-Georges Harvey, “Reading in Revolutionary<br />
Times: Book Borrowing from the Harvard College Library, 1773–1782,” Harvard<br />
Library Bulletin n.s. 4 (Fall 1993): 57–72.<br />
66. Phyllis Dain and John Y. Cole, eds., Libraries and Scholarly Communication in<br />
the United States: <strong>The</strong> Historical Dimension (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,<br />
1990).<br />
67. David C. Mearns, <strong>The</strong> Story Up to Now: <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, 1800–1946<br />
(Washington, D.C.: Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, 1947); Charles A. Goodrum, <strong>The</strong> Library<br />
<strong>of</strong> Congress (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974).<br />
68. Jane Aikin Rosenberg, <strong>The</strong> Nation’s Great Library: Herbert Putnam and the<br />
Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, 1899–1939 (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1993).<br />
69. Scott Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish: An American Life (Boston: Houghton<br />
Mifflin, 1992). Other biographical sketches can be found in Librarians <strong>of</strong> Congress,<br />
1802–1974 (Washington, D.C.: Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, 1977).
70. Donald R. McCoy, <strong>The</strong> National Archives: America’s Ministry <strong>of</strong> Documents,<br />
1934–1968 (Chapel Hill: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina Press, 1978); Herman<br />
Viola, <strong>The</strong> National Archives <strong>of</strong> the United States (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984);<br />
U.S. National Agricultural Library Associates, <strong>The</strong> National Agricultural Library: A<br />
Chronology <strong>of</strong> Its Leadership and Attainments, 1839–1<strong>973</strong> (Beltsville, Md.: Associates <strong>of</strong><br />
the National Agricultural Library, 1974); W. D. Miles, A History <strong>of</strong> the National<br />
Library <strong>of</strong> Medicine: <strong>The</strong> Nation’s Treasury <strong>of</strong> Medical Knowledge (Bethesda, Md.:<br />
National Library <strong>of</strong> Medicine, 1982).<br />
71. Kenneth Hafertepe, America’s Castle: <strong>The</strong> Evolution <strong>of</strong> the Smithsonian<br />
Building and Its Institution, 1840–1878 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution,<br />
1984).<br />
72. Burton K. Adkinson, Two Centuries <strong>of</strong> Federal <strong>Information</strong> (Stroudsburg, Pa.:<br />
Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, 1978). See also John V. Richardson, Jr., Government<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Education and Research, 1928–1986 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,<br />
1987).<br />
73. Fritz Veit, Presidential Libraries and Collections (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood<br />
Press, 1987).<br />
74. Pamela Spence Richards, Scholars and Gentlemen: <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> the New-York<br />
Historical Society, 1804–1982 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1984).<br />
75. Doris C. Dale, <strong>The</strong> United Nations Library: Its Origins and Development<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1970).<br />
76. Murphy D. Smith, Oak from an Acorn: A History <strong>of</strong> the American Philosophical<br />
Society Library, 1770–1803 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1976); H. L.<br />
Carson, A History <strong>of</strong> the Historical Society <strong>of</strong> Pennsylvania, 2 vols. (Philadelphia:<br />
Historical Society <strong>of</strong> Pennsylvania, 1940); Edwin Wolf, “At the Instance <strong>of</strong> Benjamin<br />
Franklin”: A Brief History <strong>of</strong> the Library Company <strong>of</strong> Philadelphia, 1731–1976<br />
(Philadelphia: Library Company <strong>of</strong> Philadelphia, 1976).<br />
77. William H. Whitehill, A Boston Atheneum Anthology, 1807–1972: Selected from<br />
His Annual Reports (Boston: Boston Atheneum, 1<strong>973</strong>); S. T. Riley, <strong>The</strong> Massachusetts<br />
Historical Society, 1791–1959 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1959); Jay<br />
Christian Bay, <strong>The</strong> John Crerar Library, 1895–1944: An Historical Report (Chicago:<br />
John Crerar Library, 1945); Rolf Achilles, ed., Humanities Mirror: Reading at the<br />
Newberry, 1887–1987 (Chicago: Newberry Library, 1987). See also Paul Finkelman,<br />
“Class and Culture in Late Nineteenth-Century Chicago: <strong>The</strong> Founding <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Newberry Library,” American Studies 16 (Spring 1975): 5–22.<br />
78. Donald C. Dickinson, Henry E. Huntington’s Library <strong>of</strong> Libraries (San Marino,<br />
Calif.: Huntington Library, 1995); J. E. Pomfret, <strong>The</strong> Henry E. Huntington Library<br />
and Art Gallery: From Its Beginnings to 1969 (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library,<br />
1969); Peter Duignan, ed., <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and<br />
Peace (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, Stanford <strong>University</strong>, 1985).<br />
79. A. H. MacCormick, A Brief History <strong>of</strong> Libraries in American Correctional<br />
Institutions (Chicago: American Library Association, 1970); Rudolph Engelbarts,<br />
Books in Stir: A Bibliographic Essay about Prison Libraries and about Books Written by<br />
Prisoners and Prison Employees (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1971).<br />
80. Ellis E. Mount, Ahead <strong>of</strong> Its Time: <strong>The</strong> Engineering Societies Library, 1913–1980<br />
(Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books, 1982); Anthony T. Kruzas, Business and Industrial<br />
Libraries in the United States, 1820–1940 (New York: Special Libraries Association,<br />
1965).<br />
81. Ada Winfred Johns, Special Libraries: Development <strong>of</strong> the Concept, <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
Organization, and <strong>The</strong>ir Services (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1968).<br />
29
30 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
82. Lawrence J. McCrank, Mt. Angel Abbey: A Centennial History <strong>of</strong> a Benedictine<br />
Community and Its Library, 1882–1984 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources,<br />
1983).<br />
83. Wayne A. Wiegand, “<strong>The</strong> Historical Development <strong>of</strong> State Library<br />
Agencies,” in Charles R. McClure, ed., State Library Services and Issues: Facing Future<br />
Challenges (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1986), 1–16.<br />
84. Michigan State Library, Michigan State Library, 1828–1928: One Hundred<br />
Years (Lansing: Michigan State Library, 1928); R. P. Bliss, A History <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Pennsylvania State Library (Harrisburg: Printed for the Pennsylvania Library<br />
Association by the Telegraph Press, 1937); A Gift from the State to Oregonians: A<br />
Half Century <strong>of</strong> Reading in Oregon, 1905–1955 (Salem: Oregon State Library, 1955);<br />
Cecil R. Roseberry, A History <strong>of</strong> the New York State Library (Albany: New York State<br />
Library, 1970).<br />
85. Henry L. Cecil and Willard A. Heaps, <strong>School</strong> Library Service in the United<br />
States: An Interpretive Survey (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1940).<br />
86. Margaret I. Rufsvold, History <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Libraries in the South (Nashville,<br />
Tenn.: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1934).<br />
87. Frederic D. Aldrich, <strong>The</strong> <strong>School</strong> Library in Ohio, with Special Emphasis on Its<br />
Legislative History (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1959).<br />
88. Harriet G. Long, Public Library Service to Children: Foundation and<br />
Development (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1969); Sara I. Fenwick, “Library<br />
Service to Children and Young People,” Library Trends 25 (July 1976): 329–60;<br />
K. L. Donelson, “Shoddy and Pernicious Books and Youthful Purity: Literary and<br />
Moral Censorship, <strong>The</strong>n and Now,” Library Quarterly 51 (January 1981): 4–19;<br />
G. P. Sorenson, “Removal <strong>of</strong> Books from <strong>School</strong> Libraries, 1972–1982: Board <strong>of</strong><br />
Education v. Pico and Its Antecedents,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Law and Education 12 (July 1983):<br />
417–41; Robert S. Martin, “Louis Round Wilson and the Library Standards <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Southern Association, 1926–1929,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 19 (Spring 1984):<br />
259–81.<br />
89. W. C. Berwick Sayers, A Manual <strong>of</strong> Classification for Librarians and<br />
Bibliographers, 3d ed., rev. (London: A. Deutsch, 1959); Leo Montagne, American<br />
Library Classification, with Special Reference to the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress (Hamden, Conn.:<br />
Shoe String Press, 1961); John Phillip Comaromi, <strong>The</strong> Eighteen Editions <strong>of</strong> the Dewey<br />
Decimal Classification (Albany, N.Y.: Forest Press, 1976).<br />
90. See my “‘Amherst Method’: <strong>The</strong> Origins <strong>of</strong> the Dewey Decimal<br />
Classification,” Libraries & Culture 33 (Spring 1998): 175–94.<br />
91. Michael Carpenter and Elaine Svenonius, eds., Foundations <strong>of</strong> Cataloging: A<br />
Sourcebook (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1985); Lois M. Chan, Phyllis A.<br />
Richmond, and Elaine Svenonius, eds., <strong>The</strong>ory <strong>of</strong> Subject Analysis: A Sourcebook<br />
(Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1985). See also Donald J. Lehnus,<br />
Milestones in Cataloging: Famous Catalogers and <strong>The</strong>ir Writings, 1835–1969 (Littleton,<br />
Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1974).<br />
92. Francis L. Miksa, <strong>The</strong> Subject in the Dictionary Catalog from Cutter to the Present<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1983). See also Julia Pettee, Subject<br />
Headings: <strong>The</strong> History and <strong>The</strong>ory <strong>of</strong> the Alphabetical Subject Approach to Books (New<br />
York: H. W. Wilson, 1946).<br />
93. Francis L. Miksa, <strong>The</strong> Development <strong>of</strong> Classification at the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress<br />
(Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong><br />
Science, Occasional Paper No. 164, 1984).<br />
94. Donald J. Lehnus, Book Numbers: History, Principles, and Application<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1980); John Phillip Comaromi, Book
Numbers: A Historical Study and Practical Guide to <strong>The</strong>ir Use (Littleton, Colo.:<br />
Libraries Unlimited, 1981); James Ranz, <strong>The</strong> Printed Book Catalogue in American<br />
Libraries, 1723–1900 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1964).<br />
95. K. Wayne Smith, ed., OCLC, 1967–1997: Thirty Years <strong>of</strong> Furthering Access to<br />
the World’s <strong>Information</strong> (New York: Haworth Press, 1998). See also Kathleen L.<br />
Maciusko, OCLC: A Decade <strong>of</strong> Development, 1967–1977 (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries<br />
Unlimited, 1984).<br />
96. Samuel Rothstein, <strong>The</strong> Development <strong>of</strong> Reference Services through Academic<br />
Traditions, Public Library Practice, and Special Librarianship (Chicago: American<br />
Library Association, 1955); Louis Kaplan, <strong>The</strong> Growth <strong>of</strong> Reference Service in the<br />
United States from 1876 to 1891 (Chicago: Association <strong>of</strong> College and Research<br />
Libraries, 1952).<br />
97. Scott Adams, Medical Bibliography in an Age <strong>of</strong> Discontinuity (Chicago:<br />
Medical Library Association, 1981).<br />
98. Klaus Musmann, Technological Innovations in Libraries, 1860–1960: An<br />
Anecdotal History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993); Barbra Buckner<br />
Higginbotham, Our Past Preserved: A History <strong>of</strong> American Library Preservation,<br />
1876–1910 (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990).<br />
99. Sarah K. Vann, <strong>The</strong> Williamson Reports: A Study (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow<br />
Press, 1971), and <strong>The</strong> Williamson Reports <strong>of</strong> 1921 and 1923 (Metuchen, N.J.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1971); Carl H. White, A Historical Introduction to Library Education:<br />
Problems and Progress to 1951 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1976).<br />
100. Sarah K. Vann, Training for Librarianship before 1923: Education for<br />
Librarianship Prior to the Publication <strong>of</strong> Williamson’s Report on Training for Library Service<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1961); Charles D. Churchwell, <strong>The</strong><br />
Shaping <strong>of</strong> American Library Education (Chicago: American Library Association,<br />
1975); C. Edward Carroll, <strong>The</strong> Pr<strong>of</strong>essionalization <strong>of</strong> Education for Librarianship, with<br />
Special Reference to the Years 1940–1960 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1970).<br />
101. Donald G. Davis, Jr., and Phyllis Dain, eds., “History <strong>of</strong> Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science,” Library Trends 34 (Winter 1986): 357–531; “Centennial<br />
Issue—I & II,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Education for Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science 26<br />
(Winter–Spring 1986): 139–81, 211–80.<br />
102. Robert Sidney Martin and Orvin Lee Shiflett, “Hampton, Fisk, and<br />
Atlanta: <strong>The</strong> Foundations, the American Library Association, and Library<br />
Education for Blacks, 1925–1941,” Libraries & Culture 31 (Spring 1996): 299–325.<br />
103. Ray Trautman, History <strong>of</strong> the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Service, Columbia <strong>University</strong><br />
(New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press, 1954); see also chap. 4 in my Irrepressible<br />
Reformer; C. H. Cramer, <strong>The</strong> <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Science at Case Western Reserve<br />
<strong>University</strong>: Seventy-Five Years, 1904–1979 (Cleveland: <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Science,<br />
Case Western Reserve <strong>University</strong>, 1979); Walter C. Allen and Robert F. Delzell,<br />
eds., Ideals and Standards: <strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Graduate <strong>School</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science, 1893–1993 (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois<br />
Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science, 1992); Benjamin F.<br />
Speller, Jr., ed., Educating Black Librarians: Papers from the Fiftieth Anniversary<br />
Celebration <strong>of</strong> the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Sciences (Jefferson, N.C.:<br />
McFarland & Co., 1991); John Richardson, Jr., <strong>The</strong> Spirit <strong>of</strong> Inquiry: <strong>The</strong> Graduate<br />
Library <strong>School</strong> at Chicago, 1921–51 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1982).<br />
104. Margaret F. Stieg, Change and Challenge in Library Science Education<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1992).<br />
105. Dennis Thomison, A History <strong>of</strong> the American Library Association, 1876–1972<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1978).<br />
31
32 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
106. Edward G. Holley, ed., Raking the Historic Coals: <strong>The</strong> ALA Scrapbook <strong>of</strong> 1876<br />
(Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1967).<br />
107. Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>The</strong> Politics <strong>of</strong> an Emerging Pr<strong>of</strong>ession: <strong>The</strong> American<br />
Library Association, 1876–1917 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986).<br />
108. Arthur P. Young, Books for Sammies: <strong>The</strong> American Library Association and<br />
World War I (Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1981).<br />
109. Gary E. Kraske, Missionaries <strong>of</strong> the Book: <strong>The</strong> American Library Pr<strong>of</strong>ession and<br />
the Origins <strong>of</strong> United States Cultural Diplomacy (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,<br />
1985); Louise S. Robbins, Censorship and the American Library: <strong>The</strong> American Library<br />
Association’s Response to Threats to Intellectual Freedom, 1939–1969 (Westport, Conn.:<br />
Greenwood Press, 1996).<br />
110. Donald G. Davis, Jr., <strong>The</strong> Association <strong>of</strong> American Library <strong>School</strong>s, 1915–1968:<br />
An Analytical History (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974).<br />
111. Alma C. Mitchell, ed., Special Libraries Association: Its First Fifty Years,<br />
1909–1959 (New York: Special Libraries Association, 1959); Elin B. Christianson,<br />
Daniel Nash Handy and the Special Library Movement (New York: Special Libraries<br />
Association, 1980).<br />
112. Irene S. Farkas-Conn, From Documentation to <strong>Information</strong> Science: <strong>The</strong><br />
Beginnings and Early Development <strong>of</strong> the American Documentation Institute–American<br />
Society for <strong>Information</strong> Science (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990).<br />
113. See, for example, Carolyn J. Bradley, “<strong>The</strong> Music Library Association:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Founding Generation and Its Work,” Music Library Association Notes 37 (1981):<br />
763–822; Stephen A. McCarthy, “<strong>The</strong> ARL at Fifty,” Advances in Library<br />
Administration and Organization 3 (1984): 277–85; Wayne A. Wiegand, “Library<br />
Politics and the Organization <strong>of</strong> the Bibliographical Society <strong>of</strong> America,” Journal<br />
<strong>of</strong> Library History 21 (Winter 1986): 131–57; and J. M. Edelstein, “<strong>The</strong><br />
Bibliographical Society <strong>of</strong> America, 1904–1974,” Papers <strong>of</strong> the Bibliographical Society<br />
<strong>of</strong> America 73 (October–December 1979): 389–433.<br />
114. Marjorie Fiske, Book Selection and Censorship: A Study <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> and Public<br />
Libraries in California (Berkeley: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California Press, 1959).<br />
115. L. B. Woods, A Decade <strong>of</strong> Censorship in America: <strong>The</strong> Threat to Classrooms and<br />
Libraries, 1966–1975 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1979).<br />
116. Pamela Spence Richards, Scientific <strong>Information</strong> in Wartime: <strong>The</strong> Allied-German<br />
Rivalry, 1939–1945 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994).<br />
117. David Kaser, Books and Libraries in Camp and Battle: <strong>The</strong> Civil War Experience<br />
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984); Wayne A. Wiegand, “An Active<br />
Instrument for Propaganda”: <strong>The</strong> American Public Library during World War I (Westport,<br />
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989).<br />
118. Redmond Kathleen Molz, National Planning for Library Service, 1935–1975<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1984); Mary Lee Bundy and Frederick J.<br />
Stielow, eds., Activism in American Librarianship, 1962–1<strong>973</strong> (Westport, Conn.:<br />
Greenwood Press, 1987).<br />
119. Edward G. Holley and Robert F. Schremser, eds., <strong>The</strong> Library Services and<br />
Construction Act: An Historical Overview from the Viewpoint <strong>of</strong> Major Participants<br />
(Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1983).<br />
120. Lloyd J. Houser and Alvin M. Schrader, <strong>The</strong> Search for a Scientific Pr<strong>of</strong>ession:<br />
Library Science Education in the U.S. and Canada (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press,<br />
1978); George E. Bennett, Librarians in Search <strong>of</strong> Science and Identity: <strong>The</strong> Elusive<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>ession (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988); Michael F. Winter, <strong>The</strong> Culture<br />
<strong>of</strong> Control and Expertise: Toward a Sociological Understanding <strong>of</strong> Librarianship (Westport,<br />
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988); Michael H. Harris and Stan A. Hannah, Into the
Future: <strong>The</strong> Foundations <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Services in the Post-Industrial Era<br />
(Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1993).<br />
121. Andrew Abbott, <strong>The</strong> System <strong>of</strong> Pr<strong>of</strong>essions: An Essay on the Division <strong>of</strong> Expert<br />
Labor (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1988).<br />
122. Thomas Augst, “<strong>The</strong> Business <strong>of</strong> Reading in Nineteenth-Century<br />
America: <strong>The</strong> New York Mercantile Library,” American Quarterly 50 (June 1998):<br />
267–305.<br />
123. I review this literature in “Out <strong>of</strong> Sight, Out <strong>of</strong> Mind: Why Don’t We<br />
Have Any <strong>School</strong>s <strong>of</strong> Library and Reading Studies?” Journal <strong>of</strong> Education for Library<br />
and <strong>Information</strong> Science 38 (Fall 1997): 314–26, and “<strong>The</strong>oretical Foundations for<br />
Analyzing Print Culture as Agency and Practice in a Diverse Modern America,”<br />
in James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse America<br />
(Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1998), 1–13.<br />
124. Steven Mailloux, Interpretative Conventions: <strong>The</strong> Reader in the Study <strong>of</strong> American<br />
Fiction (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell <strong>University</strong> Press, 1982); Jane Tompkins, Sensational<br />
Designs: <strong>The</strong> Cultural Work <strong>of</strong> American Fiction, 1790–1860 (New York: Oxford<br />
<strong>University</strong> Press, 1986); Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word: <strong>The</strong> Rise <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Novel in America (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1986); Ronald J. Zboray, A<br />
Fictive People: Antebellum Economic Development and the American Reading Public (New<br />
York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1993); Michael Denning, Mechanic Accents: Dime<br />
Novels and Working-Class Culture in America (New York: Verso, 1987); Janice Radway,<br />
Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill:<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina Press, 1991).<br />
125. Michel Foucault, Archeology <strong>of</strong> Knowledge and the Discourse <strong>of</strong> Language<br />
(New York: Pantheon, 1972); Jurgen Habermas, <strong>The</strong> <strong>The</strong>ory <strong>of</strong> Communication<br />
Action, vol. 1, Reason and the Rationalization <strong>of</strong> Society (Boston: Beacon, 1984);<br />
Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press,<br />
1992); Barbara Hernnstein Smith, Contingencies <strong>of</strong> Value: Alternative Perspectives for<br />
Critical <strong>The</strong>ory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1988); Michel de<br />
Certeau, <strong>The</strong> Practice <strong>of</strong> Everyday Life (Berkeley: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California Press,<br />
1984).<br />
126. Wolfgang Iser, <strong>The</strong> Act <strong>of</strong> Reading: A <strong>The</strong>ory <strong>of</strong> Aesthetic Response (Baltimore:<br />
Johns Hopkins <strong>University</strong> Press, 1978); Stanley Fish, Is <strong>The</strong>re a Text in This Class?<br />
<strong>The</strong> Authority <strong>of</strong> Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong><br />
Press, 1980); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and<br />
Spread <strong>of</strong> Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1991); Janice A. Radway, A Feeling for Books:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Book-<strong>of</strong>-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire (Chapel Hill:<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina Press, 1997). See also Jonathan Boyarin, ed., <strong>The</strong><br />
Ethnography <strong>of</strong> Reading (Berkeley: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California Press, 1993).<br />
127. Notable exceptions include Catherine S. Ross, “‘If <strong>The</strong>y Read Nancy<br />
Drew, So What?’: Series Book Readers Talk Back,” Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science<br />
Research 17 (Summer 1995): 201–36; Christine Pawley, “Better Than Billiards:<br />
Reading and the Public Library in Osage, Iowa, 1890–1895,” in Danky and<br />
Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse America, 173–99; Larry E. Sullivan and<br />
Lydia C. Schurman, eds., Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes: Dime Novels,<br />
Series Books, and Paperbacks (New York: Haworth Press, 1996); Cheryl Knott<br />
Malone, “Reconstituting the Public Library Users <strong>of</strong> the Past: An Exploration <strong>of</strong><br />
Nominal Record Linkage Methodology,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Education for Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science 39 (Fall 1998): 282–90.<br />
128. William Boyd, Jr., “Books for Young Businessmen: Mercantile Libraries in<br />
the United States, 1820–1865” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana <strong>University</strong>, 1975).<br />
33
34 L&C/American Library History Literature<br />
129. Douglas L. Zweizig, “Predicting Amount <strong>of</strong> Library Use: An Empirical<br />
Study <strong>of</strong> the Role <strong>of</strong> the Public Library in the Life <strong>of</strong> the Adult Public” (Ph.D.<br />
diss., Syracuse <strong>University</strong>, 1<strong>973</strong>), 15.<br />
130. See, for example, Douglas Waples and Ralph W. Tyler, What People Want to<br />
Read About: A Study <strong>of</strong> Group Interests and Survey Problems in Adult Reading (Chicago:<br />
American Library Association, 1931); Louis Round Wilson, <strong>The</strong> Geography <strong>of</strong><br />
Reading: A Study <strong>of</strong> the Distribution and Status <strong>of</strong> Libraries in the United States<br />
(Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1938).<br />
131. Esther Jane Carrier, Fiction in Public Libraries, 1876–1900 (New York:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1965); Fiction in Public Libraries, 1900–1950 (Littleton, Colo.:<br />
Libraries Unlimited, 1985). See also Stephen Karetzky, Reading Research and<br />
Librarianship: A History and Analysis (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).
Louis Shores and Library History<br />
Lee Shiflett<br />
Together with Wayne Shirley, Louis Shores began the American Library<br />
History Round Table in 1947. With the addition <strong>of</strong> N. Orwin Rush and John<br />
David Marshall, they dominated its proceedings for the first two decades.<br />
When Shores and Shirley turned over the control <strong>of</strong> the Round Table to<br />
Shore’s appointed successor, Michael H. Harris, and his democratically<br />
elected successors in 1972, the four founders left an organization that,<br />
though small, was popular and had focused the agenda <strong>of</strong> library history.<br />
<strong>The</strong> two keynote papers <strong>of</strong> the American Library History Round Table<br />
(ALHRT), those delivered by Louis Shores in San Francisco in 1947 and<br />
Stanley Pargellis at ALA Midwinter in Chicago in 1948, differ in details<br />
but share a common vision for the new round table. It should construct a<br />
history that could elevate the pr<strong>of</strong>essional consciousness <strong>of</strong> librarians.<br />
For Shores it was “the chronicling <strong>of</strong> our pr<strong>of</strong>essional achievement as<br />
manifested in the ever increasing dissemination <strong>of</strong> good ideas through<br />
libraries.” 1 To Pargellis it was the possibility that “librarians can take<br />
inspiration from the lives and achievements <strong>of</strong> the great librarians <strong>of</strong> the<br />
past.” 2 Shores and Pargellis shared a common perspective on history—a<br />
conservative position that both, in their original statements, directly contrasted<br />
to history as a social science. For them, the purpose <strong>of</strong> library history<br />
was to impress upon librarians the greatness <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s past<br />
leaders and to celebrate the importance <strong>of</strong> libraries in American society.<br />
Facts, dates, and data were not the materials from which history and<br />
libraries derived meaning. <strong>The</strong>y called for a history that commemorated<br />
rather than criticized and that inspired rather than informed. To be fair,<br />
it must be added that Pargellis allowed for “room in Clio’s pastures for<br />
every kind <strong>of</strong> animal, even social scientist’s history,” and Shores himself,<br />
while refusing to allow that degree <strong>of</strong> liberality, never insisted on any<br />
orthodoxy among the participants in the meetings <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT. It was<br />
sufficient that they shared his enthusiasm for history and libraries.<br />
Indeed, through the first twenty-five years <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT, Shores took<br />
delight in presentations that focused on the foibles and failures <strong>of</strong> the<br />
great librarians and always took greater delight in a well-told tale than<br />
in an appropriate moral.<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
36 L&C/Louis Shores and Library History<br />
Pargellis had been drafted for the duty and had no continuing involvement<br />
in the ALHRT. Shores, as its founder, did. From 1947 until 1970 he<br />
served as secretary <strong>of</strong> the new Round Table with his close friend, Wayne<br />
Shirley, as chairman. It was an informal organization at best. Apparently,<br />
for the first two decades <strong>of</strong> the Round Table’s existence, there were no<br />
by-laws governing the operations <strong>of</strong> the group. When asked about them<br />
in 1971 by ALA’s Flora Colton, N. Orwin Rush reported that Shores<br />
“seems to think that something was drawn up but is not sure,” and<br />
Wayne Shirley had no idea. 3 <strong>The</strong>re was never an <strong>of</strong>ficial membership<br />
list—Shirley and Shores and, later, Rush and John David Marshall simply<br />
passed around a pad <strong>of</strong> paper among the people attending the programs,<br />
and anyone signing the list was considered to be a member. <strong>The</strong>re were<br />
no dues to be paid, and there was no business meeting following the program.<br />
Life was simple. At each annual conference <strong>of</strong> the ALA, there was<br />
only the annual program meeting, usually arranged and orchestrated by<br />
Louis Shores himself.<br />
<strong>The</strong> papers delivered at the early meetings to a great extent followed<br />
the charge laid out by Shores and Pargellis. <strong>The</strong>y tended to exalt, to celebrate,<br />
and to promote the cause rather than to address significant<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession, but this seems more a function <strong>of</strong> the informality<br />
<strong>of</strong> the ALHRT than a philosophical principle <strong>of</strong> its founder and major<br />
<strong>of</strong>ficer. Many <strong>of</strong> the papers <strong>of</strong> the early Round Table were published in<br />
the Wilson Library Bulletin and other library publications, but many others<br />
were lost—they were simply discourses <strong>of</strong> the moment. Shores spent<br />
much more <strong>of</strong> his time trying to find people who could be cajoled into<br />
sharing their ideas and work with the frequently large audiences the<br />
Round Table meetings attracted than evaluating papers submitted for<br />
presentation. To this end, Shores tapped on his colleagues, his friends,<br />
his students, the friends <strong>of</strong> colleagues, the friends <strong>of</strong> friends, and the<br />
friends <strong>of</strong> students to fill the programs. In 1950 he had Hazel Pulling,<br />
who had served as assistant dean <strong>of</strong> the library school at Florida State<br />
<strong>University</strong> under Shores, and Carl Vitz, who had hired Shores as a page<br />
in the 1920s at the Toledo Public Library, on the program. Marian<br />
Manley, whom Shores knew from ALA committee work, spoke in 1952<br />
and again in 1954. David Berninghausen, chair <strong>of</strong> the ALA’s Intellectual<br />
Freedom Committee, <strong>of</strong> which Shores was a member, talked about the<br />
history <strong>of</strong> the committee in 1953, and Robert Lester <strong>of</strong> the Carnegie<br />
Foundation and Ben Powell, both <strong>of</strong> whom Shores had known well since<br />
the 1930s, shared the program in 1956. And, <strong>of</strong> course, Wayne Shirley<br />
was ever ready to step in when no suitable presentation could be found,<br />
as he did in 1959 and again in 1964. <strong>The</strong> list goes on but is probably not<br />
important, as Shores knew practically everyone in the library business by<br />
that time. Coincidence, <strong>of</strong> course, probably played a major role. Ellen
Schrecker, who delivered the paper at the morning session <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT<br />
on 27 June, 1998, was the daughter <strong>of</strong> the main speaker at the 1955<br />
meeting <strong>of</strong> the Round Table, Edwin Wolf II, who delivered an excellent<br />
paper on the Library Company <strong>of</strong> Philadelphia. 4 Wolf’s paper was exceptional,<br />
though. <strong>The</strong> number <strong>of</strong> presentations at ALHRT meetings that<br />
approached the quality <strong>of</strong> his effort were few. When Ed Holley reviewed<br />
John David Marshall’s 1961 compilation <strong>of</strong> the papers read before the<br />
ALHRT, An American Library History Reader, he noted the unevenness <strong>of</strong> the<br />
formal presentations and gave the clear impression that more <strong>of</strong> them<br />
should have been lost. 5<br />
While the meetings <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT were well attended, the impact <strong>of</strong><br />
the Round Table on the ALA itself was negligible. <strong>The</strong> published proceedings<br />
<strong>of</strong> the ALA conferences that summarized the round table meetings<br />
for the 1950s and 1960s frequently enough ignored the ALHRT,<br />
probably because Shores as secretary neglected to send in a report, and,<br />
when the proceedings did summarize the Round Table meetings, they<br />
<strong>of</strong>ten simply called ALHRT the “American History Round Table.”<br />
Though there had been a high level <strong>of</strong> interest in its programs, the<br />
ALHRT was looked upon by ALA staff members and those librarians who<br />
proudly “look to the future rather than the past” as, at best, a harmless<br />
hobby and, at worst, a waste <strong>of</strong> effort and time.<br />
It is quite obvious from the bibliographic work <strong>of</strong> Michael Harris that<br />
the ALHRT was not responsible for the renaissance in library history<br />
that Shores hoped for in the twenty-five years he controlled it. 6 Library<br />
history was being produced independently and without regard for the<br />
ALHRT, which remained, ultimately, an informal forum that perhaps<br />
delivered its greatest value to the ALA by providing intellectual entertainment<br />
in the midst <strong>of</strong> the dreary array <strong>of</strong> utilitarianism that fills an<br />
ALA annual conference.<br />
In 1968 the ALA Committee on Reorganization called for the regularization<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Round Table. <strong>The</strong> demand was that the ALHRT establish<br />
a formal membership with dues and by-laws and provide for the formal<br />
election <strong>of</strong> <strong>of</strong>ficers. Since the ALHRT had no real membership and never<br />
held business meetings, Shores and Shirley were in a quandary. Both<br />
were amenable to the reforms proposed by the ALA but were uncertain<br />
how to effect them, particularly since there was no mechanism by which<br />
someone could <strong>of</strong>ficially join the Round Table.<br />
In response to the ALA demand that the ALHRT conduct itself more<br />
as an ALA unit, Shores developed an elaborate justification <strong>of</strong> library history<br />
that, while failing to answer the questions posed by the ALA about<br />
the Round Table, did provide something <strong>of</strong> an agenda for the ALHRT<br />
when he detailed what the Round Table could do for ALA. He called for<br />
the writing <strong>of</strong> a history <strong>of</strong> the ALA, the publication <strong>of</strong> a directory <strong>of</strong><br />
37
38 L&C/Louis Shores and Library History<br />
librarians who had been assigned the duties <strong>of</strong> <strong>of</strong>ficial historians <strong>of</strong> their<br />
own libraries, the development <strong>of</strong> support for libraries to deal with their<br />
own archives, an ongoing bibliography <strong>of</strong> library history publications and<br />
works in progress, and support <strong>of</strong> oral history projects. He did not deal<br />
with the <strong>issue</strong>s raised by the ALA for by-laws and a membership list and<br />
ignored the demands for organizational accountability. 7<br />
<strong>The</strong>se ideas were not new for Shores. Since 1961 he had been trying to<br />
negotiate a grant from Crowell-Collier, publishers <strong>of</strong> Collier’s Encyclopedia,<br />
for which Shores served as editor-in-chief, to fund these and other projects<br />
through the ALA. It was an effort that Shores approached with his<br />
customary enthusiasm and pursued with vigor and one that, like too<br />
many <strong>of</strong> his projects and plans, achieved no results. 8<br />
While Shores thought his formal response to the demand that the<br />
ALHRT regularize its activities adequate, the ALA kept pressing. Shores<br />
and Shirley, both <strong>of</strong> whom were at that time faced with the prospect <strong>of</strong><br />
retiring soon, realized that a new generation needed to take over. While<br />
Shirley wished to continue the organization as it had operated since<br />
1947, he realized the impossibility <strong>of</strong> that course, and in 1969 N. Orwin<br />
Rush and John David Marshall took over as ALHRT <strong>of</strong>ficers, largely at<br />
the suggestion <strong>of</strong> Shirley, who wanted them as interim <strong>of</strong>ficers until the<br />
question <strong>of</strong> an <strong>of</strong>ficial membership could be resolved. 9 <strong>The</strong>y continued to<br />
serve unopposed until 1972, when what many considered a coup<br />
occurred, and Michael Harris was elected chair with David C. Libbey as<br />
secretary. Harris was a Marxist revisionist to whom the notion that history<br />
was to be in the service <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession was absurd. Harris represented<br />
a new generation <strong>of</strong> library historians for whom the ideals <strong>of</strong><br />
historical research were more compelling than pious hagiography and<br />
who seriously attempted to make sense <strong>of</strong> the historical record. For<br />
many, it was nothing less than the storming <strong>of</strong> the citadel.<br />
Harris’s election, however, was only a natural extension <strong>of</strong> Shores’s<br />
concern with the Round Table. Shores had known Harris for years and<br />
had been a mentor to the young librarian, encouraging him in his writings<br />
and his doctoral work. In March 1968 Shores had written Harris, who was<br />
then a doctoral student in the library school at Indiana <strong>University</strong>, to<br />
thank him for sending him an autographed copy <strong>of</strong> Harris’s Guide to<br />
Research in American Library History. Shores suggested to Harris that there<br />
were several research projects that he would like to see Harris undertake,<br />
all involving the significance <strong>of</strong> library history: “One <strong>of</strong> the jobs I’d<br />
like to see you do, because I think you could probably do it better than<br />
anybody else, is to study the impact on library history since World War II<br />
created by at least three, and possibly four, forces.” Shores went on to<br />
specify the ALHRT, the Library History Seminar Series, and the Journal<br />
<strong>of</strong> Library History as the first three. <strong>The</strong> fourth area was vague for Shores
ut had as its focus the relationship <strong>of</strong> library history to history as practiced<br />
in departments <strong>of</strong> history in colleges and universities. He wrote<br />
Harris: “It is my dream and hope that not only will history and historians<br />
influence the writing <strong>of</strong> library history, but I think there is a possibility<br />
that we who write library history may yet introduce a new dimension into<br />
historiography, provided we don’t tiptoe as we have with science and the<br />
scientific method.” With that, Shores, who had just retired as dean <strong>of</strong> the<br />
library school at Florida State <strong>University</strong>, passed the bucket to Harris,<br />
telling him, “I believe the new generation, <strong>of</strong> which you are a fine representative,<br />
will have the courage to stop being ancillary.” 10<br />
When it became inescapable that a real election had to be held, it was<br />
Shores who took Harris aside and told him what to do. Before the nominations<br />
could be closed, with the names <strong>of</strong> Rush and Marshall entered as<br />
the only people standing for election, Harris thrust his conference badge<br />
in front <strong>of</strong> Peggy Sullivan, the main speaker <strong>of</strong> that session, and asked<br />
her to submit his name. She did, and Harris was elected.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Round Table itself, it might be argued, did little more than provide<br />
entertainment for ALA conference attenders, but it did keep the cause <strong>of</strong><br />
library history alive and formed a sort <strong>of</strong> public advertisement for the<br />
more serious concerns <strong>of</strong> library historians. <strong>The</strong> ALHRT and its leader,<br />
Louis Shores, were directly responsible for the establishment <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History ( JLH) and the Library History Seminar series,<br />
both <strong>of</strong> which have become significant in the dissemination <strong>of</strong> research in<br />
library history. <strong>The</strong> JLH and the seminars were, from the beginning,<br />
designed as a forum for scholarly research and not for the informal displays<br />
<strong>of</strong> enthusiasm for history that the ALHRT programs had become.<br />
Indeed, Shores considered the JLH to have been his most significant contribution<br />
to library history. As its two founders prepared to turn over the<br />
forum to the next generation, Wayne Shirley felt the need to evaluate the<br />
contributions <strong>of</strong> the Round Table when he wrote Shores in 1968 about the<br />
future <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT:<br />
For 21 years we have provided programs at each Conference; nor<br />
have we asked for anything from ALA save a place to meet and a<br />
program announcement. In return we have, with the aid <strong>of</strong> John<br />
David Marshall, provided library school students with a much better<br />
knowledge than we had. All library schools buy the Marshall<br />
titles, and I was pleased the other day to note that Marshall,<br />
Shirley & Shores is still in print. 11 I feel also that in our own persons<br />
we have provided a sense <strong>of</strong> history as between us we have<br />
heard Dewey, Bowker, E. C. Williams and Putnam, and we have<br />
even had a speaker who knew Poole! We got out the list <strong>of</strong> founding<br />
fathers which LJ printed. Again and again our papers have<br />
39
40 L&C/Louis Shores and Library History<br />
appeared in LB [sic for LJ], WLB & ALA BULLETIN. . . . So I feel<br />
we have much more than repaid ALA for what they have done for us. 12<br />
Shirley was right. He, Shores, Marshall, and Rush kept the cause <strong>of</strong><br />
historical studies before the library community through a period <strong>of</strong><br />
increasing emphasis on technological change in libraries and through a<br />
period where research in library and information science was increasingly<br />
dominated by models derived from the social sciences. But the<br />
demands <strong>of</strong> the ALA for accountability and the movement <strong>of</strong> the library<br />
community for democratization within the confines <strong>of</strong> the ALA forced<br />
the opening <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT to a new generation <strong>of</strong> librarians, and, with<br />
the election <strong>of</strong> Harris in 1972, the rest is history.<br />
Notes<br />
1. Louis Shores, “<strong>The</strong> Importance <strong>of</strong> Library History,” in John David<br />
Marshall, comp., An American Library History Reader: Contributions to Library<br />
Literature (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961), 5.<br />
2. Stanley Pargellis, “Long Life to the Library History Round Table,” in ibid.,<br />
9–10.<br />
3. N. Orwin Rush to Flora Colton, 27 August 1971, 40/1/6-1 (20-2), American<br />
Library Association Archives, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Archives, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Illinois, Urbana.<br />
4. Ellen Schrecker, “A Lost Opportunity: Intellectual Freedom in Early Cold<br />
War America” (paper presented at the ALHRT, Washinton, D.C., 1998).<br />
5. Edward G. Holley, review <strong>of</strong> John David Marshall, An American Library<br />
History Reader (1961), College and Research Libraries 23 (July 1962): 349–50.<br />
6. Michael Harris, A Guide to Research in American Library History (Metuchen,<br />
N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1968), and Michael Harris, Fugitive Literature in Library<br />
Science (Albany: State <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New York, 1968).<br />
7. Louis Shores to Ruth Warneke, June 15, 1969, JA-4, Shores Papers, Florida<br />
State <strong>University</strong>, <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Information</strong> Studies, Tallahassee.<br />
8. Lee Shiflett, Louis Shores: Defining Educational Librarianship (Metuchen, N.J.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1996), 191–92.<br />
9. Wayne Shirley to Louis Shores, 18 July 1968, JA-4, Shores Papers.<br />
10. Louis Shores to Michael Harris, 27 March 1968, copy supplied by Michael<br />
Harris.<br />
11. Books, Libraries, Librarians: Contributions to Library Literature selected by John<br />
David Marshall, Wayne Shirley, and Louis Shores (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press,<br />
1955).<br />
12. Shirley to Shores, March 27, 1968, copy supplied by Michael Harris.
<strong>The</strong> Library History Round Table’s First<br />
Twenty-five Years: Reminiscences and Remarks<br />
on Recent Research<br />
John David Marshall<br />
This is a personal reminiscence <strong>of</strong> the first twenty-five years (1947–1972)<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Library History Round Table <strong>of</strong> the American Library Association.<br />
<strong>The</strong> lives <strong>of</strong> the two founders <strong>of</strong> the round table—Louis Shores and Wayne<br />
Shirley—are presented and then followed by a historical look at the founding<br />
and subsequent years <strong>of</strong> the organization.<br />
We cannot say “the past is past” without surrendering the future.<br />
Sir Winston Churchill<br />
First <strong>of</strong> all, let me say that I was not present at the creation <strong>of</strong> the American<br />
Library History Round Table (ALHRT) or at the 1972 meeting when<br />
the Wayne Shirley/Louis Shores era came to an end. I attended my first<br />
ALHRT meeting in 1956 during the American Library Association’s Miami<br />
conference, gave a paper at the 1961 meeting in Cleveland during ALA, and<br />
served as secretary, with N. Orwin Rush as chairman, from 1969 to 1972.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Pioneers<br />
For its first twenty-five years (1947–72), the ALHRT was Wayne Shirley and<br />
Louis Shores. For most <strong>of</strong> those years Shirley was chairman and Shores was<br />
secretary. I knew both Shores and Shirley well, the former for more than a<br />
quarter <strong>of</strong> a century, the latter for almost two decades. <strong>The</strong>se reminiscences<br />
are a mix derived from reading and some research as well as recollection,<br />
observation, and reflection. Let me begin by discussing the two founders <strong>of</strong><br />
this round table, and then let me review some <strong>of</strong> its early history.<br />
Louis Shores<br />
I first knew Louis Shores when I was his student (1950–51) at the Florida<br />
State <strong>University</strong> Library <strong>School</strong>, <strong>of</strong> which he was the founding dean. In<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
42 L&C/<strong>The</strong> LHRT’s First Twenty-five Years<br />
time I came to know him as a friend and colleague, fellow writer and editor.<br />
I became his bibliographer in 1964 and again in 1979, and I edited<br />
the first collection <strong>of</strong> his shorter writings published by Shoe String Press<br />
as Mark Hopkins’ Log and Other Essays by Louis Shores (1965).<br />
In any list <strong>of</strong> important librarians <strong>of</strong> the twentieth century Louis<br />
Shores (1904–81) would be in the top ten. For his teaching, his deanships<br />
(Peabody College Library <strong>School</strong> in Nashville, Florida State <strong>University</strong><br />
Library <strong>School</strong> in Tallahassee), his Fulbright year (1951–52) in the<br />
United Kingdom, his editorship <strong>of</strong> Collier’s Encyclopedia, his contributions<br />
to library literature, his passion for libraries as central to the educational<br />
process, his commitment to books, ideas, and people, librarians and readers,<br />
the world <strong>of</strong> librarianship owes much to Louis Shores. Few other<br />
librarians in this century have contributed so much to their pr<strong>of</strong>ession.<br />
His enthusiasm for library history surfaced early on when he wrote his<br />
doctoral dissertation, “<strong>The</strong> Origins <strong>of</strong> the American College Library,<br />
1638–1800,” at Peabody College. First published in book form in 1934 by<br />
George Peabody College for Teachers, this classic study in the history <strong>of</strong><br />
the American academic library was then published in 1935 by Barnes and<br />
Noble. It was reprinted in 1966 by Shoe String Press and in 1972 by<br />
Gregg Press. It remains today a landmark in the literature <strong>of</strong> library history,<br />
American or otherwise.<br />
Somewhat small <strong>of</strong> stature and with snow-white hair when I knew him,<br />
Shores spoke s<strong>of</strong>tly but had a great stage presence when he lectured. A<br />
Yankee by birth, he became the quintessential Southerner, spending the<br />
major part <strong>of</strong> his pr<strong>of</strong>essional career in Tennessee and Florida. He was a<br />
man <strong>of</strong> great charisma, with wide-ranging and varying interests.<br />
It has been said that to be great in a pr<strong>of</strong>ession one must first be a<br />
great human being. Louis Shores was a great librarian and teacher, a<br />
great human being. I cherish his memory, and I am very proud <strong>of</strong> the fact<br />
that he was my teacher and my friend.<br />
Wayne Shirley<br />
I first knew Wayne Shirley when he became one <strong>of</strong> the two co-editors<br />
(Louis Shores was the other) <strong>of</strong> my first book, titled Books-Libraries-<br />
Librarians, an anthology <strong>of</strong> library literature that the Shoe String Press<br />
<strong>issue</strong>d in 1955. Shirley (1900–73) was born in Franklin, New Hampshire.<br />
His father died when Wayne was six years old. Shortly thereafter, his<br />
mother, left with three small children to support, was appointed librarian<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Franklin Public Library. She held this position for thirty-five years.<br />
Although he did not receive a degree in library science until age twentyeight,<br />
Wayne liked to recall in later years that he had begun his library<br />
career by stamping books at the age <strong>of</strong> seven in his mother’s library.
Wayne attended Phillips Academy, Andover (class <strong>of</strong> 1918), and<br />
received the bachelor <strong>of</strong> science degree from Dartmouth College in 1922.<br />
Following graduation from college, he pursued a career in the business<br />
world for some five or six years. In 1928 he received the bachelor <strong>of</strong> library<br />
science degree from Pratt Institute Library <strong>School</strong>, Brooklyn, where one<br />
<strong>of</strong> his teachers was Josephine Adams Rathbone (ALA president,<br />
1931–32).<br />
After working at the New York Public Library (1928–29, 1932–34), the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New Hampshire (1929–32), and the Pratt Institute Library<br />
(1934–38), Wayne Shirley became dean <strong>of</strong> the Pratt Institute Library<br />
<strong>School</strong>, a position he held for seventeen years (1938–55). He succeeded<br />
Josephine Adams Rathbone, whose life and career he would consider in a<br />
paper given before the ALHRT in 1959. From Pratt he went to Finch<br />
College in New York City as librarian (1955–62). In 1962 he moved to<br />
Durham, New Hampshire, and commuted to Boston, where he was<br />
librarian <strong>of</strong> the Wentworth Institute Library for seven years (1962–69).<br />
He retired in 1969 and was elected to the New Hampshire legislature for<br />
the 1969–70 term. He died suddenly on 25 December 1<strong>973</strong>. His ashes<br />
were scattered on the New Hampshire land he loved so well.<br />
Wayne was a friendly, sociable individual with a New England accent<br />
that was to this native Southerner a delight to hear. He wrote to the<br />
library press from time to time. His letters to the editor were thoughtful,<br />
<strong>of</strong>ten witty, never dull. 1<br />
One <strong>of</strong> his essays, “An American Librarian’s Heritage,” was written for<br />
delivery on 4 May 1953, as a public lecture at Florida State <strong>University</strong>. It<br />
was published first in Challenges to Librarianship, edited by Louis Shores<br />
(1953), and was reprinted with minor changes in Books-Libraries-Librarians<br />
(1955). What Wayne Shirley had to say about our pr<strong>of</strong>essional and<br />
American heritage in 1953 is as valid today as it was then. It is a solid<br />
contribution to the literature <strong>of</strong> American library history.<br />
A bookman in the old-fashioned and best sense <strong>of</strong> that word, Wayne<br />
Shirley was a librarian with a keen wit and pawky sense <strong>of</strong> humor. He is<br />
remembered by his fellow librarians, students, and friends as a source <strong>of</strong><br />
encouragement and sound advice. 2 Louis Shores wrote <strong>of</strong> his long-time<br />
friend that Shirley would be best remembered for “his courageous commitment<br />
to constants in an age <strong>of</strong> perpetual celebration <strong>of</strong> change.” 3<br />
<strong>The</strong> Founding<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>of</strong>ficial program <strong>of</strong> the 1946 midwinter conference <strong>of</strong> the ALA lists<br />
“a discussion meeting to encourage study <strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> the library<br />
movement.” In Shores’s essay “<strong>The</strong> Library and Society,” he recalls that he<br />
and Wayne Shirley “went to Carl Milam some time during the summer<br />
43
44 L&C/<strong>The</strong> LHRT’s First Twenty-five Years<br />
<strong>of</strong> 1946 to plead for a library history meeting somewhere on the ALA<br />
convention program.” <strong>The</strong> ALA executive secretary “not only listened to<br />
[us] but provoked us to action.” 4<br />
It was at the sixty-sixth annual ALA conference in San Francisco (29<br />
June to 5 July 1947) that Benjamin E. Powell (Duke <strong>University</strong> Library)<br />
presented to the council a petition with the signatures <strong>of</strong> fifty ALA members,<br />
the number required to organize a round table. Powell moved that<br />
the proposal to establish a library history round table be approved. 5 <strong>The</strong><br />
motion was passed without debate because, as Wayne Shirley frequently<br />
recounted, “it was made at about 6 PM when matters go through<br />
quickly.” 6 Thus did the ALHRT become an <strong>of</strong>ficial unit <strong>of</strong> the ALA.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first meeting <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT was held on 30 June 1947, during that<br />
San Francisco conference. Both c<strong>of</strong>ounders presented papers. Shirley<br />
spoke on “<strong>The</strong> Decline and Fall <strong>of</strong> Adult Education.” His paper was later<br />
published in the Library Journal with the title “What Happened to Our<br />
Adult Education Hopes?” Shores spoke on “<strong>The</strong> Importance <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
History.” This landmark essay was published for the first time fourteen<br />
years later in my American Library History Reader.<br />
At the 1948 ALA midwinter meeting in Chicago, Stanley Pargellis<br />
(librarian <strong>of</strong> the Newberry Library) presented a paper titled “Long Life<br />
to the Library History Round Table.” This paper was published in the<br />
Wilson Library Bulletin and was reprinted in An American Library History<br />
Reader. <strong>The</strong> Library History Round Table (LHRT)—as it is called today<br />
after a name change in 1979—can be very proud <strong>of</strong> the fact that Shores’s<br />
and Pargellis’s papers, both frequently cited, were given before the<br />
ALHRT at its first and second meetings.<br />
As already noted, I attended my first ALHRT meeting in 1956. Three<br />
papers were given at this meeting: “Southern <strong>University</strong> Libraries in the<br />
Civil War” by Benjamin E. Powell; “Contributions <strong>of</strong> Louis Round Wilson<br />
to American Librarianship” by Maurice F. Tauber; and “<strong>The</strong> Carnegie<br />
Corporation and the Library Renaissance in the South” by Robert M.<br />
Lester.<br />
In 1959 I attended the ALA conference in Washington, D.C., and the<br />
ALHRT meeting held during that conference. Shirley presided and<br />
Shores served as secretary. Two papers were read at the meeting: “Mr.<br />
ALA: Carl Hastings Milam” by Emily Miller Danton and “Josephine<br />
Adams Rathbone” by Wayne Shirley. Both papers are reprinted in An<br />
American Library History Reader. Shores was scheduled to give a paper titled<br />
“My Favorite Library <strong>School</strong> Teachers”; he did not give this paper for<br />
some reason, and so far as I know he never gave it at any library conference,<br />
ALHRT or otherwise.<br />
My American Library History Reader—with a foreword by Wayne Shirley<br />
and Louis Shores—was scheduled for fall 1961 publication, and so Wayne
Shirley asked me to give a paper on “Life as a Weekend Anthologist” at<br />
the ALHRT meeting in Cleveland on 12 July 1961, when the annual ALA<br />
conference would be in progress. I was first on the program and was followed<br />
by Gerald D. McDonald (New York Public Library), who first<br />
described the Erastus Brooks Library, which had inspired two musical<br />
compositions. Following this part <strong>of</strong> McDonald’s presentation, Ralph<br />
Smith (New York Public Library) played the two compositions on the<br />
piano, to the delight <strong>of</strong> the audience. McDonald then proceeded with an<br />
account <strong>of</strong> “<strong>The</strong> Astor Library Ghost.” Jackson E. Towne (librarian emeritus,<br />
Michigan State <strong>University</strong> at East Lansing) was the third speaker<br />
with a paper on the life and career <strong>of</strong> the well-known book historian,<br />
Douglas C. McMurtrie (1888–1944).<br />
Wayne Shirley presided at the meeting. In the absence <strong>of</strong> secretary<br />
Louis Shores, who was spending the summer in England, Shirley drafted<br />
me to serve as secretary pro tempore with responsibility for preparing a<br />
report <strong>of</strong> the meeting to be published in the proceedings <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Cleveland conference. This report records that about a hundred individuals<br />
attended the meeting; in fact, 102 attended. 7 I still have the<br />
three-page “attendance roll” that attendees signed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> American Library History Round Table meetings during the<br />
Shirley/Shores years were always devoted entirely to a program—no minutes<br />
were read, no committee reports were given, no dues were collected.<br />
Unusual? Yes, but herein lay for many the appeal <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT: learn<br />
some library history and hear something “<strong>of</strong> those who were truly<br />
great”—or perhaps only near great. Any expenses the Round Table may<br />
have had (stamps, stationery, envelopes, telephone calls) were paid for by<br />
either Shirley or Shores. Shirley usually presided, opening the meetings<br />
with the greeting “Welcome, friends <strong>of</strong> American Library History.”<br />
Shores passed out a sheet or two <strong>of</strong> paper for those attending the meeting<br />
to sign. This document became the ALHRT membership roll. <strong>The</strong><br />
Shirley/Shores style <strong>of</strong> conducting Round Table meetings can perhaps<br />
best be described as a kind <strong>of</strong> formal informality.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Rush/Marshall Years<br />
When Shirley gave up the chairmanship in 1968, N. Orwin Rush<br />
(Florida State <strong>University</strong>) became chairman and continued to conduct<br />
meetings much in the Shirley manner. When Shores gave up the <strong>of</strong>fice <strong>of</strong><br />
secretary, he appointed me to be his replacement. I held this <strong>of</strong>fice for<br />
some four years (1969–72). <strong>The</strong> Round Table during the Rush/Marshall<br />
years differed very little from the Shirley/Shores years. I do not recall<br />
whether Rush and I were both ever present at Round Table meetings.<br />
When Rush was absent I assumed his responsibilities, and he assumed<br />
45
46 L&C/<strong>The</strong> LHRT’s First Twenty-five Years<br />
mine when I was not present. Two ALHRT meetings from our tenure<br />
merit comment here.<br />
In 1970 the ALHRT met during the ALA conference in Detroit from<br />
28 June to 4 July. Two papers on “<strong>The</strong> American Library in Paris” were<br />
given. Foster Mohrhardt (program <strong>of</strong>ficer for the Council on Library<br />
Resources) dealt with the history <strong>of</strong> the American Library in Paris from<br />
1960 to 1970. <strong>The</strong>odore Waller <strong>of</strong> the Grolier Educational Corporation<br />
spoke on the future <strong>of</strong> the American library.<br />
Attendance at this meeting was modest, exceedingly modest. No more<br />
than ten or twelve ALA folk attended. Among those few were Sir Frank<br />
Francis (director emeritus <strong>of</strong> the British Museum) and Lady Francis.<br />
Since N. Orwin Rush did not attend the 1970 meeting, I presided and<br />
introduced the speakers. For me the highlight <strong>of</strong> this meeting was the<br />
opportunity I had to meet and talk (however briefly) with Sir Frank and<br />
his wife. 8<br />
In 1972 the ALHRT observed its twenty-fifth anniversary. Louis Shores<br />
spoke on “<strong>The</strong> Library and Society.” In this paper he reminisced about the<br />
first twenty-five years <strong>of</strong> ALHRT, and you can read his paper in the<br />
July–October 1<strong>973</strong> <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History. I did not attend<br />
this meeting, and I doubt that Wayne Shirley attended, since he had been<br />
retired by this time for a number <strong>of</strong> years. He died in December 1<strong>973</strong>.<br />
Contested Version<br />
Lee Shiflett describes the 1972 meeting in detail in his carefully<br />
researched, eminently readable Louis Shores: Defining Educational<br />
Librarianship. This account appears to have been based in large measure<br />
on Shiflett’s interview with Michael Harris in Washington, D.C., on<br />
4 January 1989. This account, in my view, cannot be characterized as<br />
accurate, in the “extreme acceptance <strong>of</strong> the word without some risk <strong>of</strong><br />
terminological inexactitude,” 9 to use the words spoken by Winston<br />
Churchill in an address to the House <strong>of</strong> Commons on 22 February l906,<br />
to describe a great inaccuracy in a very different context. 10 According to<br />
Shiflett’s account, I was present at the meeting and was scheduled to<br />
nominate N. Orwin Rush to continue as chairman. I was to close the<br />
nominations immediately. However, as I have already noted, I was not at<br />
this meeting.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ALA <strong>of</strong>ficials had for some years not been too happy with the<br />
informal manner in which the ALHRT conducted its affairs. Louis Shores<br />
was aware <strong>of</strong> the ALA’s concerns and knew “the round table needed to<br />
have an actual election and that Rush and Marshall had no intention <strong>of</strong><br />
actually holding one.” Shores, according to Shiflett, wanted Michael<br />
Harris to be the next chairman <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT and had so indicated to
Harris, but “to be considered meant that he [Harris] had to be nominated<br />
in the moment between Marshall’s <strong>of</strong>ficial request for other names<br />
and his closing <strong>of</strong> the nominations.”<br />
From this account the reader <strong>of</strong> Shiflett’s Louis Shores can—and probably<br />
will—infer that Shores was attempting to manipulate the ALHRT election.<br />
Louis Shores was not a manipulator. Manipulation was simply not<br />
his style and was completely foreign to his manner <strong>of</strong> getting something<br />
accomplished.<br />
Shiflett records that Harris was nominated by Peggy Sullivan, that he<br />
was “narrowly elected and Shores, Shirley, Rush, and Marshall retired<br />
gracefully from the ALHRT.” 11 If by “retiring” from the ALHRT Shiflett<br />
means that I would no longer be active in the ALHRT, that is certainly<br />
true, for after the 1972 meeting I had no <strong>of</strong>ficial role in the Round Table.<br />
In fact, my “retirement” from the ALHRT really came at the end <strong>of</strong> the<br />
1970 meeting in Detroit. When, however, I have attended ALA conferences,<br />
which has not been <strong>of</strong>ten in the years since 1970, I have attended<br />
ALHRT meetings, and I well remember the 1976 meeting in Chicago<br />
during the observance <strong>of</strong> the ALA centennial. That the ALHRT meeting<br />
was devoted to “Historical Writings: Editorial Problems and<br />
Pleasures,” with George S. Bobinski and Howard W. Winger as speakers.<br />
Bobinski was serving on the editorial board <strong>of</strong> the Dictionary <strong>of</strong><br />
American Library Biography, which was published in 1978. Winger was<br />
editing the July 1976 library history <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Trends. Godfrey<br />
Dewey conveyed his best wishes to the ALA centennial conference via<br />
a tape-recorded greeting, symbolic <strong>of</strong> the Melvil Dewey presence at the<br />
1876 Conference <strong>of</strong> Librarians at which the ALA was founded. <strong>The</strong><br />
venue chosen by Melvil Dewey’s son for this greeting was, appropriately,<br />
the ALHRT meeting. 12<br />
ALHRT “First Cousins”<br />
As an ALHRT c<strong>of</strong>ounder and longtime <strong>of</strong>ficer, Louis Shores could and<br />
did involve the Round Table in the cosponsorship <strong>of</strong> the Library History<br />
Seminar. <strong>The</strong> venue for the first three seminars (1961, 1963, 1968) was<br />
the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Science at Florida State <strong>University</strong>. After the third<br />
seminar, various institutions, usually with library schools, have served as<br />
host for the seminar.<br />
In 1966 Shores founded the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History and published it at<br />
Florida State <strong>University</strong>. He served as editor for the first two volumes<br />
(1966, 1967) and then became editor emeritus from 1968 to 1976. In<br />
1976 the journal moved to the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas in Austin and in time<br />
became Libraries & Culture: A Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History. Shore’s editorial<br />
and advisory boards included several librarians who were identified with<br />
47
48 L&C/<strong>The</strong> LHRT’s First Twenty-five Years<br />
the ALHRT. Current members <strong>of</strong> the LHRT serve on the editorial board<br />
<strong>of</strong> Libraries & Culture.<br />
<strong>The</strong> LHRT at Fifty<br />
<strong>The</strong> observance <strong>of</strong> the fiftieth anniversary <strong>of</strong> the founding <strong>of</strong> the<br />
LHRT is indeed a time to celebrate. Both Louis Shores and Wayne<br />
Shirley would be pleased that their Round Table has enjoyed a halfcentury<br />
<strong>of</strong> life. <strong>The</strong> Round Table through these many years has provided,<br />
directly and indirectly, a forum for the presentation and discussion <strong>of</strong> a<br />
variety <strong>of</strong> topics in the history <strong>of</strong> libraries and librarianship. Perhaps<br />
more importantly, the Round Table has provided library history with a<br />
kind <strong>of</strong> visibility that would not be possible without it.<br />
<strong>The</strong> past is frequently more interesting than the present or the future.<br />
If we claim that “the past is past,” we surrender the future. A pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />
that neglects, forgets, or ignores its past is a pr<strong>of</strong>ession that has no<br />
future. <strong>The</strong> LHRT is one way <strong>of</strong> saying that library history is, as we enter<br />
a new century and a new millennium, alive and well. <strong>The</strong> LHRT insures<br />
that we do not say, “<strong>The</strong> past is past.”<br />
In 1998 the LHRT began the second half-century <strong>of</strong> its life. As library<br />
history aficionados celebrate the first fifty years, they, and those who<br />
come after them, can look forward with great interest to the Round<br />
Table’s next fifty years and beyond. In these years library history will<br />
inevitably change, and the topics to which the Round Table turns its<br />
attention will be different in many ways. But the enduring value <strong>of</strong><br />
recalling our past and remembering those who came before us will<br />
never change.<br />
Let there continue to be long life for the LHRT. And may Libraries &<br />
Culture enjoy a very long life with it. May it never, never, be available only<br />
on a CD-ROM or only in an electronic format!<br />
Notes<br />
l. A good example <strong>of</strong> Shirley’s style can be found in his letter to the editor in<br />
the Wilson Library Bulletin (February 1966) written in response to some less-thankind<br />
comments Jesse Shera had made in his WLB column (November 1965)<br />
about the ALHRT and the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, the first <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> which was<br />
published in January 1966.<br />
2. Marshall, “William Wayne Shirley.”<br />
3. Shores, “Wayne Shirley: In Memorium,” 291.<br />
4. Shores, “<strong>The</strong> Library and Society,” 143.<br />
5. ALA Bulletin 41 (15 September 1947): P–18.<br />
6. Marshall, ed., An American Library History Reader, xiii.<br />
7. American Library Association 80th Annual Conference Proceedings, 107.<br />
8. MTSU Librarian 43 (July 1970): 2. <strong>The</strong> MTSU Librarian (July 1967–August<br />
1976) was an in-house newsletter published on a regularly irregular schedule for
the Library Faculty and Staff <strong>of</strong> Todd Library, Middle Tennessee State <strong>University</strong>,<br />
Murfreesboro. It ceased publication with number 118.<br />
9. Churchill, “South Africa (Chinese Labour),” 88.<br />
10. <strong>The</strong>re are some other inexactitudes in the Shiflett biography that were<br />
missed when the manuscript was copyedited or pro<strong>of</strong>read: Resources and Adult<br />
Services Division (p. 272) should be Reference and Adult Services Division; Isadora<br />
Gilbert Mudge (p. 275) should be Isadore Gilbert Mudge. <strong>The</strong> new FSU library<br />
school building was dedicated on 21 November 1981; it was not, as Shiflett states<br />
(p. 273), named for Louis Shores at the dedication. <strong>The</strong> building was named for<br />
him on 15 October 1983. Shiflett states in his biographical sketch <strong>of</strong> Shores published<br />
in the supplement to the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography that the<br />
library school building was named for Shores in 1985. As something <strong>of</strong> a footnote<br />
to this note, let me record that Mrs. Shores died on 24 September 1983. She did<br />
know that the library school building was to be named for her husband.<br />
11. Shiflett, Louis Shores, 261–62.<br />
12. MTSU Librarian 117 (July 1976): 2.<br />
References<br />
American Library Association 80th Annual Conference Proceedings, Cleveland, Ohio, July<br />
9–15, 1961. Chicago: American Library Association, [1961].<br />
Churchill, Winston S. “South Africa (Chinese Labour), February, 22, 1906.” In<br />
Robert Rhodes James, ed., Churchill Speaks . . . Collected Speeches 1897–1963. New<br />
York: Chelsea House, 1980, 87–91.<br />
Marshall, John David, ed. An American Library History Reader. Hamden, Conn.:<br />
Shoe String Press, 1961.<br />
———. “As I Remember Wayne Shirley.” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 9 (October<br />
1974): 293.<br />
———. Louis Shores, Author-Librarian: A Bibliography. Tallahassee: Gamma<br />
Chapter, Beta Phi Mu, Florida State <strong>University</strong> <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Science,<br />
1979.<br />
———. “William Wayne Shirley (1900–1<strong>973</strong>).” In Bohdan S. Wynar, ed.,<br />
Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited,<br />
1978, 484–85.<br />
Pargellis, Stanley. “Long Life to the Library History Round Table.” In John David<br />
Marshall, ed., An American Library History Reader. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String<br />
Press, 1961, 8–14. Also published in Wilson Library Bulletin 22 (April 1948):<br />
601–3.<br />
Powell, Lawrence Clark. “Of Those Who Were Truly Great.” Library Journal 87<br />
(October 1962): 3404.<br />
Rush, N. Orwin. “Wayne Shirley, 1900–1<strong>973</strong>: An Appreciation.” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
History 9 (October 1974): 294–95.<br />
Shera, Jesse. “Without Reserve: A Renaissance in Library History?” Wilson Library<br />
Bulletin 40 (November 1965): 281.<br />
Shiflett, Lee. Louis Shores: Defining Educational Librarianship. Lanham, Md.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1996.<br />
———. “Louis Shores (1904–1981).” In Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Supplement to the<br />
Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited,<br />
1990, 123–29.<br />
Shirley, Wayne. “An American Librarian’s Heritage.” In John David Marshall,<br />
Wayne Shirley, and Louis Shores, eds., Books-Libraries-Librarians. Hamden,<br />
Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1955, 278–91.<br />
49
50 L&C/<strong>The</strong> LHRT’s First Twenty-five Years<br />
———. “Letters to the Editor.” Wilson Library Bulletin 40 (February 1966): 500.<br />
———. “What Happened to Our Adult Education Hopes?” Library Journal<br />
(November 1947): 1503–7.<br />
Shores, Louis. “<strong>The</strong> Importance <strong>of</strong> Library History.” In John David Marshall, ed.,<br />
An American Library History Reader. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961,<br />
3–7. Also published in Mark Hopkins’ Log and Other Essays by Louis Shores. Selected<br />
by John David Marshall. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1964, 50–55.<br />
———. “<strong>The</strong> Library and Society.” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 8 (July–October<br />
1<strong>973</strong>): 143–49.<br />
———. Quiet World . . . <strong>The</strong> Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Autobiography <strong>of</strong> Louis Shores. Hamden,<br />
Conn.: Linet Books/Shoe String Press, 1975.<br />
———. “Wayne Shirley: In Memorium.” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 9 (October<br />
1974): 291–92.
Library Feminism and Library Women’s History:<br />
Activism and Scholarship, Equity and Culture<br />
Suzanne Hildenbrand<br />
This essay places the development <strong>of</strong> library women’s history in the context<br />
<strong>of</strong> library feminism and American history. <strong>The</strong> equity or fairness orientation,<br />
evident in the earlier years, is today challenged by a cultural<br />
orientation in both library feminism and library women’s history.<br />
Women’s history has its roots in feminist activism, and library women’s<br />
history is similarly rooted in library feminist activism. While the national<br />
political context and its vagaries influence feminists and historians <strong>of</strong><br />
women and their library counterparts, library feminists and library<br />
women’s historians must also contend with the pr<strong>of</strong>essional context <strong>of</strong> a<br />
female-intensive occupation. In that context it is conventional wisdom<br />
that women are responsible for the problems facing the pr<strong>of</strong>ession,<br />
including low status and salaries. This view inhibits both feminist<br />
activism and scholarship on women. 1 An additional feature <strong>of</strong> the library<br />
context in recent years has been the threat <strong>of</strong> a takeover <strong>of</strong> librarianship<br />
by information science (IS), which may signal an end to historical studies.<br />
Despite these obstacles, library women’s history flourishes, though it<br />
increasingly reflects the conservatism <strong>of</strong> the age.<br />
This essay begins with a view <strong>of</strong> the relationship between the status <strong>of</strong><br />
women and the place <strong>of</strong> women in library history during the earliest<br />
years <strong>of</strong> the half-century that the American Library History Round Table<br />
(ALHRT) celebrates in this <strong>issue</strong>. It will move on to a review <strong>of</strong> the links<br />
between library feminism from the equity orientation <strong>of</strong> the liberal 1960s<br />
to the cultural emphasis <strong>of</strong> the conservative 1990s. In addition, it will<br />
relate library women’s history to pr<strong>of</strong>essional or internal politics.<br />
Consensus: <strong>The</strong> Aftermath <strong>of</strong> World War II and the Cold War<br />
As the nation focused on the threat by actual or potential enemies<br />
from outside its borders, schisms within and tensions between internal<br />
groups were overlooked. Cold War culture is frequently described as one<br />
<strong>of</strong> complacency and conservatism, emphasizing traditional domestic<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
52 L&C/Library Feminism<br />
roles. Historians have given the label “consensus” to the history written<br />
during this period, reflecting the lack <strong>of</strong> conflict. While this period is<br />
undergoing reassessment among historians, two features significant to<br />
library feminism and to the writing <strong>of</strong> library women’s history can be<br />
noted. First, while educated American women were breaking records for<br />
births, they were also increasingly holding jobs outside the home both<br />
before and after marriage and motherhood. Most <strong>of</strong> the jobs held by the<br />
latter were part-time, some in libraries. Part-time employment for<br />
women, mothers especially, was a pressing need. Second, the role <strong>of</strong> the<br />
federal government, in expansion since the 1930s, grew ever more<br />
rapidly. <strong>The</strong> fifties and sixties, which some have called the “Golden Age”<br />
<strong>of</strong> librarianship, brought libraries a bonanza in federal support for construction<br />
and development. Libraries seemingly became more important,<br />
due primarily to the large youth population attending school and needing<br />
libraries. Calls for more men to enter the pr<strong>of</strong>ession, particularly to fill<br />
administrative positions, became common.<br />
A review <strong>of</strong> the library literature <strong>of</strong> the period reveals contradictory<br />
trends: a gradual accumulation <strong>of</strong> data documenting the second-class<br />
place <strong>of</strong> women in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession and the growth <strong>of</strong> a library history<br />
oblivious to that place. Alice Bryan’s study clearly identified the position<br />
<strong>of</strong> women in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession and exposed the “dual career structure,” with<br />
women in lower-level positions earning less than men. 2 This finding came<br />
to be cited <strong>of</strong>ten, although it was generally ignored by the reviewers <strong>of</strong><br />
the study, most <strong>of</strong> whom were men. Scattered periodical articles also<br />
attacked the recruitment <strong>of</strong> men, especially for leadership roles. Boldest<br />
<strong>of</strong> these was Ralph Munn’s 1949 warning against the growing trend <strong>of</strong><br />
hiring men, regardless <strong>of</strong> their qualifications. 3 <strong>The</strong> gender imbalance<br />
among librarians in Who’s Who in America was even noted. 4<br />
Yet in the major library history monograph <strong>of</strong> this period, Sidney H.<br />
Ditzion congratulated librarianship for its inclusion <strong>of</strong> women “on an<br />
equal basis with men.” 5 Employing a typical consensus approach, Ditzion<br />
ignored long-standing gender stratification in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession justified by<br />
early leaders like Dewey. Instead, he stressed how the supposedly equal<br />
place <strong>of</strong> women in American libraries impressed travelers from abroad.<br />
That is, women’s place in librarianship became an occasion for pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
and patriotic puffery.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is only scattered historical literature on women, most <strong>of</strong> it biographical,<br />
in this period. Martha Boaz wrote a sentimental life <strong>of</strong> Althea<br />
Warren, director <strong>of</strong> the Los Angeles Public Library and her longtime<br />
friend. 6 If there was a paucity <strong>of</strong> historical literature in the period on<br />
white women in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession, the situation for women <strong>of</strong> color was generally<br />
worse. One notable, though brief, piece detailed the life <strong>of</strong> Sadie<br />
Delaney, an African-American librarian who developed bibliotherapy
while working with African-American veterans in a segregated Veterans<br />
Administration hospital. 7<br />
Approaching the crucible <strong>of</strong> the sixties, library women lacked an accurate<br />
place in pr<strong>of</strong>essional history. <strong>The</strong>ir role was misrepresented as evidence<br />
<strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional egalitarianism. A meager foundation was available<br />
upon which to build a feminist consciousness that would demand a new<br />
library history.<br />
Equity Issues: <strong>The</strong> Sixties and Beyond<br />
<strong>The</strong> sixties were a turbulent age, remembered for protests, riots,<br />
demonstrations, and assassinations. Demands from a wide variety <strong>of</strong><br />
groups for equity, or justice and fairness, fueled the passage <strong>of</strong> numerous<br />
reforms. Betty Friedan’s 1963 publication <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> Feminine Mystique is generally<br />
thought <strong>of</strong> as marking a rebirth in feminism, <strong>of</strong>ten called the “second<br />
wave” to distinguish it from the first, which began in the nineteenth<br />
century. 8<br />
<strong>The</strong> rebirth <strong>of</strong> feminism stimulated a desire for greater academic<br />
study <strong>of</strong> women and for recognition that women were largely invisible or<br />
hidden in traditional history. Without a role in history, women were<br />
denied a vital tool for contemporary and future attainment. Historical<br />
studies were, therefore, linked to a reform agenda. Library feminism<br />
developed, but slowly, as library women were burdened with their supposed<br />
responsibility for the problems <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession. Library feminists<br />
noted early how few <strong>of</strong> their predecessors had made it into biographical<br />
reference tools or histories <strong>of</strong> the field and related this to the state <strong>of</strong><br />
contemporary library women.<br />
<strong>The</strong> upsurge in library feminism in this period is attested to by the creation<br />
within the American Library Association (ALA) <strong>of</strong> the Feminist<br />
Task Force (FTF) in 1970, followed by the independent Women Library<br />
Workers (WLW) in 1975. <strong>The</strong> Committee on the Status <strong>of</strong> Women in<br />
Librarianship (COSWL) was formed in 1976. Pr<strong>of</strong>essional journals<br />
devoted special <strong>issue</strong>s to the status <strong>of</strong> women. In addition, ALA programs<br />
began to reflect a feminist influence; for example, Wilma Scott Heide <strong>of</strong><br />
the National Organization for Women spoke at the 1<strong>973</strong> annual conference.<br />
<strong>The</strong> declining status <strong>of</strong> women, due at least partially to the policy<br />
<strong>of</strong> recruiting men for top jobs, was noted. A news item in the Library<br />
Journal announced: “Losses in Directorships for Women Pegged.” 9 In<br />
addition, there were increasing protests about the unsatisfactory pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
climate for women who had domestic responsibilities as wives and<br />
mothers.<br />
At least two important works confronted the meaning <strong>of</strong> feminization<br />
squarely, one clearly historical and one drawing heavily on historical<br />
53
54 L&C/Library Feminism<br />
background. Sharon B. Wells provided a historical study <strong>of</strong> feminization<br />
in her 1967 master’s thesis at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago. 10 She <strong>of</strong>fered a<br />
careful description <strong>of</strong> the process <strong>of</strong> feminization, noting that it accompanied<br />
rapid growth in the number and size <strong>of</strong> libraries. She detailed the<br />
inferior status <strong>of</strong> women in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession during the period examined.<br />
Anita Schiller showed that the case against women was so weak that it<br />
could be turned on its head. 11 That is, it was impossible to determine<br />
whether the low salaries were responsible for the presence <strong>of</strong> all the<br />
women or whether women were responsible for the low salaries, as had<br />
been claimed for so long. With more opportunities for employment, men<br />
generally refused to work for the salaries libraries could pay, and women,<br />
with fewer opportunities, took these jobs. In addition, she provided an<br />
overview <strong>of</strong> the research on her subject, going back to the first employment<br />
<strong>of</strong> women in libraries and stressing how little study had been done.<br />
Kathleen Weibel and Kathleen Heim, feminist activists, edited a documentary<br />
history <strong>of</strong> women, primarily in American libraries, that illustrated<br />
well what women had faced within librarianship. 12 <strong>The</strong><br />
publication <strong>of</strong> this collection provided a major boost to library women’s<br />
history as it has served as the starting point for much subsequent<br />
research. It stimulated commitment to an ongoing bibliographic project<br />
that <strong>issue</strong>s On Account <strong>of</strong> Sex, an annotated bibliography, every five years. 13<br />
Elfrieda B. McCauley’s dissertation at the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Service at<br />
Columbia <strong>University</strong> studied a group <strong>of</strong> mill girls and their role in the<br />
development <strong>of</strong> early New England libraries. Her approach would be<br />
influential even though, as with Wells’s work, it was not published in<br />
book form. 14<br />
Not surprisingly, since leadership had been emphasized both by those<br />
insisting that male leaders would bring higher status and by feminists<br />
demanding more women leaders, biographies <strong>of</strong> women leaders in the<br />
past became a major subject <strong>of</strong> research. Laurel Grotzinger’s study <strong>of</strong><br />
Katharine Sharp, based on her dissertation at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois,<br />
was an outstanding early work that remains a classic. 15 It foreshadowed<br />
Grotzinger’s further work in biography. “Women in the Past as Leaders”<br />
was the theme <strong>of</strong> the first ALHRT program on women’s <strong>issue</strong>s held in 1974<br />
with Grotzinger and Patricia Brown Pond participating. Ina Coolbrith,<br />
California poet laureate and librarian, was described in the full-length<br />
work by Josephine deWitt Rhodehmel and Raymund Francis Wood. 16<br />
Some early library women sought collective solutions to pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
problems. <strong>The</strong> topic <strong>of</strong> women and library unionization was explored by<br />
James T. Milden. 17<br />
Little was published on women in children’s services or on women <strong>of</strong><br />
color. A brief article by Margo Sasse noted some prominent pioneers in<br />
children’s services, while a <strong>School</strong> Library Journal editorial entitled “A
Monumental Checkup” described some founders <strong>of</strong> children’s services. 18<br />
One collection contained brief memoirs by outstanding librarians <strong>of</strong><br />
color, including Augusta Baker, who was known primarily for her work in<br />
children’s services and who was the first black administrator in the New<br />
York Public Library. 19 Virginia Lacy Jones recalled the racism she<br />
encountered while pursuing her library degree in Illinois, while Jessie<br />
Carney Smith recalled the preference shown for male directors. 20 Among<br />
others are Binnie Tate, Louise Moses, and Vivian Davidson Hewitt. 21<br />
Yet it is important to remember that throughout this reform period,<br />
with feminism evidently flourishing and talk <strong>of</strong> “liberation” and “sisterhood”<br />
seemingly everywhere, library women continued to find themselves<br />
blamed for the low status, and consequent low salaries, <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession.<br />
Still Blaming Library Women<br />
Library leaders interested in pr<strong>of</strong>essionalizing librarianship organized a<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago conference on the topic. Several sociologists <strong>of</strong> note<br />
took part, including Peter Rossi, who observed that “women depress the<br />
status <strong>of</strong> an occupation.” He recommended masculinization, particularly<br />
at the top. 22 That is, further inequity or discrimination against women was<br />
<strong>of</strong>fered as the solution to the problems <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession during this<br />
reform age, and there appears to have been no protest in response.<br />
<strong>The</strong> work <strong>of</strong> Rutgers <strong>University</strong> social historian Dee Garrison on librarianship<br />
and gender appeared during the 1970s. A 1<strong>973</strong> journal article<br />
foreshadowed the thesis <strong>of</strong> her 1979 monograph Apostles <strong>of</strong> Culture: <strong>The</strong><br />
Public Librarian and American Society, 1876–1920. 23 Garrison accepted<br />
unquestioningly the conventional wisdom regarding the low status <strong>of</strong><br />
librarianship in the pr<strong>of</strong>essional world. According to Garrison, “female<br />
dominance <strong>of</strong> librarianship did much to shape the inferior and precarious<br />
status <strong>of</strong> the public library as a cultural resource.” 24 <strong>The</strong> response in<br />
library literature was generally very positive. <strong>The</strong> reviewers in pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
journals gave almost uniformly good reviews. Garrison was<br />
rewarded by being asked to participate in the 1976 centenary anniversary<br />
program and on the Committee on Accreditation.<br />
Garrison’s version <strong>of</strong> library history and the role <strong>of</strong> women in it is<br />
widely accepted and has become the standard history <strong>of</strong> the topic for<br />
those outside the pr<strong>of</strong>ession. Most recently, women librarians have been<br />
linked to “purity” crusades on the basis <strong>of</strong> her work. 25<br />
Expansion and Evolution: <strong>The</strong> Eighties<br />
As the eighties dawned both feminist activism and library women’s history<br />
flourished and expanded. Many projects begun earlier came to<br />
55
56 L&C/Library Feminism<br />
fruition. Affirmative Action and pay equity were major <strong>issue</strong>s. In<br />
response, the ALA produced a detailed statistical study entitled <strong>The</strong><br />
Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Composition <strong>of</strong> Library Staff in Academic and Public<br />
Libraries in 1981. 26 <strong>The</strong> first volume in the bibliographic series On Account<br />
<strong>of</strong> Sex appeared in 1984. <strong>The</strong> ALA Yearbook, from its first volume in 1976,<br />
carried articles on the status <strong>of</strong> women in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession. 27 Data for the<br />
comparison <strong>of</strong> female and male earnings were increasingly available. <strong>The</strong><br />
ALA Equality Award was established in 1984. Betty Jo Irvine’s important<br />
study Sex Segregation in Librarianship: Demographic and Career Patterns <strong>of</strong><br />
Academic Library Administrators illustrated the importance <strong>of</strong> Affirmative<br />
Action in improving women’s representation in the administration <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Association <strong>of</strong> Research Libraries. 28 Blaming library women for the pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s<br />
woes was considerably muted.<br />
Library women’s history flourished; there were two ALHRT programs<br />
on women’s library history. <strong>The</strong>ir titles show the feminist roots <strong>of</strong><br />
women’s library history: “Women in Library History: Liberating Our<br />
Past” (1982) and “<strong>The</strong> Creation <strong>of</strong> the Patriarchy: Its Implications for<br />
Librarianship” (1988). <strong>The</strong> latter featured Gerda Lerner, the dean <strong>of</strong><br />
women’s historians. <strong>The</strong> comparative method, long important in<br />
women’s studies, was featured in the former in a paper by Barbara Brand<br />
that compared librarianship with other female-intensive pr<strong>of</strong>essions. 29<br />
Grotzinger presented a paper on the consequences to women <strong>of</strong> their<br />
omission from biographical reference tools in librarianship. 30<br />
Other important papers <strong>of</strong> the period included Brand’s analysis <strong>of</strong> sex<br />
typing in occupations and Nancy O’Brien’s examination <strong>of</strong> the policy <strong>of</strong><br />
recruiting men following World War II. 31 Mary Niles Maack, in a piece on<br />
women in library education, showed how reforms for the good <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />
had worked against women. 32 Mary Biggs, perhaps stung by the<br />
Garrison thesis, analyzed the conservatism on women’s <strong>issue</strong>s that has<br />
characterized the pr<strong>of</strong>ession. 33 I also presented a critique <strong>of</strong> the Garrison<br />
book. 34<br />
Although biographical studies were still popular, a newer, more sophisticated<br />
methodology had emerged. Groups <strong>of</strong> librarians were examined<br />
using a common set <strong>of</strong> variables, permitting greater generalizations than<br />
does the study <strong>of</strong> a single life. James Carmichael examined Atlanta’s public<br />
librarians, and Joanne Passet examined a group <strong>of</strong> midwestern women<br />
academic librarians. 35 Two autobiographies <strong>of</strong> leaders were published<br />
during this period. Mary Gaver’s autobiography shed considerable light on<br />
the career <strong>of</strong> a prominent school librarian, and Martha Boaz, librarian and<br />
library educator, detailed her own life and career. 36 Lesbian life in librarianship<br />
has been difficult to study due to the subject’s need for security.<br />
Edith Guerrier’s autobiography, published years after her death, did little<br />
to illuminate the career or personal life <strong>of</strong> a lesbian but detailed instead<br />
her involvement in the cultural life <strong>of</strong> her times. 37
Library women were vulnerable, as were others in women’s studies, to<br />
charges that they wrote primarily about middle-class white women. Lelia<br />
G. Rhodes reviewed her oral history research on outstanding African-<br />
American women librarians, including Eliza Gleason and Dorothy<br />
Porter. 38 Annette Phinazee edited the papers given at a colloquium on<br />
black librarians in the Southeast. 39 <strong>The</strong> papers <strong>of</strong>fer brief identification<br />
<strong>of</strong> some noteworthy women. Work was begun in 1988 on an oral history<br />
<strong>of</strong> women <strong>of</strong> color in librarianship, although the collection was not published<br />
until 1999. 40<br />
While scholarship on library women’s history, firmly rooted in the<br />
equity tradition, continued to gain momentum, depth, and breadth during<br />
this period, changes in the political context fostered new challenges.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Ambiguous Nineties<br />
<strong>The</strong> nineties presented many paradoxes and contrasts for women’s<br />
studies in general and library women’s history in particular. <strong>The</strong> conservative<br />
political climate was characterized by a turning away from equity<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s, as evidenced by assaults on Affirmative Action and pay equity.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was a growing gap between academic women and activist women<br />
in the community as the former turned increasingly to theoretical studies.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se theoretical studies <strong>of</strong>ten emphasized female-male difference<br />
and appeared to support a demand for recognition <strong>of</strong> traditional female<br />
roles rather than a reform agenda. This made them suitable in conservative<br />
times, when the role <strong>of</strong> government was increasingly challenged. In<br />
librarianship, the emphasis on IS has seemed to some members <strong>of</strong> the<br />
library history community to mean the end <strong>of</strong> historical study, yet IS has<br />
been developing its own history. This new IS history will have few women<br />
and almost no people <strong>of</strong> color in it, however. Feminist activism within<br />
librarianship, so crucial to the writing <strong>of</strong> library women’s history, has<br />
seemed to be diminishing, as the declining activities <strong>of</strong> the COSWL and<br />
FTF attest. 41 <strong>The</strong>re has also been a decline in data needed to assess relative<br />
positions <strong>of</strong> men and women. 42 In addition, there has been a reappearance<br />
<strong>of</strong> the old “blame the women” theme in the <strong>of</strong>ficial organ <strong>of</strong> the<br />
ALA. 43 Much current writing on library women’s history has a weak link<br />
at best to equity and emphasizes instead women’s culture, celebrating<br />
ideas and modes <strong>of</strong> behavior that the authors clearly admire and that<br />
they attribute to women.<br />
Yet despite the evidently negative context, an extensive and vibrant<br />
library women’s history is being written today. <strong>The</strong> best works from both<br />
equity and culture streams will be noted, along with others less clearly<br />
aligned.<br />
Undoubtedly, the outstanding work <strong>of</strong> the period is Passet’s monograph<br />
on western women librarians from 1900 to 1917. 44 Passet, drawing<br />
57
58 L&C/Library Feminism<br />
on a database she created that listed variables for the women, was able<br />
to make generalizations about age, education, and other factors. She<br />
added personal history material from letters and diaries to bring these<br />
women to life. Many <strong>of</strong> the women experienced a sharp contrast between<br />
the “library spirit” they had imbibed in training and the realities <strong>of</strong><br />
their positions. <strong>The</strong> poor financial support for libraries meant low<br />
salaries and condemned many to lives <strong>of</strong> misery and disillusionment. A<br />
prolific writer, Passet has published several studies <strong>of</strong> interesting groups<br />
<strong>of</strong> early librarians. 45<br />
Two other monographs <strong>of</strong> considerable interest, though not focused on<br />
women, <strong>of</strong>fer much valuable information and analysis <strong>of</strong> library women’s<br />
history. <strong>The</strong>se are Deanna B. Marcum’s study <strong>of</strong> the public library as a<br />
cultural force in Hagerstown, Maryland, from 1878 to 1920 and Abigail<br />
Van Slyck’s study <strong>of</strong> Carnegie libraries from 1890 to 1920. 46 <strong>The</strong> former<br />
illustrates the struggles and eventual disillusionment <strong>of</strong> the librarian<br />
charged with running the Hagerstown library. In addition to discouragement<br />
over the role <strong>of</strong> libraries, she felt that newer pr<strong>of</strong>essional standards<br />
repudiated women like herself who lacked academic degrees. Van Slyck,<br />
an architectural historian, illustrates the gender wars over the placement<br />
<strong>of</strong> Carnegie libraries and the ways women librarians reorganized<br />
the interior space <strong>of</strong> these libraries to defy the gender conventions<br />
adhered to by the architects and library boards.<br />
Numerous brief articles detail the gendered nature <strong>of</strong> early modern<br />
librarianship. Among the best <strong>of</strong> these are Brand’s analysis <strong>of</strong> the use <strong>of</strong><br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essionalism to handicap women, Cheryl Knott Malone’s analysis <strong>of</strong><br />
the use <strong>of</strong> unpaid labor in the library, and Catherine Shanley’s study<br />
<strong>of</strong> the effort to improve the status <strong>of</strong> library women by unionization. 47<br />
Rosalee McReynolds analyzes the view that women are too delicate for<br />
top slots in librarianship. 48 Christine Jenkins’s study <strong>of</strong> the challenge to<br />
the literary choices <strong>of</strong> female children’s librarians by a variety <strong>of</strong> men<br />
who used sexist arguments <strong>of</strong>fers important insights into the history <strong>of</strong><br />
women in children’s services. 49 Jenkins has contributed several other<br />
pieces <strong>of</strong> note, including one on women librarians and intellectual freedom.<br />
50 Carmichael’s article on the impact <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois on<br />
southern librarianship is <strong>of</strong> special interest because <strong>of</strong> its sensitivity to a<br />
range <strong>of</strong> <strong>issue</strong>s, including not only sexism but racism. 51<br />
But if the foregoing works are in the enduring equity tradition, a growing<br />
number have appeared that stress the positive aspects <strong>of</strong> the culture<br />
and values that women librarians supposedly shared, emphasizing the<br />
superiority <strong>of</strong> such values as collaboration and nurturance, which are<br />
identified with women. Many <strong>of</strong> these authors emphasize that women<br />
display leadership differently from men. This leadership <strong>of</strong>ten goes unrecognized<br />
because it is exerted without titles and in a nonhierarchical
context; personal influence, not bureaucratic authority, characterizes<br />
many women. Many <strong>of</strong> the authors writing in this emerging tradition<br />
have based their writing on the not uncontroversial works <strong>of</strong> social scientists<br />
with no reference to the critics <strong>of</strong> those works. Others appear to be<br />
reacting to the equity-oriented literature that pictures women librarians<br />
as victims <strong>of</strong> discrimination. Works in this cultural tradition contain little<br />
on the salaries or working conditions <strong>of</strong> library women and men but much<br />
on the psychological return that service brings and the kind <strong>of</strong> power<br />
that comes from what may be conventionally labeled powerlessness.<br />
Undoubtedly, the most extreme example <strong>of</strong> this position is a small<br />
book by Sydney Chambers and Carolynne Myall based on a presentation<br />
before a library group. 52 <strong>The</strong> authors celebrate the selfless service <strong>of</strong><br />
women in founding and staffing libraries and propose the library service<br />
orientation as a model for other pr<strong>of</strong>essions such as medicine. Similarly,<br />
Maack, in a paper on women as change agents, urged the study <strong>of</strong> the<br />
“nonpositional” leaders in librarianship. Such women, with their service<br />
orientation, owe their leadership to persuasion and commitment. 53<br />
Grotzinger, reacting to a history in which library women are “faceless<br />
and exploited nonentities,” analyzed the informal bonds through which<br />
women exercised their influence in an essay on the network <strong>of</strong> women<br />
who contributed to the development <strong>of</strong> modern librarianship at the turn<br />
<strong>of</strong> the century. 54<br />
Several biographies also reflect an equity or a culture commitment,<br />
although many others do not. Clare Beck examined Adelaide Hasse’s<br />
career, and her essay clearly shows the problems that a “new woman”<br />
faced in a bureaucracy run by men who favor the status quo. 55 A cultural<br />
position is taken by Denise Sallee in another biography. Clearly stung by<br />
those who based their studies <strong>of</strong> women in library history on “inequity”<br />
suffered or exploitation, Sallee emphasized instead the satisfaction<br />
library work brought to many in her study <strong>of</strong> Anne Hadden, who enjoyed<br />
a career in the California county library system. 56 An ALHRT program<br />
in 1996 revisited the question <strong>of</strong> women and leadership, stressing<br />
women’s special qualities. Helen Astin, a psychologist, spoke on<br />
“women’s power as empowerment.” Dorothy J. Anderson gave a paper on<br />
Mildred Batchelder, Maack on identifying leaders, and Jenkins on leadership<br />
among children’s librarians.<br />
Many other biographies that have enriched the literature on library<br />
women’s history show no clear alignment. Several <strong>of</strong> these examine figures<br />
prominent in children’s services: Ann D. Carlson wrote on Zena<br />
Sutherland, Karen Patricia Smith described the contributions <strong>of</strong> Virginia<br />
Haviland, and Anne Lundin examined the career <strong>of</strong> Anne Carroll<br />
Moore. 57 Several articles examine women librarians in the West. Georgia<br />
Higley contributed a collective study <strong>of</strong> women librarians in the land<br />
59
60 L&C/Library Feminism<br />
grant colleges <strong>of</strong> the West, while Clara Sitter described the career <strong>of</strong><br />
Fannie Elizabeth Ratchford <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas. 58 Linda Lewis<br />
analyzed the role <strong>of</strong> Julia Brown Asplund in the growth <strong>of</strong> New Mexico<br />
library service. 59 Jane Anne Hannigan <strong>of</strong>fers a kind <strong>of</strong> history <strong>of</strong> young<br />
adult services through the careers <strong>of</strong> six outstanding women who developed<br />
the field, and Kay Vandergrift provides a similar piece for children’s<br />
services. 60 While both cite social scientists who emphasize women’s “harmonious”<br />
nature, the articles stress achievements more than attitudes.<br />
Mary Mallory assessed the career <strong>of</strong> Mary Utopia Rothrock at the<br />
Tennessee Valley Authority. 61 <strong>The</strong> autobiography <strong>of</strong> Zoia Horn, intellectual<br />
freedom activist, details her numerous struggles. 62<br />
<strong>The</strong> nineties produced a richer literature on women <strong>of</strong> color. For these<br />
women, the struggle to achieve pr<strong>of</strong>essional status and a decent salary was<br />
intimately bound up with the struggle <strong>of</strong> their people for a life <strong>of</strong> dignity.<br />
Glendora Johnson-Cooper describes Jean Blackwell Hutson’s life, emphasizing<br />
her role in the development <strong>of</strong> the Schomburg Center for Research<br />
in Black Culture, a major American repository for the study <strong>of</strong> the culture<br />
<strong>of</strong> people <strong>of</strong> African descent. 63 Betty Jenkins’s work on the white librarian<br />
Ernestine Rose, longtime Schomburg librarian, presents a different perspective<br />
on that collection and its services. 64 Jessie Carney Smith <strong>of</strong>fers<br />
brief biographical sketches <strong>of</strong> some important women. 65 Helen H. Britton<br />
describes the life and contributions <strong>of</strong> Dorothy Porter Wesley, longtime<br />
bibliographer and curator at Howard <strong>University</strong>. 66 Annie L. McPheeters’s<br />
autobiography <strong>of</strong>fers excellent material on service to African-Americans<br />
in the segregated South, along with a vivid account <strong>of</strong> her life and career. 67<br />
Julio Hernandez-Delgado describes the life and contributions <strong>of</strong> Pura<br />
Teresa Belpre, a pioneer Puerto Rican librarian in the New York Public<br />
Library. 68 Belpre’s name lives on in the award named for her.<br />
Regardless <strong>of</strong> emerging divisions, the nineties have seen a rich outpouring<br />
<strong>of</strong> library women’s history that will endure.<br />
Future Prospects<br />
Several scenarios suggest themselves for future development. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
may indeed be no more library history, or there may be a replacement<br />
history in which few women librarians appear. <strong>The</strong>re may be the triumph<br />
<strong>of</strong> the cultural approach, mimicking the traditional library history with<br />
“sheroes” who join the heroes in the pr<strong>of</strong>essional pantheon and an extension<br />
<strong>of</strong> the largely uncritical acceptance <strong>of</strong> our pr<strong>of</strong>essional past to the<br />
women in library history. Perhaps two parallel traditions, one based on<br />
“male values,” one on “female values,” will co-exist.<br />
But it may be too soon to write <strong>of</strong>f the equity-oriented approach.<br />
Recent publications from other disciplines point to a revival <strong>of</strong> interest in
the inequities women face in their pr<strong>of</strong>essional and personal lives. 69 A<br />
new generation <strong>of</strong> library women, facing the new, harsher economic and<br />
political realities <strong>of</strong> the twenty-first century, may turn again to activism.<br />
This will lead to a rebirth <strong>of</strong> equity-oriented history as the origins <strong>of</strong><br />
inequity are sought.<br />
An alternate future, however, can be imagined for our common past, one<br />
that draws from the best <strong>of</strong> traditional history and from the work on<br />
women, African-Americans, other racial and ethnic groups as well as the<br />
lesbigay community. Before such a history can emerge, however, a new and<br />
better way <strong>of</strong> conceptualizing these socially constructed aspects <strong>of</strong> our<br />
identity is needed. In any given setting one may take precedence over the<br />
others, though none is ever totally submerged. And each <strong>of</strong> us must find his<br />
or her place in life, pr<strong>of</strong>essionally and personally, in already existing,<br />
though continually evolving, social structures in which difference has traditionally<br />
resulted in dominance and subordination. Gerda Lerner <strong>of</strong>fers<br />
the example <strong>of</strong> the pyramid <strong>of</strong> dominance in the antebellum South. 70 Only<br />
a small group <strong>of</strong> white male planters owned slaves, yet most members <strong>of</strong><br />
white society supported the pyramid, though most found themselves in subordinate<br />
positions based on gender or class. White women <strong>of</strong> the planter<br />
class had few rights but had considerable power over the slaves and access<br />
to their husband’s wealth or class and race privileges. Poorer white men<br />
and women, with little land and no slaves, enjoyed race privileges.<br />
How would a history <strong>of</strong> librarianship look if the interrelatedness <strong>of</strong><br />
these socially constructed categories became central? It might help to<br />
explain the experiences <strong>of</strong> Annie L. McPheeters, who, as a small child, was<br />
ejected from a whites-only library by a truculent white woman librarian<br />
who was undoubtedly underpaid and overworked and possibly even nurturing<br />
and compassionate—to some. It might help to explain what motivated<br />
Edwin Anderson to report Adelaide Hasse to the Secret Service as<br />
disloyal in the frenzied wartime atmosphere <strong>of</strong> 1918 and why she is remembered<br />
as “difficult.” What elements <strong>of</strong> class, race, and gender privilege<br />
were at work in these interactions? And how were they supported by the<br />
traditional structures <strong>of</strong> libraries and library education? This approach<br />
<strong>of</strong>fers a way to move beyond celebration and toward explanation. It<br />
also <strong>of</strong>fers a way to move beyond separate studies <strong>of</strong> women, people <strong>of</strong><br />
color, and lesbigays in library history and toward a greater synthesis.<br />
At the hundredth anniversary <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT we’ll find out which scenario<br />
was played out!<br />
Notes<br />
1. When experts argue that women depress the status <strong>of</strong> a pr<strong>of</strong>ession, it is<br />
difficult for the women practitioners in it to argue for a better place within the<br />
61
62 L&C/Library Feminism<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ession or for higher wages. <strong>The</strong> threat <strong>of</strong> masculinization has a chilling effect<br />
on women’s organizing in female-intensive pr<strong>of</strong>essions.<br />
2. Alice I. Bryan, <strong>The</strong> Public Librarian: A Report <strong>of</strong> the Public Library Inquiry <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Social Science Research Council (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong>, 1952).<br />
3. Ralph Munn, “It’s a Mistake to Recruit Men,” Library Journal 74<br />
(November 1949): 1639–40.<br />
4. J. Labb, “Librarians in Who’s Who in America,” Wilson Library Bulletin 25<br />
(September 1950): 54–56.<br />
5. Sidney H. Ditzion, Arsenals <strong>of</strong> a Democratic Culture: A Social History <strong>of</strong> the<br />
American Public Library in New England and the Middle States from 1850 to 1900<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1947).<br />
6. Martha Boaz, Fervent and <strong>Full</strong> <strong>of</strong> Gifts: <strong>The</strong> Life <strong>of</strong> Althea Warren (New York:<br />
Scarecrow, 1961).<br />
7. Clyde H. Cantrell, “Sadie P. Delaney: Bibliotherapist and Librarian,”<br />
Southeastern Libraries 6 (Fall 1956): 105–9.<br />
8. Betty Friedan, <strong>The</strong> Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963).<br />
9. “Losses in Directorships for Women Pegged,” Library Journal 101 (February<br />
1976): 573.<br />
10. Sharon B. Wells, “<strong>The</strong> Feminization <strong>of</strong> the American Library Pr<strong>of</strong>ession,<br />
1876 to 1923” (M.A. thesis, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago, 1967).<br />
11. Anita R. Schiller, “Women in Librarianship,” in Advances in Librarianship<br />
(New York: Academic, 1974), 104–47.<br />
12. Kathleen Weibel and Kathleen M. Heim, eds., with Dianne J. Ellsworth,<br />
Women in Librarianship, 1876–1976: <strong>The</strong> Entry, Advancement and Struggle for<br />
Equalization in One Pr<strong>of</strong>ession (Phoenix: Oryx, 1979).<br />
13. Kathleen Heim and Katharine Phoenix, eds., for the Committee on the<br />
Status <strong>of</strong> Women in Librarianship, On Account <strong>of</strong> Sex: An Annotated Bibliography on<br />
the Status <strong>of</strong> Women in Librarianship, 1977–1981 (Chicago: ALA, 1984).<br />
14. Elfrieda B. McCauley, “<strong>The</strong> New England Mill Girls: Feminine Influence in<br />
the Development <strong>of</strong> Public Libraries in New England, 1820–1860” (D.L.S. diss.,<br />
Columbia <strong>University</strong>, 1971).<br />
15. Laurel A. Grotzinger, <strong>The</strong> Power and the Dignity: Librarianship and Katharine<br />
Sharp (New York: Scarecrow, 1966).<br />
16. Josephine deWitt Rhodehmel and Raymund Francis Wood, Ina Coolbrith:<br />
Librarian and Laureate <strong>of</strong> California (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young <strong>University</strong> Press,<br />
1<strong>973</strong>).<br />
17. James T. Milden, “Women, Public Libraries and Library Unions: <strong>The</strong><br />
Formative Years,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 12 (Spring 1977): 150–58.<br />
18. Margo Sasse, “Invisible Women: <strong>The</strong> Children’s Librarian in America,”<br />
<strong>School</strong> Library Journal 19 (January 1<strong>973</strong>): 213–17; Lillian N. Gerhardt, “Needed: A<br />
Monumental Checkup,” <strong>School</strong> Library Journal 22 (January 1976): 5.<br />
19. Augusta Baker, “My Years As a Children’s Librarian,” in E. J. Josey, ed.,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1970), 117–29.<br />
20. Virginia Lacy Jones, “A Dean’s Career,” and Jessie Carney Smith, “<strong>The</strong><br />
Four Cultures,” both in ibid., 19–49, 191–204.<br />
21. Binnie Tate, “Traffic on the Drawbridge,” Louise J. Moses, “<strong>The</strong> Black<br />
Librarian: Untapped Resource,” and Vivian Davidson Hewitt, “A Special<br />
Librarian by Design,” all in ibid., 124–29, 137–41, 253–71.<br />
22. Peter H. Rossi, “Discussion,” in Philip H. Ennis and Howard W. Winger,<br />
eds., Seven Questions about the Pr<strong>of</strong>ession <strong>of</strong> Librarianship (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Chicago Press, 1962), 82–83.
23. Dee Garrison, “Tender Technicians: <strong>The</strong> Feminization <strong>of</strong> Public<br />
Librarianship, 1876–1905,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Social History 6 (Winter 1972–73): 131–59,<br />
and Apostles <strong>of</strong> Culture: <strong>The</strong> Public Librarian and American Society, 1876–1920 (New<br />
York: Free Press, 1979).<br />
24. Garrison, Apostles <strong>of</strong> Culture, 84.<br />
25. Alison M. Parker, Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform and Pro-Censorship<br />
Activism, 1873–1933 (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1997).<br />
26. <strong>The</strong> Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Composition <strong>of</strong> Library Staff in Academic and Public<br />
Libraries (Chicago: ALA, 1981).<br />
27. <strong>The</strong> ALA Yearbook (Chicago: ALA, 1976–83).<br />
28. Betty Jo Irvine, Sex Segregation in Librarianship: Demographic and Career Patterns<br />
<strong>of</strong> Academic Library Administrators (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1985).<br />
29. Barbara Brand, “Librarianship and Other Female-Intensive Pr<strong>of</strong>essions,”<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, Philosophy, and Comparative Librarianship 18 (Fall 1983):<br />
391–406.<br />
30. Laural A. Grotzinger, “Biographical Research: Recognition Denied,”<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, Philosophy, and Comparative Librarianship 18 (Fall 1983):<br />
372–81.<br />
31. Barbara Brand, “Sex-Typing in Education for Librarianship: 1870–1920,”<br />
and Nancy Patricia O’Brien, “<strong>The</strong> Recruitment <strong>of</strong> Men into Librarianship<br />
Following World War II,” both in Kathleen M. Heim, ed., <strong>The</strong> Status <strong>of</strong> Women in<br />
Librarianship: Historical, Sociological and Economic Issues (New York: Neal-Schuman,<br />
1983), 29–49, 51–66.<br />
32. Mary Niles Maack, “Women in Library Education: Down the Up<br />
Staircase,” Library Trends 34 (Winter 1986): 401–32.<br />
33. Mary Biggs, “Librarians and the ‘Woman Question’: An Inquiry into<br />
Conservatism,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 17 (Fall 1982): 408–28.<br />
34. Suzanne Hildenbrand, “Revision versus Reality: Women in the History <strong>of</strong><br />
the Public Library Movement, 1876–1920,” in Heim, ed., <strong>The</strong> Status <strong>of</strong> Women,<br />
7–27.<br />
35. James V. Carmichael, “Atlanta’s Female Librarians, 1883–1915,” Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Library History, Philosophy, and Comparative Librarianship 21 (Spring 1986): 376–99;<br />
Joanne Passet, “ ‘<strong>The</strong> Rule Rather Than the Exception’: Midwest Women as<br />
Librarians, 1875–1900,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, Philosophy, and Comparative<br />
Librarianship 21 (Fall 1986): 673–92.<br />
36. Virginia Mary Gaver, A Braided Cord: Memoirs <strong>of</strong> a <strong>School</strong> Librarian<br />
(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1988); Martha Boaz, Librarian/Library Educator: An<br />
Autobiography and Planning for the Future (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1987).<br />
37. Edith Guerrier, An Independent Woman: <strong>The</strong> Autobiography <strong>of</strong> Edith Guerrier<br />
(Amherst: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Massachusetts Press, 1992).<br />
38. Lelia Gaston Rhodes, “Pro<strong>file</strong>s <strong>of</strong> the Careers <strong>of</strong> Selected Black Female<br />
Librarians,” in Heim, ed., <strong>The</strong> Status <strong>of</strong> Women, 191–205.<br />
39. Annette L. Phinazee, <strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in the Southeast: Reminiscences,<br />
Activities, Challenges (Durham: North Carolina Central <strong>University</strong> <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Science, 1980).<br />
40. Kathleen de la Pena McCook, ed., Women <strong>of</strong> Color in Librarianship: An Oral<br />
History (Chicago: American Library Association, 1999).<br />
41. Ruth Ann Canfield, “<strong>The</strong> ALA Committee on the Status <strong>of</strong> Women in<br />
Librarianship: An Examination <strong>of</strong> Its History and Impact” (master’s thesis,<br />
<strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Information</strong> and Library Science <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina at<br />
Chapel Hill, 1993).<br />
63
64 L&C/Library Feminism<br />
42. <strong>The</strong> Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Composition publication has shrunk over the<br />
years. <strong>The</strong> first edition was thirty-nine pages <strong>of</strong> text and ten pages <strong>of</strong> appendixes.<br />
<strong>The</strong> most recent was only twelve pages in length. Although scheduled to be<br />
<strong>issue</strong>d every five years, it has not appeared since 1991. <strong>The</strong> most recent title is<br />
Academic and Public Librarians: Data by Race, Ethnicity and Sex.<br />
43. Carol Combs Hole, “Click! <strong>The</strong> Feminization <strong>of</strong> the Public Library and<br />
Attitudes Make the Men the Great Unserved,” American Libraries 21 (December<br />
1990): 1076–79.<br />
44. Joanne E. Passet, Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West,<br />
1900–1917 (Albuquerque: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New Mexico Press, 1994).<br />
45. Joanne Passet, “Entering the Pr<strong>of</strong>essions: Women Library Educators and<br />
the Placement <strong>of</strong> Female Students, 1887–1912,” History <strong>of</strong> Education Quarterly 31<br />
(Summer 1991): 207–28.<br />
46. Deanna B. Marcum, Good Books in a Country Home: <strong>The</strong> Public Library as a<br />
Cultural Force in Hagerstown, Maryland, 1878–1920 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood,<br />
1994); Abigail A. Van Slyck, Free to All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture,<br />
1890–1920 (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1995).<br />
47. Barbara Brand, “Pratt Institute Library <strong>School</strong>: <strong>The</strong> Perils <strong>of</strong><br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essionalism,” and Cheryl Knott Malone, “Women’s Unpaid Work in<br />
Libraries: Change and Continuity,” both in Suzanne Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming<br />
the American Library Past: Writing the Women In (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1996),<br />
251–78, 279–99; Catherine Shanley, “<strong>The</strong> Library Employees’ Union <strong>of</strong> Greater<br />
New York; First Union <strong>of</strong> Public Library Workers in the United States,” Libraries<br />
& Culture 30 (Summer 1995): 235–64.<br />
48. Rosalee McReynolds, “<strong>The</strong> Sexual Politics <strong>of</strong> Illness in Turn <strong>of</strong> the Century<br />
Libraries,” Libraries & Culture 25 (Spring 1990): 194–217.<br />
49. Christine Jenkins, “Women <strong>of</strong> ALA Youth Services and Pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
Jurisdiction: Of Nightingales, Newberies, Realism, and the Right Books,<br />
1937–1945,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 813–39.<br />
50. Christine Jenkins, “‘Since So Many <strong>of</strong> Today’s Librarians Are Women<br />
. . . ’: Women and Intellectual Freedom in U.S. Librarianship,” in<br />
Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past, 221–49.<br />
51. James V. Carmichael, Jr., “Southerners in the North and Northerners in<br />
the South: <strong>The</strong> Impact <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois on<br />
Southern Librarianship,” in Women’s Work: Vision and Change in Librarianship: Papers<br />
in Honor <strong>of</strong> the Centennial <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science (Urbana: Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science,<br />
1994), 27–104.<br />
52. Sydney Chambers and Carolynne Myall, Women and the Values <strong>of</strong> American<br />
Librarianship (Las Colinas, Tex.: Ide House, 1994).<br />
53. Mary Niles Maack, “Women As Visionaries, Mentors, and Agents <strong>of</strong><br />
Change,” in Women’s Work, 105–30.<br />
54. Laurel A. Grotzinger, “Invisible, Indestructible Network: Women and the<br />
Diffusion <strong>of</strong> Librarianship at the Turn <strong>of</strong> the Century,” in ibid., 7–26.<br />
55. Clare Beck, “Adelaide Hasse: <strong>The</strong> New Woman As Librarian,” in<br />
Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past, 99–120.<br />
56. Denise Sallee, “Reconceptualizing Women’s History: Anne Hadden and<br />
the California County Library System,” Libraries & Culture 27 (Fall 1992): 351–77.<br />
57. Ann D. Carlson, “Zena Sutherland: Reviewer, Teacher, and Author,” and<br />
Karen Patricia Smith, “Initiative and Influence: <strong>The</strong> Contributions <strong>of</strong> Virginia<br />
Haviland to Children’s Services, Research and Writing,” both in Karen Patricia
Smith, ed., Imagination and Scholarship: <strong>The</strong> Contributions <strong>of</strong> Women to American Youth<br />
Services and Literature (Urbana: Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong><br />
Science, 1996), 776–93, 736–54; Anne Lundin, “Anne Carroll Moore: ‘I Have<br />
Spun Out a Long Thread,’” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library<br />
Past, 187–204.<br />
58. Georgia Higley, “College, Community and Librarianship: Women<br />
Librarians at the Western Landgrant Colleges,” and Clara Sitter, “Librarian,<br />
Literary Detective and Scholar: Fannie Elizabeth Ratchford,” both in ibid.,<br />
53–98, 135–61.<br />
59. Linda K. Lewis, “Julia Brown Asplund and New Mexico Library Service,”<br />
in ibid., 121–34.<br />
60. Jane Anne Hannigan, “A Feminist Analysis <strong>of</strong> the Voices for Advocacy in<br />
Young Adult Services,” and Kay E. Vandergrift, “Female Advocacy and<br />
Harmonious Voices: A History <strong>of</strong> Public Library Services and Publishing for<br />
Children in the United States,” both in Smith, ed., Imagination and Scholarship,<br />
851–74, 683–718.<br />
61. Mary Mallory, “<strong>The</strong> Rare Vision <strong>of</strong> Mary Utopia Rothrock: Organizing<br />
Regional Library Services in the Tennessee Valley,” Library Quarterly 65 (January<br />
1995): 62–88.<br />
62. Zoia Horn, Zoia! Memoirs <strong>of</strong> Zoia Horn, Battler for the People’s Right to Know<br />
(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1995).<br />
63. Glendora Johnson-Cooper, “African-American Historical Continuity: Jean<br />
Blackwell Hutson and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,” in<br />
Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past, 27–51.<br />
64. Betty Jenkins, “A White Librarian in Black Harlem,” Library Quarterly 60<br />
(July 1990): 216–31.<br />
65. Jessie Carney Smith, “Sweet Sixteen: Black Women Librarians,<br />
1882–1992,” in Culture Keepers, National Conference <strong>of</strong> African American Librarians<br />
(Columbus, Ohio, 1992), 118–26 (reprint Newark, N.J.: Black Caucus <strong>of</strong> the ALA,<br />
1993).<br />
66. Helen H. Britton, “Dorothy Porter Wesley: Bibliographer, Curator and<br />
Scholar,” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past, 163–86.<br />
67. Annie L. McPheeters, Library Service in Black and White: Some Personal<br />
Recollections, 1921–1980 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1998).<br />
68. Julio Hernandez-Delgado, “Pura Teresa Belpre: Storyteller and Pioneer<br />
Puerto Rican Librarian,” Library Quarterly 62 (October 1992): 425–40.<br />
69. See, for example, two recent works: Deborah L. Rhode, Speaking <strong>of</strong> Sex: <strong>The</strong><br />
Denial <strong>of</strong> Gender Inequality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1997)<br />
and Virginia Valian, Why So Slow? <strong>The</strong> Advancement <strong>of</strong> Women (Cambridge, Mass.:<br />
MIT Press, 1998).<br />
70. Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters: Life and Thought (New York: Oxford<br />
<strong>University</strong> Press, 1997).<br />
65
International Dimensions <strong>of</strong> Library History:<br />
Leadership and Scholarship, 1978–1998<br />
Mary Niles Maack<br />
This essay sketches the growth <strong>of</strong> internationalism in library history<br />
since 1978, when the members <strong>of</strong> the American Library History Round<br />
Table (ALHRT) voted to drop the word “American” from its name in<br />
acknowledgment <strong>of</strong> the growing importance <strong>of</strong> international scholarship in<br />
the field. Major conferences and publications on international themes are<br />
discussed, as is the role <strong>of</strong> the LHRT and its members in extending international<br />
research on the history <strong>of</strong> books, reading, and libraries.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Library History Round Table Emerges from the AHLRT<br />
As I reflected on my own involvement with the Library History Round<br />
Table over the past twenty years, one theme that particularly stood out<br />
was the LHRT’s commitment to internationalism within the domain <strong>of</strong><br />
library history. It therefore came as a surprise when I discovered that its<br />
original name was the “American Library History Round Table.” Only<br />
then did I realize that the main focus <strong>of</strong> the group during its first three<br />
decades had indeed been on the study <strong>of</strong> American libraries and librarianship.<br />
Since the name change seemed to indicate a wider scope <strong>of</strong> concerns<br />
and activities, I became intrigued as to how and when this<br />
occurred. Looking back over the ALA yearbooks, I found that in 1978 the<br />
broadened interest <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT was recognized by the removal <strong>of</strong><br />
“American” from the round table’s mission statement, and a proposal<br />
was also introduced to drop “American” from the name. <strong>The</strong> following<br />
year the ALA executive committee authorized a vote <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT<br />
membership to delete “American” from the round table’s name.<br />
Because Donald G. Davis, Jr., was serving as ALHRT’s chair in<br />
1978–79, I naturally assumed that he was instrumental in the name<br />
change. When I inquired about this, he replied that his two goals as chair<br />
were to organize a program featuring Ian Willison, a distinguished<br />
scholar from Britain, and to change the name <strong>of</strong> the round table to<br />
reflect the growing international interests <strong>of</strong> its members. However, in a<br />
more pragmatic vein, he wrote:<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
As for the name change, I think that many within the RT felt that<br />
the former name suggested that the group was concerned only about<br />
American library history, rather than being Americans interested in<br />
all library history. Some, however, felt that American library history<br />
had been so understudied in the past that we should concentrate primarily<br />
on that subject. <strong>The</strong> argument that won was that no other RT<br />
had the word “American” in its title and that all RTs were under the<br />
aegis <strong>of</strong> the AMERICAN Library Association. In short, the name<br />
change represented reality rather than ideology—though I have<br />
some sympathy with those who feel that our own history should<br />
have some primacy for our Association connections. 1<br />
While a great deal <strong>of</strong> Donald Davis’s own work has been on American<br />
library history, I also know him to be a committed internationalist who<br />
has probably done more than anyone else within LHRT to promote the<br />
international exchange <strong>of</strong> scholarship. Although he himself has traveled,<br />
lived, and worked abroad on a number <strong>of</strong> occasions, his first opportunity<br />
to <strong>of</strong>ficially represent the Round Table at an international event occurred<br />
when he and Bud Gambee (the 1977–78 chair <strong>of</strong> ALHRT) attended the<br />
centenary celebration <strong>of</strong> the British Library Association in 1977. <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
report back to the membership is still a pleasure to read and conveys<br />
some <strong>of</strong> the excitement that surrounded this historic celebration <strong>of</strong> the<br />
one hundredth birthday <strong>of</strong> our younger sister association. It was also in<br />
1977 that Donald Davis assumed the editorship <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
History, which moved from Florida to the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press.<br />
During his tenure as editor <strong>of</strong> the journal, Davis has consistently<br />
enriched our understanding <strong>of</strong> library history abroad through the publication<br />
<strong>of</strong> work by American and foreign scholars whose interests represent<br />
a wildly eclectic range <strong>of</strong> topics and world areas. Articles over the<br />
last twenty years include historical studies on Britain, China, Finland,<br />
Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Senegal, and South<br />
Africa. In addition, there have been two single-country special <strong>issue</strong>s <strong>of</strong><br />
the journal that have been devoted to France and Italy. 2<br />
Awards, Programs, and Library History Seminars<br />
Inaugurated at a time when the LHRT was extending its interest to<br />
international topics, the Justin Winsor Prize Essay Contest has always<br />
been open to library historians who conduct their research abroad. <strong>The</strong><br />
first Winsor prize for a study done outside the United States was<br />
awarded in 1981 to a paper entitled “First Generation <strong>of</strong> Women<br />
Librarians in France” by Mary Niles Maack. <strong>The</strong> following year the<br />
Winsor prize was given to two essays dealing with international library<br />
67
68 L&C/International Dimensions<br />
history or library history abroad; these were “Aryan Librarianship:<br />
Academic and Research Libraries under Hitler” by Pamela Spence<br />
Richards and “British Propaganda in American Public Libraries,<br />
1914–1917” by Wayne A. Wiegand. More recently, in 1991 Margaret Stieg<br />
won the award for a paper entitled “<strong>The</strong> Postwar Purge <strong>of</strong> German<br />
Public Libraries, Democracy and the American Reaction.” Counting the<br />
prize given to an international relations historical study by Brother<br />
Thomas O’Connor entitled “Library Service to the American Commission<br />
to Negotiate Peace and to the Preparatory Inquiry, 1917–1919,”<br />
a total <strong>of</strong> five (or one third <strong>of</strong> all the Justin Winsor essay prizes as <strong>of</strong><br />
1998) have gone to scholars working abroad or writing on international<br />
topics.<br />
During the past two decades a number <strong>of</strong> LHRT programs have featured<br />
prominent speakers from abroad as well as Canadian and American<br />
scholars known for their international research. One particularly memorable<br />
talk was presented in 1979 by Ian Willison, then head <strong>of</strong> the Rare<br />
Book Collections at the British Library. Willison’s magisterial address on<br />
the history <strong>of</strong> libraries and scholarship was attended by two hundred people<br />
at the LHRT annual meeting. Cosponsored by LHRT and the Center<br />
for the Book, this lecture was subsequently published as part <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Viewpoint Series. 3 Two years later, in 1981, the LHRT sponsored two programs<br />
devoted to libraries under Communism. <strong>The</strong> first session featured<br />
a paper entitled “<strong>The</strong> Historical Development <strong>of</strong> Soviet Librarianship,<br />
1917–1980” by Boris Raymond <strong>of</strong> Dalhousie <strong>University</strong>, who is especially<br />
known for his study <strong>of</strong> Krupskaia. <strong>The</strong> second session featured a paper<br />
entitled “Chinese Libraries and Library Education, 1949–1980: Truth and<br />
Myth in the People’s Republic <strong>of</strong> China” by Lee-hsia Ting <strong>of</strong> Western<br />
Illinois <strong>University</strong>. Adding special excitement to this program was the<br />
attendance <strong>of</strong> a delegation from the People’s Republic <strong>of</strong> China.<br />
Like the ALA conference programming, the ongoing series <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
History Seminars has also demonstrated the international interests <strong>of</strong><br />
the LHRT members. Held in 1976 in Philadelphia, exactly one hundred<br />
years after the founding <strong>of</strong> ALA, Library History Seminar V featured<br />
only papers related to American libraries and librarianship. However, at<br />
the Library History Seminar VI, “Libraries and Culture” (which was held<br />
in Austin, Texas, in 1980), four <strong>of</strong> the six sessions were on international<br />
topics; these presentations included “Libraries and Antiquity,” “Early<br />
Modern European Libraries,” “Notable Bibliographers,” and “French<br />
Libraries—France and Its African Colonies.” <strong>The</strong> succeeding Library<br />
History Seminars (held in 1985, 1990, and 1995) have all featured<br />
numerous panels dealing with libraries in other parts <strong>of</strong> the world, and<br />
typically at least half <strong>of</strong> the panels have presented research done outside<br />
<strong>of</strong> the United States (see the Chronology). Cosponsored by the LHRT,
the Center for the Book, and various host institutions, these conferences<br />
have reflected growing interest in international library history and have<br />
attracted scholars from France, China, Finland, Britain, and Canada as<br />
well as featuring presentations by a number <strong>of</strong> American scholars who<br />
have done all or part <strong>of</strong> their research overseas.<br />
International Conferences<br />
In addition to participating in these American-based seminars, LHRT<br />
members with international interests have had opportunities to take part<br />
in several European conferences focusing on library history. In most<br />
cases, these conferences have been cosponsored by institutions in the<br />
host country and have benefited from the support <strong>of</strong> the International<br />
Federation <strong>of</strong> Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). 4 One <strong>of</strong> the<br />
first <strong>of</strong> the international meetings <strong>of</strong> library historians held outside <strong>of</strong> an<br />
IFLA congress was a seminar on “Libraries and Cultural Change,” organized<br />
by the Library History Group <strong>of</strong> the Library Association <strong>of</strong> the<br />
United Kingdom. This important seminar featured many papers dealing<br />
with librarianship as a pr<strong>of</strong>ession, including one by Wayne A. Wiegand,<br />
who attended the conference as the LHRT chair for 1987–88 and gave a<br />
presentation on “<strong>The</strong> Development <strong>of</strong> Librarianship in the United<br />
States.” <strong>The</strong> following year, an international symposium was held in the<br />
Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. <strong>The</strong>se sessions<br />
focused on “Library History Research in the International Context.”<br />
Organized by the Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis für Bibliotheksgeschichte,<br />
this conference was also attended by Wayne A. Wiegand, who presented<br />
a paper entitled “Library History Research in the United States.” Edited<br />
by Paul Kaegbein and Paul Sturges, the proceedings provide a fascinating<br />
view <strong>of</strong> the emergence <strong>of</strong> library history as a discipline in countries as<br />
diverse as Britain, Australia, Estonia, Sweden, and Israel. 5<br />
More recently, two stimulating international library history conferences<br />
have been organized thanks to the enthusiasm and the tireless<br />
efforts <strong>of</strong> LHRT member Pamela Spence Richards. <strong>The</strong> first <strong>of</strong> these was<br />
the 1996 conference in Vologda, Russia, which focused on the “History <strong>of</strong><br />
Books and Reading in the United States and Russia.” 6 American participants<br />
included Librarian <strong>of</strong> Congress James H. Billington in addition to<br />
several LHRT members. In her introduction to the special <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Libraries & Culture (Winter 1998), Richards notes that this was a meeting<br />
<strong>of</strong> “two divergent traditions <strong>of</strong> scholarship.” However, she observes that<br />
both the American and Russian papers had a number <strong>of</strong> themes in common,<br />
including “the great differences that can exist in times <strong>of</strong> cultural<br />
crisis between the actual (as opposed to the <strong>of</strong>ficial) function <strong>of</strong> libraries<br />
and texts; the challenge that mass literature can <strong>of</strong>fer to ‘high culture’<br />
69
70 L&C/International Dimensions<br />
or the <strong>of</strong>ficially condoned canon; and the complexity <strong>of</strong> the library’s role<br />
in a pluralistic, multicultural, multiracial society.” 7<br />
Partly as a result <strong>of</strong> the interest generated by this conference, Pamela<br />
Richards and Martine Poulain (at that time editor <strong>of</strong> the Bulletin de<br />
Bibliothèques de France) decided to convene a conference on “Libraries,<br />
Reading, and Publishing in the Cold War.” At these meetings, which took<br />
place in Paris, France, in June 1998, LHRT was ably represented by our<br />
chair, Louise Robbins; other LHRT members also presented papers or<br />
chaired sessions, including John Y. Cole, Donald G. Davis, Jr., Christine<br />
Jenkins, and Priscilla Yu. 8 Having had the opportunity to participate in<br />
this conference in Paris, I would like to share with you some <strong>of</strong> the<br />
excitement generated by papers given by Russian and Eastern European<br />
library historians for whom the Cold War had a pr<strong>of</strong>ound, visible, and<br />
ever-present impact on their pr<strong>of</strong>essional lives. All aspects <strong>of</strong> librarianship<br />
were affected, and some participants openly expressed their frustration<br />
over the previous restrictions on intellectual exchange with<br />
foreign researchers and colleagues. Presentations on Russia also dealt<br />
with the pervasive role <strong>of</strong> state censorship, which resulted in the development<br />
<strong>of</strong> “special collections” <strong>of</strong> works forbidden to most readers.<br />
While American speakers at the colloquium eloquently described the<br />
ways the ALA and American librarians had struggled to ensure freedom<br />
<strong>of</strong> access to works threatened with censorship during the McCarthy era,<br />
their papers shed light on events that were far different from those experienced<br />
by our European colleagues, both in Communist bloc countries<br />
and in multiparty states such as France where political ideology also took<br />
on a significant role in regard to the dissemination <strong>of</strong> information.<br />
As the conference ended, we all came away with a new and deeper<br />
understanding <strong>of</strong> a difficult era that has so recently ended. Exchanges<br />
with colleagues at these very stimulating meetings reaffirmed the importance<br />
<strong>of</strong> cross-cultural comparisons as a means for “shaking hypotheses<br />
free from particular sets <strong>of</strong> cultural entanglements and for catching<br />
strategic variables in new ranges.” 9 A greater awareness <strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong><br />
library development abroad likewise helps us appreciate the ways our<br />
own culture has defined the nature and extent <strong>of</strong> library service as well<br />
as shaping the philosophy and ideology surrounding such practices as<br />
classification, open access, and collection development.<br />
During the past decade the growing number <strong>of</strong> international opportunities<br />
for scholarly exchange among library historians in the United<br />
States has resulted in two complementary trends. On the one hand,<br />
there has been an international expansion <strong>of</strong> interest in library history;<br />
on the other hand, there has been a broadening <strong>of</strong> focus to include the<br />
history <strong>of</strong> reading, books, and scholarship as well as libraries. Research in<br />
all these domains has been greatly enhanced by the creation <strong>of</strong> the Society
for the History <strong>of</strong> Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP), an<br />
international association that was founded in the United States in 1991<br />
“to provide a global network for book historians, who until then had usually<br />
worked in isolation.” 10 A number <strong>of</strong> LHRT members regularly participate<br />
in SHARP meetings, and an <strong>of</strong>ficial liaison from the Round Table is<br />
designated. As part <strong>of</strong> the interdisciplinary book history research presented<br />
at SHARP conferences, scholars discuss literacy and readership as<br />
well as the social context <strong>of</strong> publishing and authorship. Such work not only<br />
provides an enriched context for our study <strong>of</strong> libraries, but it also extends<br />
our understanding <strong>of</strong> the complex role libraries have had in the intellectual<br />
development <strong>of</strong> countries with a long tradition <strong>of</strong> print culture.<br />
Libraries as repositories have <strong>of</strong> course been greatly affected by<br />
changes in the form and format <strong>of</strong> all kinds <strong>of</strong> recorded communication.<br />
As the new scholarship has influenced our understanding <strong>of</strong> books and<br />
libraries in the United States and abroad, we have also become more<br />
aware that change has become a constant in institutions formerly characterized<br />
by their stability and their mission to conserve the records <strong>of</strong><br />
the past. In a stimulating work entitled <strong>The</strong> Electronic Word: Democracy,<br />
Technology and the Arts, Richard A. Lanham notes: “Pr<strong>of</strong>ound changes in<br />
expressive medium always ask a fundamental question: What does this<br />
medium do for us? We ask this in a deep way only when the new medium<br />
reveals what pr<strong>of</strong>ound effects the old one has had on us.” 11 While<br />
Lanham’s questions focus on media rather than institutions, his ideas<br />
have significant implications for the library, which, as a social agency, has<br />
for almost all its history been associated with a place, a building, and a<br />
collection <strong>of</strong> physical materials. As we enter the twenty-first century, we<br />
are already experiencing the <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> dealing with digital records that<br />
can be simultaneously accessed from many locations, and we are being<br />
forced to ask some deep questions about what libraries have been in the<br />
past, what they have done for us, and what pr<strong>of</strong>ound effects they have<br />
had on scholarship and on society. 12 In attempting to understand the past<br />
in different cultural and political contexts, we as historians can also contribute<br />
to intelligent reflection on the future <strong>of</strong> reading, books, scholarship,<br />
and libraries. As the LHRT begins its second half century on the<br />
eve <strong>of</strong> a new millennium, the challenges and opportunities before us<br />
more than ever require that we seek an understanding that goes beyond<br />
national, cultural, and linguistic boundaries.<br />
Chronology <strong>of</strong> Events and Publications Relating to the<br />
International Dimensions <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
1962 <strong>The</strong> Library History Group (LHG) <strong>of</strong> the Library Association <strong>of</strong><br />
the United Kingdom is founded. It is one <strong>of</strong> the Library<br />
71
72 L&C/International Dimensions<br />
Association’s oldest special interest groups and is the only group<br />
in the U.K. specifically devoted to the history <strong>of</strong> libraries and<br />
librarianship.<br />
1966 Library historians support the creation <strong>of</strong> a new scholarly journal<br />
with the title Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History Philosophy and<br />
Comparative Librarianship. From the beginning the journal has had<br />
an international editorial board with representatives from<br />
Europe, the Soviet Union, Asia, Africa, and Australia as well as<br />
North America.<br />
1975 A round table on the History <strong>of</strong> the Book is held at the Herzog<br />
August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany.<br />
1977 Library Association Centennial is held in London. Donald G.<br />
Davis, Jr., and Bud Gambee represent ALHRT; some travel support<br />
is provided by the Round Table.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History and Comparative Librarianship<br />
moves to the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, where it is edited by<br />
Donald G. Davis, Jr.; the journal’s international focus is continued<br />
and is enhanced by the publication <strong>of</strong> international<br />
symposia as well as special country <strong>issue</strong>s. <strong>The</strong> Round Table<br />
continues to have a liaison to the journal.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Center for the Book is created within the Library <strong>of</strong><br />
Congress “to heighten public interest in the role <strong>of</strong> books and<br />
printing in the diffusion <strong>of</strong> knowledge.” Directed by John Y.<br />
Cole, the center soon becomes an important source <strong>of</strong> support<br />
for library history conferences, both in the United States and<br />
abroad.<br />
At the fiftieth IFLA conference in Brussels the Standing<br />
Committee <strong>of</strong> the Section on Library <strong>The</strong>ory and Research<br />
establishes a working group on library history within the section.<br />
1978 <strong>The</strong> ALHRT program has an international focus with the presentation<br />
<strong>of</strong> a talk by Arthur Young on the “Global Book<br />
Crusade: <strong>The</strong> American Library Association and World War I.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> broadened interest <strong>of</strong> ALHRT was marked by the<br />
removal <strong>of</strong> “American” from the <strong>of</strong>ficial scope <strong>of</strong> the Round<br />
Table’s missions in its constitution; a proposal was introduced to<br />
also drop “American” from the Round Table’s name.<br />
<strong>The</strong> inaugural meeting <strong>of</strong> the IFLA Working Group on Library<br />
History is held at the 1978 IFLA Congress in Strbske Pleso with<br />
fifteen representatives.<br />
1979 <strong>The</strong> ALA Executive Committee authorizes a vote <strong>of</strong> the membership<br />
to delete “American” from the Round Table’s name; this<br />
action had been a major goal <strong>of</strong> Donald G. Davis, Jr., who served<br />
as Round Table chair in 1978–79.
Ian Willison, head <strong>of</strong> the Rare Book Collections at the British<br />
Library, delivers a major address attended by two hundred people<br />
at the LHRT annual meeting; his lecture is cosponsored by the<br />
Center for the Book, which subsequently publishes his lecture.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Round Table on Library History is established at the<br />
Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany<br />
(Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis für Bibliotheksgeschichte).<br />
1980 At the Library History Seminar VI, “Libraries and Culture,”<br />
which was held in Austin, Texas, in March, four <strong>of</strong> the six<br />
sessions are on international topics; these sessions include<br />
“Libraries and Antiquity,” “Early Modern European Libraries,”<br />
“Notable Bibliographers,” and “French Libraries—France and<br />
Its African Colonies.” Papers are published in the Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Library History 16, no. 1 (Winter 1981).<br />
1981 <strong>The</strong> LHRT features two programs devoted to international<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s: “<strong>The</strong> Historical Development <strong>of</strong> Soviet Librarianship,<br />
1917–1980,” delivered by Boris Raymond <strong>of</strong> Dalhousie <strong>University</strong>,<br />
and “Chinese Libraries and Library Education, 1949–1980:<br />
Truth and Myth in the People’s Republic <strong>of</strong> China” by Lee-hsia<br />
Ting <strong>of</strong> Western Illinois <strong>University</strong>; a delegation from the<br />
People’s Republic <strong>of</strong> China attends.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Justin Winsor Award is given to Mary Niles Maack for her<br />
study entitled “Women Librarians in France: <strong>The</strong> First<br />
Generation,” subsequently published in the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
History 18, no. 4 (Fall 1983): 407–49.<br />
1982 <strong>The</strong> Justin Winsor Award is given to two essays dealing with<br />
international library history or library history abroad: “Aryan<br />
Librarianship: Academic and Research Libraries under Hitler”<br />
by Pamela Spence Richards and “British Propaganda in<br />
American Public Libraries, 1914–1917” by Wayne A. Wiegand.<br />
1983 <strong>The</strong> LHRT program session at the Los Angeles conference is<br />
addressed by Peter Hoare, head librarian at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Nottingham and a founding member <strong>of</strong> the Library History<br />
Group <strong>of</strong> the Library Association. His lecture is entitled “‘So<br />
Good and Worth a Designe’: Archbishop Tennison’s Library and<br />
Public Library Provision in England, 1660–1715.”<br />
1985 <strong>The</strong> Library History Seminar VII, “Libraries, Books and<br />
Culture,” which is held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in<br />
March, featured John Feather from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Loughborough, England, who addresses the first plenary session,<br />
speaking on “<strong>The</strong> Book in History and the History <strong>of</strong> the Book.”<br />
In addition, six <strong>of</strong> the twelve panels are devoted to international<br />
topics; these sessions included “<strong>The</strong> Early Use <strong>of</strong> Printed Books<br />
73
74 L&C/International Dimensions<br />
in Europe and America” and “Western Influences in the South<br />
Asian World <strong>of</strong> Books” (East Indies and India); “<strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Library in Two Cultural Contexts”; “<strong>The</strong> Influence <strong>of</strong> Private<br />
Libraries”; “Books and Libraries in Twentieth-century France<br />
and the Soviet Union”; and “Reports <strong>of</strong> Current Library<br />
Historiography Abroad” (Canada and Germany).<br />
1987 International Seminar on “Libraries and Cultural Change” is<br />
organized by the Library History Group <strong>of</strong> the (British) Library<br />
Association with support from the IFLA Round Table on Library<br />
History; Wayne A. Wiegand presents a paper on “<strong>The</strong><br />
Development <strong>of</strong> Librarianship in the United States.” <strong>The</strong> proceedings,<br />
edited by Peter Hoare, are published in Libraries &<br />
Culture 24, no. 1 (Winter 1989).<br />
<strong>The</strong> Justin Winsor Award is given to Brother Thomas O’Connor<br />
for his essay “Library Service to the American Commission to<br />
Negotiate Peace and to the Preparatory Inquiry, 1917–1919.”<br />
1988 International symposium held in the Herzog August Bibliothek<br />
in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, on “Library History Research in the<br />
International Context,” organized by the Wolfenbütteler<br />
Arbeitskreis für Bibliotheksgeschichte with support from the<br />
IFLA Round Table on Library History.<br />
1989 <strong>The</strong> Center for the Book at the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress sponsors a<br />
symposium entitled “Publishing and Readership in Revolutionary<br />
France”; among the speakers are Henri-Jean Martin from the<br />
Ecole des Chartes in Paris, France.<br />
1990 <strong>The</strong> LHRT program features Bernhard Fabian <strong>of</strong> Münster<br />
<strong>University</strong>, Federal Republic <strong>of</strong> Germany, who spoke on the<br />
“Future <strong>of</strong> Humanistic Scholarship.”<br />
Library History Seminar VII, “Libraries, Books & Culture,” is<br />
held in Bloomington, Indiana; six panels out <strong>of</strong> twelve are<br />
devoted to international topics. <strong>The</strong>se include “In Search <strong>of</strong><br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Roots: Two Perspectives” (Europe); “<strong>Information</strong><br />
Control: Two Perspectives” (Republican Rome and the Soviet<br />
Union); “Attitudes toward Literacy: Two Historical Perspectives”<br />
(Switzerland and the United States); “To Serve a Purpose: <strong>The</strong><br />
Establishment <strong>of</strong> Two European Libraries in the Seventeenth<br />
Century”; “Chinese Library History”; and “Libraries and<br />
Scholarly Communication under National Socialism.” <strong>The</strong> proceedings<br />
are published in Libraries & Culture 26, nos. 1 & 2<br />
(Winter–Spring 1991).<br />
1991 <strong>The</strong> Justin Winsor Award is given to Margaret Stieg for an essay<br />
entitled “<strong>The</strong> Postwar Purge <strong>of</strong> German Public Libraries,<br />
Democracy and the American Reaction.”
<strong>The</strong> Society for the History <strong>of</strong> Authorship, Reading, and<br />
Publishing (SHARP) was created in 1991 “to provide a global<br />
network for book historians, who until then had usually worked<br />
in isolation.” LHRT members participate in SHARP meetings,<br />
and an <strong>of</strong>ficial representative from the Round Table is later designated.<br />
1995 Library History Seminar VII, “Libraries & Philanthropy,” was held<br />
in Tuscaloosa at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Alabama. Of the twelve sessions,<br />
seven dealt with international topics: “Library Philanthropy in<br />
India and Ancient Greece”; “Rockefeller Philanthropy: Library<br />
Volunteers in Canada”; “Children’s Books and Scholarly<br />
Communication in the Cold War”; “Libraries, Beer and Tobacco”;<br />
“Carnegie Philanthropy” (Europe and the Commonwealth);<br />
“Public Libraries in Finland and Germany”; and “Libraries and<br />
Literacy in France and the United States.” <strong>The</strong> proceedings are<br />
published in Libraries & Culture 31, nos. 1 & 2 (Winter–Spring<br />
1996).<br />
1996 International conference in Vologda, Russia, on the “History <strong>of</strong><br />
Books and Reading in the United States and Russia,” is organized<br />
by the IFLA Round Table on Library History and Research<br />
in Reading. American participants included James H. Billington,<br />
Mariana Tax Choldin, John Y. Cole, Donald G. Davis, Jr., Mary<br />
Niles Maack, Pamela Spence Richards, Jonathan Rose, Larry<br />
Sullivan, and Wayne A. Wiegand. <strong>The</strong> proceedings were edited<br />
by Pamela Spence Richards and published in Libraries & Culture<br />
33, no. 1 (Winter 1998).<br />
1998 International conference is held in Paris on “Libraries, Reading<br />
and Publishing in the Cold War,” organized by the IFLA Round<br />
Table on Library History and Research in Reading. American<br />
participants included John Y. Cole, Donald G. Davis, Jr.,<br />
Christine Jenkins, Mary Niles Maack, Pamela Spence Richards,<br />
Louise Robbins, and Priscilla Yu.<br />
Notes<br />
1. Donald G. Davis, personal email communication, 17 June 1998.<br />
2. William V. Jackson and Benjamin Whitten, eds., “Library and <strong>Information</strong><br />
Science in France: A 1983 Overview,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 19, no. 1 (Winter<br />
1984); Maria X. Wells and Luigi Crocetti, eds., “Libraries and Librarianship in<br />
Italy,” Libraries & Culture 25, no. 3 (Summer 1990).<br />
3. Ian R. Willison, On the History <strong>of</strong> Libraries and Scholarship. A Paper Presented<br />
before the Library History Round Table (Washington, D.C.: Library <strong>of</strong> Congress,<br />
Center for the Book, 1980).<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> IFLA Round Table on Library History was founded in 1977 at the fiftieth<br />
IFLA conference in Brussels when the Standing Committee <strong>of</strong> the Section on<br />
75
76 L&C/International Dimensions<br />
Library <strong>The</strong>ory and Research established a working group on library history<br />
within the section.<br />
5. For a discussion <strong>of</strong> the symposium, see the introduction to “Library History<br />
Research in the International Context” by Paul Kaegbein and Paul Sturges,<br />
Libraries & Culture 25, no. 1 (Winter 1990).<br />
6. <strong>The</strong>se papers appeared in Libraries & Culture 33, no. 1 (Winter 1998) in a<br />
special <strong>issue</strong> edited by Pamela Spence Richards; in 1996 the proceedings were<br />
published in both Russian and English by the Ministry <strong>of</strong> Culture <strong>of</strong> the Russian<br />
Federation.<br />
7. Pamela Spence Richards, “Introduction to the Special Issue,” Libraries &<br />
Culture 33, no. 1 (Winter 1998): 1–2.<br />
8. <strong>The</strong> papers were published in Livres, éditions, bibliothèques, lectures durant la<br />
guerre froide (Villeurbanne, France: l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences de<br />
l’<strong>Information</strong> et les Bibliothèques, 1998).<br />
9. E. G. Devereux, W. Bronfenbrenner, and G. H. Suci, “Patterns <strong>of</strong> Parent<br />
Behavior in the United States <strong>of</strong> America and the Federal Republic <strong>of</strong> Germany:<br />
A Cross-National Comparison,” Social Science Journal 14 (1962): 48.<br />
10. See the SHARP webpage at http:www.indiana.edu/~ sharp/intro.html (23<br />
February 1999).<br />
11. Richard A. Lanham, <strong>The</strong> Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology and the Arts<br />
(Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1993), xii.<br />
12. According to Robert Darnton, “<strong>The</strong> New York Public Library dispenses so<br />
much information electronically to readers all over the world that it reports ten<br />
million hits on its computer system each month as opposed to 50,000 books dispensed<br />
in its reading room at 42nd Street.” See “<strong>The</strong> New Age <strong>of</strong> the Book,” New<br />
York Review <strong>of</strong> Books, 18 March 1999: 1. Webpage http://www.nybooks.com/nyreview<br />
(5 April 1999).
Toward a Multicultural American Public<br />
Library History<br />
Cheryl Knott Malone<br />
A recent interpretive shift in library history posits public libraries as<br />
institutions that advance the dominant culture’s ideology. Complicating<br />
the research questions that arise from such an interpretive stance is the<br />
multicultural society in which libraries in the United States operate. This<br />
article reviews selected books and articles, particularly those related to<br />
African-American experiences in and around libraries, and suggests possible<br />
ways to move toward a more inclusive American public library history.<br />
In the first fifty years <strong>of</strong> the Library History Round Table’s existence,<br />
the literature <strong>of</strong> library history has expanded to include a diversity <strong>of</strong><br />
topics, methods, and interpretations. Particularly in regard to the<br />
American public library, interpretation shifted during that time from a<br />
model <strong>of</strong> the public library as a natural outgrowth <strong>of</strong> democratic society<br />
to one <strong>of</strong> the public library as an instrument <strong>of</strong> social control. 1 More<br />
recently, interpretation has shifted again, this time to a more nuanced<br />
view <strong>of</strong> the institution as supporting the hegemony <strong>of</strong> the dominant culture.<br />
This more recent view <strong>of</strong> libraries relies on Antonio Gramsci’s theories<br />
regarding the role intellectuals have played in securing the consent<br />
<strong>of</strong> the masses to their own subordination. 2 As Wayne Wiegand has<br />
pointed out, public librarians and library trustees could speak <strong>of</strong> their<br />
institutions as advancing democratic ideals at the same time that they<br />
shaped collections to serve elite interests. 3<br />
Such an interpretive stance calls into question the assertion <strong>of</strong><br />
libraries’ marginality. Phyllis Dain has argued explicitly against the topdown<br />
view <strong>of</strong> libraries as instruments <strong>of</strong> social control, noting: “Partly by<br />
virtue <strong>of</strong> its own powerlessness and relative insignificance, the library can<br />
find room to maneuver, to experiment, to <strong>of</strong>fer the chance for people to<br />
get from it the means to power.” 4 But can we find evidence <strong>of</strong> counterhegemonic<br />
efforts aimed at repositioning public libraries as servants <strong>of</strong><br />
the subordinate, rather than the dominant, classes?<br />
Complicating such interpretive dilemmas is the multicultural society<br />
in which libraries in the United States operate. Specifically, interpretive<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
78 L&C/Multicultural Public Library History<br />
complications arise out <strong>of</strong> the need to understand how hegemonic influence<br />
actually works in a multicultural nation. Despite the rhetoric <strong>of</strong><br />
open access and intellectual freedom that developed over the course <strong>of</strong><br />
the twentieth century, library collections reflected the knowledge (as well<br />
as the ignorance) and values <strong>of</strong> the largely Caucasian/Anglo middle-class<br />
librarians who dominated the pr<strong>of</strong>ession. 5 Merely telling the stories <strong>of</strong><br />
libraries and their progress and librarians and their accomplishments<br />
results in an overemphasis on “the pr<strong>of</strong>ession” at the expense <strong>of</strong> insight<br />
into clients served, underserved, and unserved.<br />
Although definitions <strong>of</strong> multiculturalism vary, they generally include<br />
notions <strong>of</strong> tolerance for difference and appreciation <strong>of</strong> diversity. Yet, as<br />
Donald G. Davis, Jr., has pointed out, multicultural perspectives can contribute<br />
to divisiveness rather than dialogue. 6 Lorna Peterson has argued<br />
that definitions <strong>of</strong> multiculturalism can be so extreme in their celebration<br />
<strong>of</strong> difference and their ignorance <strong>of</strong> history that they are misleading<br />
and counterproductive. 7 <strong>The</strong> tendency in such cases is toward essentialism<br />
rather than toward an understanding <strong>of</strong> the social and historical construction<br />
<strong>of</strong> gender, race, and ethnicity. 8 At their best, definitions <strong>of</strong><br />
multiculturalism suggest an agenda for action that aids understanding.<br />
At its best, multicultural history can aid the understanding that should<br />
underlie any agenda for effective action. In multicultural history multiple<br />
voices from many standpoints are heard—so many, in fact, that<br />
notions <strong>of</strong> centrality and marginality are called into question.<br />
An influential work in this area has been Ronald Takaki’s A Different<br />
Mirror. Takaki asserts that only by recovering different pasts, told from<br />
divergent perspectives, can a full appreciation <strong>of</strong> the complexity <strong>of</strong><br />
United States history be reached. Ideally, all <strong>of</strong> the ethnic, racial, religious,<br />
and other distinctive cultural groups relevant to a topic should be<br />
included in historical studies <strong>of</strong> that topic. But that <strong>of</strong>ten is not practical.<br />
Students <strong>of</strong> history are left with isolated group-by-group studies to synthesize<br />
on their own. Nevertheless, such studies have much to contribute<br />
to the literature <strong>of</strong> history and to a richer understanding <strong>of</strong> the legacy <strong>of</strong><br />
a diverse society. 9<br />
At the same time, it is important to recognize the constructedness and<br />
fluidity <strong>of</strong> group identity. As historian Jacques Barzun argued in the<br />
1930s, the use <strong>of</strong> “race” as a signifier <strong>of</strong> immutable and biologically<br />
determined difference is outdated and destructive. 10 As historian Mark<br />
Poster argued in the 1990s, multiculturalism can be construed as a<br />
dynamic process in which group identities are constituted and reconstituted,<br />
a process that can harness new communication and information<br />
technologies to “struggle against restrictions <strong>of</strong> systematic inequalities,<br />
hierarchies and asymmetries.” 11 If historians choose to see libraries as<br />
earlier forms <strong>of</strong> communication and information technologies, then it
might be possible to look for ways in which libraries and their constituents<br />
engaged in similar struggles against restrictions, sometimes on<br />
the same side and sometimes not.<br />
Although articles, books, and dissertations in library history have<br />
addressed <strong>issue</strong>s <strong>of</strong> race, ethnicity, religion, and other aspects <strong>of</strong> multiculturalism,<br />
more remains to be done, including synthesis <strong>of</strong> secondary<br />
sources. Much <strong>of</strong> the published literature that can contribute to a more<br />
inclusive history has focused on African-American librarians and on<br />
libraries serving historically black institutions and neighborhoods. In this<br />
brief review I consider these and other selected books and articles and<br />
suggest ways to move toward a multicultural approach.<br />
Biography and Autobiography<br />
For its first several years, the Library History Round Table (LHRT)<br />
focused on “leaders.” 12 Papers presented at LHRT meetings recapped<br />
the careers <strong>of</strong> William Brett, Arthur Bostwick, Herbert Putnam, H. W.<br />
Wilson, and similar luminaries. Apparently, the first biographical<br />
sketch <strong>of</strong> a nonwhite librarian presented before the LHRT occurred in<br />
1968, when E. J. Josey reported on the working life and accomplishments<br />
<strong>of</strong> Edward Christopher Williams. 13 <strong>The</strong> presentation was as<br />
much a political act as a historical one, for Josey intended to resurrect<br />
Williams from oblivion. In a thirty-year-long career during which<br />
Williams built collections at Western Reserve and Howard<br />
Universities, contributed to library science education, helped establish<br />
a state library association, and encouraged other African-Americans to<br />
pursue the pr<strong>of</strong>ession <strong>of</strong> librarianship, Williams had not received any<br />
<strong>of</strong>ficial recognition from the American Library Association for his<br />
achievements. Consequently, Josey’s biographical study can be seen as<br />
a kind <strong>of</strong> compensatory history that argues for the inclusion <strong>of</strong> an elite<br />
black librarian in the panoply <strong>of</strong> elite white librarians. 14 Josey went on<br />
to produce a number <strong>of</strong> volumes that restored to history and memory<br />
the contributions and perspectives <strong>of</strong> many African-American librarians.<br />
15 Josey understood that the obscure remain so only as long as their<br />
biographies go unwritten.<br />
Yet many <strong>of</strong> the biographical sketches <strong>of</strong> members <strong>of</strong> various cultural<br />
groups who labored on behalf <strong>of</strong> libraries can be categorized as compensatory<br />
rather than explanatory. For instance, much <strong>of</strong> the published<br />
material on black librarians has concentrated on those among the elite<br />
who have left a documentary trail <strong>of</strong> publications and who have worked<br />
in college, university, and research libraries and/or as educators.<br />
Although such work is important for filling in gaps in historical understanding,<br />
it cannot tell the whole story <strong>of</strong> blacks’ involvement in libraries.<br />
79
80 L&C/Multicultural Public Library History<br />
An exception to this pattern appears in the state-by-state accounts <strong>of</strong><br />
African-American librarians’ accomplishments in <strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in<br />
the Southeast. <strong>The</strong>se essays introduce many librarians otherwise lost to<br />
history through the lack <strong>of</strong> archival and manuscript collections and <strong>of</strong><br />
oral history recordings and transcripts. 16 Autobiographical memoirs <strong>of</strong><br />
African-American librarians who served as educators and as pr<strong>of</strong>essionals<br />
in public, academic, and special libraries <strong>of</strong>fer provocative material in<br />
<strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in America. 17 In Library Service in Black and White, Annie<br />
McPheeters shares her memories <strong>of</strong> life as a black librarian in Atlanta<br />
before and after Jim Crow. 18 Particularly useful for the historian in<br />
search <strong>of</strong> library-community interactions are McPheeters’s accounts <strong>of</strong><br />
outreach efforts. Such works broaden our understanding <strong>of</strong> the library<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s past and expand our definition and representation <strong>of</strong> leadership.<br />
More importantly, they outline the ways in which black librarians<br />
struggled against racist policies and practices, on their own behalf and<br />
for their various clienteles.<br />
Areas for further research are apparent in biographical material about<br />
other “minority” librarians who, unlike many African-American librarians<br />
for much <strong>of</strong> the twentieth century, worked in settings with ethnically<br />
diverse staff members. Examples include Alfred Kaiming Chiu <strong>of</strong><br />
Harvard. 19 Similarly, an article about the New York Public Library’s first<br />
Puerto Rican librarian, Pura Belpré, <strong>of</strong>fers a long-overdue account <strong>of</strong> her<br />
accomplishments. 20 But more information is needed regarding her work<br />
with the culturally diverse group <strong>of</strong> coworkers she encountered at the<br />
135th Street Branch <strong>of</strong> the New York Public Library. <strong>The</strong>re, in the 1920s,<br />
white librarian Ernestine Rose was determined to prove that an integrated<br />
staff would foster greater appreciation for cultural diversity and<br />
better services for patrons, including immigrants from Puerto Rico and the<br />
West Indies and migrants from the South. 21<br />
Other Approaches<br />
Works that address the reciprocal relationships <strong>of</strong> libraries and immigrants<br />
have added divergent views to library history. Haynes McMullen<br />
has reported on the American Library Association’s Committee on Work<br />
with the Foreign Born, which in the 1920s published pamphlets about<br />
Polish, Italian, Greek, and German immigrants and suggested books and<br />
periodicals for their use. 22 In their article on public library branches that<br />
served Polish neighborhoods in Buffalo, New York, Walter Drzewieniecki<br />
and Joanna Drzewieniecki-Abugattas <strong>of</strong>fer an account <strong>of</strong> the interaction<br />
<strong>of</strong> library staff and library users and <strong>of</strong> the changing patterns <strong>of</strong> use over<br />
time. 23 <strong>The</strong> authors make clear the influence <strong>of</strong> the library in the Polish<br />
community and the influence <strong>of</strong> Polish library users on the collections,
staff, and services. In a similar vein, Nelson Beck notes that Jewish culture<br />
encouraged Russian-Jewish immigrants to use libraries and other cultural<br />
agencies. Beck argues explicitly against the social-control thesis. It<br />
is clear in Beck’s interpretation that the newcomers had an impact on<br />
libraries as librarians learned about their native cultures and then<br />
designed programs and built collections to serve immigrants’ interests<br />
and needs. 24 Librarians proclaimed their role in Americanizing immigrants,<br />
but their efforts must be interpreted in light <strong>of</strong> the evidence <strong>of</strong><br />
immigrants’ own willing propulsion “not just into America,” as Elaine<br />
Fain has expressed it, “but into wider worlds.” 25<br />
Less attention has been given to Native Americans, but a recent example<br />
suggests there is much to be done in this arena. Bonnie Biggs and<br />
David Whitehorse provide a brief history <strong>of</strong> tribal libraries in San Diego<br />
County, with emphasis on the role <strong>of</strong> federal policy and county library<br />
assistance, especially since the 1980s. <strong>The</strong>y note the difficulty <strong>of</strong> maintaining<br />
autonomous tribal libraries when those institutions rely on others<br />
in the “American macro-culture” for aid that waxes and wanes, depending<br />
on the political and economic climate. 26<br />
More in-depth work has been done on white-black relations. In the<br />
area <strong>of</strong> education, Robert Martin and Lee Shiflett sketch the role <strong>of</strong> the<br />
American Library Association and philanthropic organizations in establishing<br />
library schools for African-Americans. 27 In the area <strong>of</strong> bibliography,<br />
Sibyl Moses traces the support Monroe Nathan Work received from<br />
philanthropic agencies for his Bibliography <strong>of</strong> the Negro in Africa and America. 28<br />
In a monograph on Arthur Schomburg, Elinor Sinnette recounts the life<br />
and work <strong>of</strong> the bibliophile whose collection Ernestine Rose acquired with<br />
Carnegie Corporation funding for the New York Public Library. 29 Cheryl<br />
Knott Malone interprets the creation <strong>of</strong> the Louisville Free Public<br />
Library’s two branches for African-Americans in terms <strong>of</strong> both black<br />
activism and white acquiescence. 30 A. P. Marshall reports on the historical<br />
development <strong>of</strong> library collections and services for African-Americans<br />
and recounts African-Americans’ efforts to secure access to libraries. 31<br />
Rosemary Ruhig Du Mont covers similar territory in an article focusing<br />
on white librarians’ attitudes regarding race. 32 She extends her analysis<br />
to include the attitudes <strong>of</strong> educators in a related essay. 33 Louise Robbins<br />
traces the firing <strong>of</strong> a white Oklahoma librarian in 1950 to both her rejection<br />
<strong>of</strong> racial discrimination and her commitment to intellectual freedom.<br />
34 Mary Lee Bundy and Frederick Stielow examine librarians’<br />
activism in a collection <strong>of</strong> essays on the 1960s. In that volume, Helen E.<br />
Williams <strong>of</strong>fers results <strong>of</strong> her survey <strong>of</strong> black students who attended predominately<br />
white library schools during the era <strong>of</strong> desegregation. As both<br />
observer and participant, E. J. Josey surveys civil rights activism in connection<br />
with libraries and librarians’ pr<strong>of</strong>essional organizations, and<br />
81
82 L&C/Multicultural Public Library History<br />
Roberto Haro describes the development <strong>of</strong> collections and programs to<br />
serve Hispanics and Latinos. 35<br />
Essays in John Mark Tucker’s anthology Untold Stories range widely,<br />
construing library history broadly. Examples include Marilyn Pettit’s<br />
report on early-nineteenth-century Sunday schools for young African-<br />
American women intent on acquiring literacy and Donald Franklin<br />
Joyce’s brief study <strong>of</strong> three black publishers. <strong>The</strong> volume also includes<br />
accounts <strong>of</strong> libraries established outside the mainstream to ensure access<br />
to information, such as the Faith Cabin Libraries Dan Lee writes about<br />
and the Freedom Summer Project collections Donald G. Davis, Jr., and<br />
Cheryl Knott Malone describe. 36<br />
Another recent anthology, Print Culture in a Diverse America, edited by<br />
Wayne Wiegand and James Danky, is broader still. 37 Among the essays<br />
included are Rudolph Vecoli’s study <strong>of</strong> a fragmented Italian immigrant<br />
press struggling for ideological hegemony among factious individuals<br />
who made their own meanings out <strong>of</strong> what they read, and Elizabeth<br />
McHenry’s recovery <strong>of</strong> African-American literary societies as sites <strong>of</strong><br />
democratic participation and protest. Most closely linked to library history<br />
is Christine Pawley’s use <strong>of</strong> state census records and library circulation<br />
and accession registers to re-create the reading habits <strong>of</strong> the<br />
inhabitants <strong>of</strong> Osage, Iowa, in the late nineteenth century. <strong>The</strong> authors<br />
<strong>of</strong> these articles are careful to avoid both top-down and bottom-up perspectives,<br />
instead drawing more complex pictures <strong>of</strong> the interactions <strong>of</strong><br />
institutions, groups, and individuals engaged in creating, acquiring, distributing,<br />
and interpreting literature and information.<br />
Toward Multiculturalism<br />
U.S. library history has tended to take the top-down perspective.<br />
Biographical studies have focused more on the leaders than on the rank<br />
and <strong>file</strong>, more on the educators and administrators than on the frontline<br />
service providers. Institutional studies have told the stories <strong>of</strong> libraries<br />
from librarians’ perspectives, as agencies collecting and disseminating<br />
reading materials. Particularly because the leaders have been predominately<br />
Caucasian/Anglo, the biographical bent toward those leaders necessarily<br />
shortchanges multicultural representations. And since libraries<br />
have been largely the products and promoters <strong>of</strong> mainstream middleclass<br />
practices and values, institutional histories tell only half the story,<br />
that <strong>of</strong> delivery but not that <strong>of</strong> reception. <strong>The</strong> focus on leaders and<br />
administration is not surprising, given the history <strong>of</strong> library history as a<br />
pursuit <strong>of</strong> LIS faculty and practicing librarians; clearly, library history<br />
has intended to serve the library pr<strong>of</strong>ession (and perhaps its dominant<br />
ideology). In the information age, however, wider scholarly interest in the
history <strong>of</strong> all manner <strong>of</strong> information-related agencies and agents is<br />
apparent. Library historians have much to contribute to a newly invigorated<br />
scholarship that ranges from print culture to electronic communication<br />
and information technologies. One significant contribution can be<br />
the development <strong>of</strong> a multicultural approach to understanding the institutions<br />
and agents <strong>of</strong> information access as they operated in the past.<br />
What would creating a multicultural library history involve? First, it<br />
would involve addressing theories about the purposes and roles <strong>of</strong><br />
libraries in American history. Second, a multicultural library history<br />
might serve to complicate notions about dominance and resistance,<br />
focusing on use and users. Third, it would involve a rethinking <strong>of</strong> ideas<br />
about centrality and marginality. Since both libraries and the vast majority<br />
<strong>of</strong> librarians have been considered marginal, it would be a useful exercise<br />
to decenter the library in library history to allow consideration <strong>of</strong><br />
other (competing) cultural entities and other viewpoints (<strong>of</strong> nonusers,<br />
for instance). And fourth, it would involve some questioning <strong>of</strong> the role<br />
<strong>of</strong> the historian, especially when that historian is also responsible for<br />
socializing students into the library and information pr<strong>of</strong>essions. Library<br />
historians might consider abandoning a presentation <strong>of</strong> themselves as<br />
objective observers reconstructing the past and instead adopt a situated<br />
standpoint from which to construct their narratives. In any case, the creation<br />
<strong>of</strong> a multicultural library history would require library historians to<br />
draw on a rich, multidisciplinary literature <strong>of</strong> history and theory that<br />
reaches beyond the confines <strong>of</strong> our own literature.<br />
For example, recent theoretical and empirical work on readers’<br />
responses to and uses <strong>of</strong> texts suggests that the processes and practices<br />
associated with reading are creative, idiosyncratic, and unpredictable. 38<br />
Might not the same be true <strong>of</strong> the processes and practices associated<br />
with using libraries, some <strong>of</strong> which processes and practices do not involve<br />
reading at all? Library history cannot become multicultural merely by<br />
focusing more attention on diverse librarians and collections, although<br />
such work contributes to the goal. More broadly, a multicultural library<br />
history should interpret research on the extent to which diverse communities,<br />
groups, and individuals interacted with or avoided libraries and<br />
librarians in different times and places. Such inclusions may help illuminate<br />
when and where libraries were marginal and when and where librarians<br />
accepted or resisted hegemonic influence by constructing the<br />
histories <strong>of</strong> library-campus, library-corporation, and library-community<br />
interactions. In the works reviewed here, it is possible to catch glimpses<br />
<strong>of</strong> libraries and librarians as they shaped and were shaped by readers and<br />
information seekers.<br />
But it is intriguing to imagine more. One case, for purposes <strong>of</strong> illustration<br />
and inspiration, would be a multicultural history <strong>of</strong> the Chicago<br />
83
84 L&C/Multicultural Public Library History<br />
Public Library. Such an effort would move beyond the standard institutional<br />
history to take into account Chicago’s Irish, German, Jewish,<br />
Italian, Greek, Hispanic/Latino, and African-American enclaves and the<br />
dramatic demographic shifts that attended immigration and internal<br />
migration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In such a setting it<br />
would be important to consider the machine politics <strong>of</strong> city government,<br />
<strong>of</strong> which the library was only one agency. It would be advisable to<br />
acknowledge and explore the impact <strong>of</strong> a prestigious library school in the<br />
same city and its training <strong>of</strong> diverse students for careers in libraries and<br />
in library science research and education. Similarly, it would be necessary<br />
to evaluate the public library in the context <strong>of</strong> the availability <strong>of</strong> several<br />
special, academic, and research libraries nearby. <strong>The</strong> voluminous secondary<br />
literature on Chicago’s history and the collections <strong>of</strong> extant primary<br />
materials would provide the necessary documentary evidence.<br />
Chicago is only one example, and Houston, Los Angeles, and other<br />
locales <strong>of</strong>fer many more. Such projects can contribute to the creation <strong>of</strong><br />
a multicultural library history, one that aids understanding <strong>of</strong> how<br />
libraries have both supported and stymied the dominant culture’s influence<br />
on diverse groups and individuals and one that explores how those<br />
groups and individuals attempted, and sometimes succeeded, in turning<br />
libraries to their own counterhegemonic purposes.<br />
Notes<br />
1. For the former, see Sidney Ditzion, Arsenals <strong>of</strong> a Democratic Culture (Chicago:<br />
American Library Association, 1947); for the latter, see Michael H. Harris, <strong>The</strong><br />
Purpose <strong>of</strong> the American Public Library in Historical Perspective (Bethesda, Md.: ERIC<br />
Document Reproduction Service, ED 071 668, 1972), “<strong>The</strong> Purpose <strong>of</strong> the<br />
American Public Library: A Revisionist Interpretation <strong>of</strong> History,” Library Journal<br />
98 (September 1<strong>973</strong>): 2509–14, and “Externalist or Internalist Frameworks for<br />
the Interpretation <strong>of</strong> American Library History—<strong>The</strong> Continuing Debate,”<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 10 (April 1975): 106–10.<br />
2. Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, vol. 1, ed. with an introduction by Joseph<br />
A. Buttigieg, trans. Joseph A. Buttigieg and Antonio Callari (New York:<br />
Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press, 1992).<br />
3. Wayne A. Wiegand, “Main Street Public Library: <strong>The</strong> Availability <strong>of</strong><br />
Controversial Materials in the Rural Heartland, 1890–1956,” Libraries & Culture 31<br />
(Winter 1998): 131–32; see Wiegand’s note 10 for additional Gramsci material.<br />
4. Phyllis Dain, “Ambivalence and Paradox: <strong>The</strong> Social Bonds <strong>of</strong> the Public<br />
Library,” Library Journal 100 (February 1975): 266.<br />
5. On U.S. librarians as predominately white, see Edward A. Goedeken,<br />
“‘<strong>The</strong> Rainbow Survivors <strong>of</strong> Some Vanished Grey Moment <strong>of</strong> Reality’: A<br />
Prosopographical Study <strong>of</strong> the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography and Its<br />
Supplement,” Libraries & Culture 30 (Spring 1995): 155. On public library collections,<br />
see Wiegand, “Main Street Public Library,” 131–32, and Christine J.<br />
Pawley, “Reading on the Middle Border: <strong>The</strong> Culture <strong>of</strong> Print in Osage, Iowa,<br />
1870–1900” (Ph.D. diss., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin-Madison, 1996), esp. 231–51.
6. Donald G. Davis, Jr., “Wars in American Libraries: Ideological Battles in<br />
the Selection <strong>of</strong> Materials,” Libraries & Culture 33 (Winter 1998): 40–46.<br />
7. Lorna Peterson, “Multiculturalism: Affirmative or Negative Action?”<br />
Library Journal (July 1995): 30–33.<br />
8. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, <strong>The</strong> Social Construction <strong>of</strong> Reality<br />
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966).<br />
9. Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History <strong>of</strong> Multicultural America (Boston:<br />
Little, Brown, 1993), 1–17.<br />
10. Jacques Barzun, Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (New York: Harcourt,<br />
Brace, 1937); reprinted as Race: A Study in Superstition (New York: Harper and<br />
Row, 1965).<br />
11. Mark Poster, “Postmodern Virtualities,” chap. 2 <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> Second Media Age<br />
(Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995), available at http://www.hnet.uci.edu/<br />
mposter/writings/internet.html.<br />
12. I am grateful to Andrew Wertheimer for providing a chronology <strong>of</strong> LHRT<br />
presentations.<br />
13. <strong>The</strong> presentation was later published as E. J. Josey, “Edward Christopher<br />
Williams: A Librarian’s Librarian,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 4 (April 1969):<br />
106–22. Josey was not the first African American to present at an LHRT session;<br />
in 1965, when the meeting was in Detroit, Virginia Lacy Jones <strong>of</strong> Atlanta<br />
<strong>University</strong> gave a paper entitled “Libraries, Librarianship, and the Negro.”<br />
14. “Compensatory history” appears in Gerda Lerner, “Placing Women in<br />
History: Definitions and Challenges,” Feminist Studies 3 (1975): 5.<br />
15. Various perspectives on Josey’s accomplishments and a bibliography <strong>of</strong><br />
works by and about him appear in Ismail Abdullahi, ed., E. J. Josey: An Activist<br />
Librarian (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1992).<br />
16. Annette L. Phinazee, ed., <strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in the Southeast: Reminiscences,<br />
Activities, Challenges (Durham: North Carolina Central <strong>University</strong> <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Science, 1980).<br />
17. E. J. Josey, ed., <strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow<br />
Press, 1970). Josey’s follow-up edition two decades later, <strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in<br />
America Revisited (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994), focuses more on the<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s and problems involved in ensuring equitable access to libraries and information,<br />
and many <strong>of</strong> the essayists include some historical information about<br />
their topics.<br />
18. Annie L. McPheeters, Library Service in Black and White (Metuchen, N.J.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1988).<br />
19. William Sheh Wong, “Alfred Kaiming Chiu and Chinese American<br />
Librarianship,” College and Research Libraries 39 (September 1978): 384–88.<br />
20. Julio L. Hernández-Delgado, “Pura Teresa Belpré, Storyteller and Pioneer<br />
Puerto Rican Librarian,” Library Quarterly 62 (1992): 425–40.<br />
21. Betty L. Jenkins, “A White Librarian in Black Harlem,” Library Quarterly 60<br />
(1990): 216–31. Further discussion <strong>of</strong> Rose appears in Lorna Peterson,<br />
“Alternative Perspectives in Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science: Issues <strong>of</strong> Race,”<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Education for Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science 37 (Spring 1996): 163–74.<br />
22. Haynes McMullen, “Service to Ethnic Minorities Other than Afro-<br />
Americans and American Indians,” in Sidney L. Jackson, Eleanor B. Herling, and<br />
E. J. Josey, eds., A Century <strong>of</strong> Service: Librarianship in the United States and Canada<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1976), 42–61.<br />
23. Walter M. Drzewieniecki and Joanna E. Drzewieniecki-Abugattas, “Public<br />
Library Service to American Ethnics: <strong>The</strong> Polish Community on the Niagara<br />
Frontier, New York,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 9 (April 1974): 120–37.<br />
85
86 L&C/Multicultural Public Library History<br />
24. Nelson R. Beck, “<strong>The</strong> Use <strong>of</strong> Library and Educational Facilities by Russian-<br />
Jewish Immigrants in New York City, 1880–1914: <strong>The</strong> Impact <strong>of</strong> Culture,” Journal<br />
<strong>of</strong> Library History 12 (Spring 1977): 128–49.<br />
25. Ellen Fain, “Books for New Citizens: Public Libraries and Americanization<br />
Programs, 1900–1925,” in Ralph M. Aderman, ed., <strong>The</strong> Quest for Social Justice: <strong>The</strong><br />
Morris Fromkin Memorial Lectures, 1970–1980 (Madison: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin<br />
Press, 1983), 272.<br />
26. Bonnie Biggs and David Whitehorse, “Sovereignty, Collaboration and<br />
Continuing Challenge: A History <strong>of</strong> Tribal Libraries in San Diego County,”<br />
Special Libraries 86 (Fall 1995): 279–91.<br />
27. Robert Sidney Martin and Orvin Lee Shiflett, “Hampton, Fisk, and<br />
Atlanta: <strong>The</strong> Foundations, the American Library Association, and Library<br />
Education for Blacks, 1925–1941,” Libraries & Culture 31 (Spring 1996): 299–325.<br />
28. Sibyl E. Moses, “<strong>The</strong> Influence <strong>of</strong> Philanthropic Agencies on the<br />
Development <strong>of</strong> Monroe Nathan Work’s Bibliography <strong>of</strong> the Negro in Africa and<br />
America,” Libraries & Culture 31 (Spring 1996): 326–41.<br />
29. Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and<br />
Collector (Detroit: Wayne State <strong>University</strong> Press, 1989).<br />
30. Cheryl Knott Malone, “Louisville Free Public Library’s Racially<br />
Segregated Branches, 1905–35,” Register <strong>of</strong> the Kentucky Historical Society 93, no. 2<br />
(Spring 1995): 159–79.<br />
31. A. P. Marshall, “Service to Afro-Americans,” in Jackson, Herling, and Josey,<br />
eds., A Century <strong>of</strong> Service, 62–78.<br />
32. Rosemary Ruhig Du Mont, “Race in American Librarianship: Attitudes <strong>of</strong><br />
the Library Pr<strong>of</strong>ession,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 21 (Summer 1986): 488–509.<br />
33. Rosemary Ruhig Du Mont, “<strong>The</strong> Educating <strong>of</strong> Black Librarians: An<br />
Historical Perspective,” Journal for Education in Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science 26<br />
(Spring 1986): 233–49.<br />
34. Louise S. Robbins, “Racism and Censorship in Cold War Oklahoma: <strong>The</strong><br />
Case <strong>of</strong> Ruth W. Brown and the Bartlesville Public Library,” Southwestern Historical<br />
Quarterly 100 (July 1996): 18–46.<br />
35. Mary Lee Bundy and Frederick J. Stielow, eds., Activism in American<br />
Librarianship, 1962–1<strong>973</strong> (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987); the chapters mentioned<br />
are Helen E. Williams, “Experiences <strong>of</strong> Blacks in Predominantly White<br />
Library <strong>School</strong>s, 1962–1974: An Era <strong>of</strong> Transition” (153–61), E. J. Josey, “<strong>The</strong><br />
Civil Rights Movement and American Librarianship: <strong>The</strong> Opening Round”<br />
(13–20), and Roberto P. Haro, “<strong>The</strong> Development <strong>of</strong> Library Programs for<br />
Hispanics in America: 1962–1<strong>973</strong>” (141–51).<br />
36. John Mark Tucker, ed., Untold Stories: Civil Rights, Libraries, and Black<br />
Librarianship (Champaign: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science, 1998). <strong>The</strong> essays mentioned in this review include Marilyn<br />
H. Pettit, “Liberty and Literacy: Sunday <strong>School</strong>s and Reading for African-<br />
American Females in New York City, 1799–1826” (10–22), Donald Franklin Joyce,<br />
“Unique Gatekeepers <strong>of</strong> Black Culture: Three Black Librarians as Book<br />
Publishers” (151–55), Dan Lee, “From Segregation to Integration: Library<br />
Services for Blacks in South Carolina, 1923–1962” (93–109), and Donald G.<br />
Davis, Jr., and Cheryl Knott Malone, “Reading for Liberation: <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong><br />
Libraries in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project” (110–25).<br />
37. James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse<br />
America (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1998). <strong>The</strong> highlighted essays<br />
include Rudolph J. Vecoli, “<strong>The</strong> Italian Immigrant Press and the Construction <strong>of</strong>
Social Reality, 1850–1920” (17–33), Elizabeth McHenry, “Forgotten Readers:<br />
African-American Literary Societies and the American Scene” (149–72), and<br />
Christine Pawley, “Better than Billiards: Reading and the Public Library in<br />
Osage, Iowa, 1890–95” (173–99).<br />
38. Two key examples <strong>of</strong> this growing body <strong>of</strong> literature are Stanley Fish, Is<br />
<strong>The</strong>re a Text in This Class?: <strong>The</strong> Authority <strong>of</strong> Interpretive Communities (Cambridge,<br />
Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1980), and Janice A. Radway, Reading the<br />
Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North<br />
Carolina Press, 1984). Wiegand urges library and information science educators<br />
to pay attention to such scholarship and provides a helpful overview <strong>of</strong> the literature<br />
and its significance in Wayne A. Wiegand, “Out <strong>of</strong> Sight, Out <strong>of</strong> Mind: Why<br />
Don’t We Have Any <strong>School</strong>s <strong>of</strong> Library and Reading Studies?” Journal <strong>of</strong> Education<br />
for Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science 38 (Fall 1997): 314–26.<br />
87
“<strong>The</strong>y Sure Got to Prove It on Me”: Millennial<br />
Thoughts on Gay Archives, Gay Biography, and<br />
Gay Library History<br />
James V. Carmichael, Jr.<br />
<strong>The</strong> American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and<br />
Transgendered Task Force (GLBTRT)* justly takes pride <strong>of</strong> place as the<br />
first pr<strong>of</strong>essional gay organization in the world. 1 While the ALA itself<br />
ended discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1974, antipathy to gay<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s within the pr<strong>of</strong>ession is by no means dormant. At the same time, the<br />
growth in gay archives and gay studies in the past twenty-five years has<br />
been phenomenal. Gay librarians and archivists can continue to play an<br />
increasingly important role in promoting these collections and their use,<br />
but only if they understand the full range <strong>of</strong> historical problems that gay<br />
history and biography present. Where appropriate, library historians<br />
should also chronicle the achievements <strong>of</strong> gay library worthies.<br />
Apologia Pro Vita Sua<br />
From 1970 to 1976 I worked as a trust administrative assistant at an<br />
Atlanta bank, a job for which I was temperamentally and intellectually<br />
ill-suited. In addition to learning how foolishly some widows and<br />
orphans spend their money and how easily private foibles become common<br />
public knowledge anytime money is involved, I began to sense that<br />
all <strong>of</strong> the gray suits and silence in the world would never save me from<br />
who I was, a gay man. I was the shortest, least muscular, and most troubled<br />
member <strong>of</strong> the twenty or so young men who ran up and down<br />
stairs all day long to do the bidding <strong>of</strong> trust <strong>of</strong>ficers on the second<br />
floor—opening estates and spendthrift trusts, drafting checks in<br />
amounts that represented the lifetime earnings <strong>of</strong> most trust department<br />
employees, sorting through the papers, jewelry, and financial<br />
records <strong>of</strong> the recently deceased, and occasionally holding the hand <strong>of</strong> a<br />
*Formed as the Task Force on Gay Liberation in 1970 (shortly thereafter the<br />
Gay Task Force), the name <strong>of</strong> the group was expanded to the Gay and Lesbian<br />
Task Force in 1986, the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Task Force (GLBTF) in 1995,<br />
and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Round Table in 1999.<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
widow who wanted to spend an afternoon complaining about the quality<br />
<strong>of</strong> available domestic help on bank time.<br />
One estate that arrived along with a box <strong>of</strong> papers was unforgettable—that<br />
<strong>of</strong> a retired pr<strong>of</strong>essor. In the box, along with a truly remarkable<br />
collection <strong>of</strong> early-nineteenth-century cryptograms, was private<br />
correspondence to the pr<strong>of</strong>essor from his best friend, interspersed with<br />
some titillating although not raunchy gay pictorial pornography. What I<br />
remember now about that experience is the all-male guffaws about the<br />
illegality <strong>of</strong> the material, speculations about the depraved pr<strong>of</strong>essor, and<br />
comments about how sick the letters were. Thinking back on those<br />
touching, tender, and outrageous letters, I surmise that they were minor<br />
literary masterpieces. <strong>The</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essor and his friend addressed each other<br />
as “Mary Ann” and “Emily” and alluded in a parody <strong>of</strong> the finest nineteenthcentury<br />
ellipsis to racy encounters with attractive males, the price <strong>of</strong> fine<br />
linens, mundane household matters, and the legal quagmires <strong>of</strong> gay<br />
males who were even in the 1970s still being entrapped by the Atlanta<br />
police. What struck me was the fact that Mary Ann and Emily really<br />
cared for each other under their campy disguises, and I resented the<br />
dehumanizing banter around me, even if it would be several more years<br />
before I cut myself <strong>of</strong>f from that workaday world <strong>of</strong> testosterone-laden<br />
c<strong>of</strong>fee breaks that <strong>of</strong>ten assumed the ambience <strong>of</strong> a pack <strong>of</strong> dogs pursuing<br />
a bitch in heat. It is a shame the letters were destroyed like diseasebearing<br />
rags.<br />
This memory resonates with me today because I wrote many such letters<br />
myself to my friend John when he and his lover, Gary, moved to<br />
upstate New York in the early 1990s. During the difficult period when I<br />
was struggling to achieve tenure and John was establishing a practice as<br />
a gay substance-abuse counselor in his home state, the letters provided a<br />
focus for all the pent-up pr<strong>of</strong>essional anger, romantic frustration, fears <strong>of</strong><br />
living alone and dying alone, self-pity, and impatience that any normal<br />
forty- to fifty-year-old gay man feels from time to time. <strong>The</strong> letters were<br />
spiced with gossip about mutual acquaintances in Chapel Hill and flights<br />
<strong>of</strong> sheer imagination, hyperbole, and overstatement that had more than<br />
a kernel <strong>of</strong> truth to them. <strong>The</strong>y were invariably signed with the names <strong>of</strong><br />
obscure female personages, some <strong>of</strong> them librarians, with elaborate<br />
Victorian names—which would send one or both <strong>of</strong> us to the library to<br />
look that one up and come back with an even more hilarious example.<br />
John understood my feelings. He had come out to me at age thirty-one<br />
while he was still married; he had been through the rigors <strong>of</strong> a doctorate<br />
at Notre Dame. He was the best-looking man I ever saw, bar none, with<br />
his rugged rangy body and a black Irish twinkle in his eyes, especially<br />
when he recited “Dangerous Dan McGrew” in faultless County Cork<br />
brogue.<br />
89
90 L&C/Millennial Thoughts<br />
<strong>The</strong> night John called me to tell me he had AIDS in October 1993 I<br />
had just seen the AIDS Quilt for the first time. When I got home from<br />
work in May 1994 to find a message on the phone from Gary saying that<br />
John had just been removed from his house in a body bag, I could not<br />
believe that we were not ever going to write those letters again. <strong>The</strong>y had<br />
kept me going for five years. I suppose I had been more than just a little<br />
in love with him. His family made me much more a part <strong>of</strong> his memory<br />
than I deserved, based on our short but intense friendship, and I sent<br />
them my letters from John, since they had already discovered the other<br />
half <strong>of</strong> the correspondence, and since they had repeatedly expressed<br />
their appreciation <strong>of</strong> our relationship. I sent the originals with no hope <strong>of</strong><br />
ever seeing them again because somehow the letters were secondary to<br />
the feelings that produced them.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Growth <strong>of</strong> Gay Literature and Gay Consciousness<br />
Great progress has been made in the quantity and quality <strong>of</strong> historical<br />
and biographical studies in lesbigay history over the past quarter-century.<br />
In 1995, the high-water mark <strong>of</strong> gay publishing to date, over 244 nonfiction<br />
monographs were published, <strong>of</strong> which at least 27 were historical or<br />
biographical. 2 Compare this figure to only twenty-seven monographs in<br />
1970 (one historical plus two literary histories), thirty in 1981 (three historical<br />
plus two literary histories), and forty-three in 1985 (no history per<br />
se but two literary histories), and one begins to appreciate what the<br />
numerical trends say about the growth <strong>of</strong> gay studies in the past decade.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se monographs correspond to a growth in the number <strong>of</strong> theses and<br />
dissertations on gay themes in the same period. In spite <strong>of</strong> the fact that<br />
these figures do not include exclusively lesbian monographs, they indicate<br />
clearly that gay studies have become a desirable specialty in some<br />
academic settings—even if some researchers in narrative history would<br />
maintain that as soon as any subject becomes entrenched in the academy,<br />
its research product becomes irrelevant to the ongoing concerns <strong>of</strong><br />
the population under investigation. One can’t have the same sort <strong>of</strong> confidence<br />
in analysis <strong>of</strong> the statistics for gay archival collections, because<br />
only a fraction <strong>of</strong> relevant material is cataloged online.<br />
Fairly detailed accounts <strong>of</strong> the gay movement in America have emerged,<br />
not only <strong>of</strong> the post–Stonewall era “revolution” but also <strong>of</strong> Victorian and<br />
Colonial antecedents that could have scarcely been imagined when<br />
Jonathan Katz first published his groundbreaking documentary history. 3<br />
Some important urban centers as well as discernible regions have been<br />
studied, and the biographical and autobiographical genres have flourished,<br />
particularly since the advent <strong>of</strong> AIDS. 4 Gay biographical studies are<br />
more problematic, perhaps. Here, too, although no writer has achieved a
totally satisfactory “outing” <strong>of</strong> Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, or Henry<br />
James, whose surviving papers still remain opaque as far as explicit discussion<br />
<strong>of</strong> sexual detail, some authors deploy more sophisticated historical<br />
analysis to contextualize “gay behavior” in other eras. 5 Of course,<br />
there is repetition: the 1990s heralded still another interpretation <strong>of</strong><br />
Oscar Wilde’s fall, one that basically adds little but explicit sex, more<br />
elaborate period detail, and Stephen Fry’s uncanny resemblance to the<br />
Irish playwright, to Robert Morley’s and Peter Finch’s earlier cinematic<br />
interpretations (both released in 1959). At any rate, one can point to the<br />
compilation <strong>of</strong> numerous biographical dictionaries and almanacs from<br />
which beginning researchers can peruse the list <strong>of</strong> famous gay men and<br />
lesbians as signifying greater awareness <strong>of</strong> the importance <strong>of</strong> gay history.<br />
Most encouraging <strong>of</strong> all is the growth and development <strong>of</strong> over sixty<br />
U.S. and Canadian repositories for specialized gay archives from which<br />
are drawn the raw materials <strong>of</strong> gay historical research. 6 <strong>The</strong> WorldCat<br />
database now includes at least 125 entries for archival material, plus<br />
another 100 or so entries that would qualify as special collections material,<br />
and these merely give a rough indication <strong>of</strong> the growth <strong>of</strong> primary<br />
documents that support gay history. Among the most notable <strong>of</strong> these<br />
gay collections are the James Mariposa Human Sexuality Archives at<br />
Cornell <strong>University</strong>, the International Gay and Lesbian Archives, the<br />
James Hormel Collection <strong>of</strong> the San Francisco Public Library, the<br />
Gebner-Hart Archives in Chicago, the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and<br />
the New York Public Library. Gay historian and educator James T. Sears<br />
has promoted the formation <strong>of</strong> similar archives throughout the<br />
Southeast, and Duke <strong>University</strong> is only the latest recruit to the expanding<br />
gay archives field.<br />
Thistlethwaite brilliantly describes the manner in which archivists and<br />
librarians <strong>of</strong> past eras squelched research into gay and lesbian topics by<br />
destruction <strong>of</strong> records, creation <strong>of</strong> byzantine and pejorative (not to mention<br />
blatantly inaccurate) subject headings, inventory descriptions that<br />
euphemize sexual relationships and others that fail to mention them at<br />
all, and a compulsive recalcitrance to deal with sexuality <strong>of</strong> any sort in<br />
the pr<strong>of</strong>ession (in this, librarians, as always, have reflected the social<br />
mores <strong>of</strong> the eras in which they lived). 7 <strong>The</strong> new collections supposedly<br />
augur an era <strong>of</strong> social acceptance for homosexuality, one that<br />
Thistlethwaite is at pains to remind the pr<strong>of</strong>ession may only run skindeep.<br />
8 Without putting too fine a point on recent findings that suggest<br />
that, even in urban collections, gay literature and gay studies have<br />
received uneven treatment or recent evidence <strong>of</strong> a backlash against<br />
social responsibilities as a part <strong>of</strong> the librarian mandate, it is probably no<br />
exaggeration to claim that gay studies have progressed in spite <strong>of</strong> librarianship<br />
as well as because <strong>of</strong> it. 9<br />
91
92 L&C/Millennial Thoughts<br />
<strong>The</strong> Task Force on Gay Liberation (TFGL) <strong>of</strong> the American Library<br />
Association, formed in 1970 at the height <strong>of</strong> the social revolution and<br />
activism <strong>of</strong> the Vietnam era, was the first gay pr<strong>of</strong>essional association in<br />
the world. That it was established by Israel Fishman mainly as a means<br />
for its founder to meet available gay men and developed only secondarily<br />
into an organization for redress <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional and publishing inequities,<br />
a forum for discussion <strong>of</strong> gay <strong>issue</strong>s impacting library service, and a vehicle<br />
for recognizing quality gay fiction and nonfiction for both younger and<br />
adult audiences should confirm what we understand about a population<br />
whose entire being was defined in terms <strong>of</strong> its sexual behavior. 10 Only<br />
when Barbara Gittings, a longtime lesbian activist sans library credentials,<br />
took over leadership <strong>of</strong> the Task Force in 1971 and began to plan<br />
programs that reflected larger concerns within librarianship and the gay<br />
community at large did its coherence and visibility as an established<br />
organization increase. Ironically, like so many other social minority<br />
groups within ALA, TFGL had to wait nearly thirty years to achieve more<br />
than task force status (because the task <strong>of</strong> liberation was still ongoing?),<br />
and two nomination attempts have yet to win for Gittings an intellectual<br />
freedom award for the sixteen years <strong>of</strong> leadership she provided gratis to<br />
librarians. 11<br />
Perhaps the most damning qualification to be placed on librarian<br />
involvement in the gay movement is the relative paucity <strong>of</strong> historical literature<br />
about gays in libraries. While we now have several negative<br />
examples <strong>of</strong> how libraries participated in the persecution <strong>of</strong> homosexuals<br />
in the pre-Stonewall era, examples <strong>of</strong> positive librarian influence are<br />
nearly nonexistent. 12 Both Gittings and Marie Kuda, nonlibrarians who<br />
have made significant contributions to the GLBTRT and bibliography,<br />
are cited in standard historical and biographical sources, but only one<br />
librarian, Jeanette Howard Foster (author and one-time librarian <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Kinsey Institute, among many other library jobs she held), is included in<br />
a recent gay and lesbian encyclopedia. 13 Foster was the third winner <strong>of</strong><br />
the ALA Gay Book Award, although she is virtually unknown to the current<br />
generation <strong>of</strong> librarians, straight or gay/lesbian.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1990s have seen the publication <strong>of</strong> three important gay library<br />
titles, Cal Gough and Ellen Greenblatt’s pioneering Gay and Lesbian<br />
Library Service; Norman Kester’s collection <strong>of</strong> personal essays, library<br />
anecdotes, and coming-out stories from lesbian and gay librarians,<br />
Liberating Minds: <strong>The</strong> Stories and Lives <strong>of</strong> Lesbian and Gay Librarians and <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
Allies; and my own collection <strong>of</strong> essays on the challenges <strong>of</strong> writing lesbigay<br />
library history, Daring to Find Our Names: <strong>The</strong> Search For Lesbigay Library<br />
History. 14 One may applaud these efforts while excoriating the ALA’s lack<br />
<strong>of</strong> leadership in bringing gays and lesbian <strong>issue</strong>s into the grand design <strong>of</strong><br />
the organization. Granting a minority organization round table status is
one way to squelch rebellion without ceding power, but as some blacks<br />
within the ALA have discovered, task forces and caucuses do not engender<br />
the kind <strong>of</strong> solidarity necessary for coherent social programs and pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
self-development. <strong>The</strong> formation <strong>of</strong> the Black Librarians<br />
Association in 1994 reflected a discontent <strong>of</strong> several decades with the<br />
ALA’s tepidity on racial <strong>issue</strong>s. It is doubtful that lesbians and gays will<br />
register a similar degree <strong>of</strong> alienation from the pr<strong>of</strong>essional organization,<br />
especially because many gays are so used to compromising their<br />
identities that any recognition strikes them as amazing, because the<br />
organization does provide them with some funding, and because a more<br />
radical agenda threatens the invisibility that the gradualist agenda<br />
affords. External signs <strong>of</strong> encouragement from the ALA arrive none too<br />
early: the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration <strong>of</strong> GLBTF was attended by<br />
two ALA past presidents, the current president, and at least one nominee<br />
for president-elect, yet in twenty-five years, only one ALA president<br />
has ever explicitly defended gay rights. 15 Still, the programs <strong>of</strong> GLBTF <strong>of</strong><br />
the 1990s emphasized a positive social and publishing climate, signaled<br />
most significantly, perhaps, by the summer 1999 program that focused on<br />
gay archives (“Daring to Save Our History: Gay and Lesbian Archives,”<br />
26 June 1999, New Orleans).<br />
This “boom” in gay archives and collections arrives at a felicitous<br />
moment when the availability <strong>of</strong> online technology has precipitated a<br />
new awareness <strong>of</strong> the accessibility <strong>of</strong> archives among pr<strong>of</strong>essionals in the<br />
field. Scholars no longer necessarily have to travel thousands <strong>of</strong> miles or<br />
spend hours on the telephone to ascertain what the holdings <strong>of</strong> archives<br />
are: many inventories and descriptions <strong>of</strong> archives are now accessible<br />
online. Who knows, one day library directors may come to realize that<br />
weekends are the most convenient time for most academic researchers to<br />
do their work and support weekend staffing <strong>of</strong> the archives accordingly.<br />
In spite <strong>of</strong> the numbers, there are at least three problems that challenge<br />
gay archivists and historical researchers that will be more difficult<br />
to resolve by fiat. <strong>The</strong> first, “mothball outing,” consists <strong>of</strong> the “outing” <strong>of</strong><br />
historical personages who may have never identified themselves as homosexual,<br />
who merely may have been unmarried, or who left no trace <strong>of</strong><br />
their personal passions on paper. Gay historians, in their eagerness to<br />
create a lesbigay pantheon from which struggling young gay people may<br />
gather inspiration, sometimes ignore normal rules <strong>of</strong> historical evidence<br />
in favor <strong>of</strong> more circumstantial cases for their subjects.<br />
Circumstantial Evidence and Ambiguity<br />
While the growth <strong>of</strong> gay archives over the past twenty or thirty years<br />
seems nothing short <strong>of</strong> miraculous, the application <strong>of</strong> historical principles<br />
93
94 L&C/Millennial Thoughts<br />
to the stories <strong>of</strong> lesbians and gays, blacks, Native Americans, and Latinos,<br />
to name only a few minorities deserving <strong>of</strong> revisionist interpretations,<br />
has been inconsistent. While it is true that historians <strong>of</strong> the nineteenth<br />
century, in their frenzy to apply “scientific” principles to what was basically<br />
a literary form (historical narrative), almost succeeded in killing<br />
narrative interest (storytelling ability) entirely with narcotic chronologies,<br />
facts, and footnotes, in the late twentieth century, post-Warhol fame<br />
game, the rigors <strong>of</strong> evidentiary protocols have been loosened to include<br />
speculation and insinuation. Apologists defend the practice <strong>of</strong> “outing”<br />
Eleanor Roosevelt and her secretary Lorena Hitchcock, although clearly<br />
Roosevelt would never have made a public pronouncement on her sexuality,<br />
period, since sexuality according to her time, tradition, and station<br />
<strong>of</strong> birth was an unmentionable subject outside <strong>of</strong> a lover’s arms.<br />
Revisionists defend this practice on the grounds that (as one writer put<br />
it in the New Yorker) the possibility that such a relationship existed has<br />
more importance to the future <strong>of</strong> the gay movement than any squeamishness<br />
about evidentiary value can have to the case for acceptable historical<br />
standards. 16 Rose Gladney discussed the problems <strong>of</strong> generational<br />
differences between lesbians at the 1995 meeting <strong>of</strong> the GLBTF, where she<br />
described her difficulty in probing the nature <strong>of</strong> the Lillian Smith/Paula<br />
Snelling ménage by engaging Snelling in a conversation that women <strong>of</strong><br />
her generation never had. 17 Other than for hypocrites like federal prosecutor<br />
Roy Cohn, who prosecuted lesbigays during the McCarthy era<br />
while hiding in his own closet, outing anyone against their will is a perpetuation<br />
<strong>of</strong> the kind <strong>of</strong> emotional violence to which people <strong>of</strong> earlier<br />
generations were routinely subjected. As Andrew Sullivan noted in one <strong>of</strong><br />
his most famous reactionary statements,<br />
In all the recent brouhaha over the “outing” <strong>of</strong> alleged homosexuals,<br />
one fallacy has remained virtually unchallenged. It’s the<br />
notion <strong>of</strong> the simple “closet” and the crude assertion that one is<br />
either in it or out <strong>of</strong> it. I know <strong>of</strong> no one to whom this applies. Most<br />
homosexuals and lesbians whose sexualities are developed beyond<br />
adolescence are neither “in” nor “out.” <strong>The</strong>y hover tentatively<br />
somewhere in between. 18<br />
While one may abhor the damage that closeted lives imply for the gay<br />
“movement,” gay historians and historians who are gay should never forget<br />
that coming out can be a singularly painful experience for many people.<br />
In other words, historical evidence must support the assertion <strong>of</strong> homosexual<br />
activity before one can claim they were “gay” in the modern sense <strong>of</strong> that term. This<br />
caveat becomes even more essential when no signifying relationships are<br />
involved, due to the fact that few writers are equipped to deal with the<br />
situation <strong>of</strong> single people, straight or gay. 19
Related to this problem is how people from an earlier era regarded<br />
their own same-sex attractions.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Canonical Gay “Experience”<br />
Daniel Harris has noted the negative as well as the positive effects <strong>of</strong><br />
gay liberation in the post-Stonewall era. 20 Primary among the negative<br />
effects is the narrowing <strong>of</strong> vision related to the gay experience. <strong>The</strong> tendency<br />
to categorize gays, to assume homosexual activity where archival<br />
evidence remains ambiguous, and to simplify all same-sex affections as<br />
homosexual is astounding, even if it represents an understandable tendency,<br />
given the centuries-long invisibility <strong>of</strong> many gay people and the<br />
desire to claim group identity. Yet identity politics also tends to preclude<br />
dissent from the politically correct orthodoxy <strong>of</strong> the moment—it does not<br />
leave much room for conservatives like Bruce Bawer or Andrew Sullivan,<br />
for example, and even gay conservatives and neo-individualists sometimes<br />
feel hemmed in by the political, religious, and social orthodoxies <strong>of</strong><br />
their nomenclatures. 21<br />
How orthodoxy, combined with a superficial, tabloid-deep respect for<br />
supporting documentation, plays out in gay history is both fascinating<br />
and terrifying to behold. One wonders what future gay historians will<br />
think when they examine the unevenness <strong>of</strong> the historical record regarding<br />
gays and lesbians one hundred years from now. John Addington<br />
Symonds, Oscar Wilde, Greg Louganis, Bessie Smith, Amy Lowell,<br />
Elizabeth Bishop—these lives have been documented as lesbigay with<br />
very little room for guessing what we mean by “gay,” “lesbian,” or “bisexual.”<br />
Yet one will look in vain for confirmation <strong>of</strong> the sexual orientation<br />
<strong>of</strong> lesser-known gay figures who emerge in some recent reference<br />
sources.<br />
George Washington Carver appears as an important gay scientist in<br />
the 1995 compilation Out in All Directions, but he fails to appear in the Gay<br />
and Lesbian Biography, <strong>The</strong> Gay Almanac, Completely Queer: <strong>The</strong> Gay and<br />
Lesbian Encyclopedia, or indeed, as a homosexual in standard biographies.<br />
22 In a section tellingly labeled “Queered Science,” we are told that<br />
Carver was “openly gay all <strong>of</strong> his life” and “lived for years with his loving<br />
successor at Tuskeegee, Dr. Austin W. Curtis, Jr.” What the entry does<br />
not tell us was that when Curtis joined the Tuskeegee staff as Dr.<br />
Carver’s research assistant in 1936, Carver was already over seventy<br />
years old, and the next year his health began to decline. While the newly<br />
published, widely hailed American National Biography (1999) does not label<br />
Carver as homosexual, it does note Carver’s “special talent for friendship”<br />
with many famous people, including Henry Ford, the Roosevelts,<br />
and foundation <strong>of</strong>ficials, as well as his proposal and near-marriage in<br />
1905 and his several nervous collapses, to which Out in All Directions does<br />
95
96 L&C/Millennial Thoughts<br />
not allude. <strong>The</strong> standard biography by Linda McMurry makes it clear<br />
that Carver was rarely well enough for Curtis to have been more than his<br />
caretaker and that Carver saw Curtis’s appointment in terms <strong>of</strong> the<br />
younger man’s pr<strong>of</strong>essional advancement. In Carver’s later years, Curtis<br />
was primarily interested in securing increased revenues for patent rights<br />
on Carver’s inventions. Does the fact that Carver is usually shown knitting<br />
in old age mean that he was openly gay? Tailoring was a leading<br />
occupation for black men when I grew up in the segregated South, but<br />
one would have to search hard for an openly gay black man even in the<br />
Harlem Renaissance because <strong>of</strong> the especially strong social stigma<br />
attached to black gay male identity. <strong>The</strong> American National Biography mentions<br />
that Carver spoke <strong>of</strong> Curtis “like a son.” Has a doctoral student discovered<br />
some new papers, or has Carver’s academic relationship with<br />
Curtis been proven to include “bumping ugly”? If so, the compilers <strong>of</strong> Out<br />
in All Directions should have included footnotes to support hitherto undocumented<br />
facts or drop Carver until more conclusive evidence came to<br />
light.<br />
Ditto composer Stephen Foster Collins, who is claimed by both Out in<br />
All Directions and <strong>The</strong> Gay Almanac, even though no documentation to support<br />
such a claim appears in either the recent biography <strong>of</strong> Foster or in<br />
the research bibliography on Foster that appeared in the 1980s. 23 While<br />
there may be some uncertainty about the reasons for his separation from<br />
his wife and family several years before he died (were the reasons financial,<br />
as some have claimed, or his increasing addiction to alcohol?), the<br />
down-at-the-heels life he lived in a grocer’s barroom in the Bowery, a section<br />
<strong>of</strong> New York where “Nancys,” among many others, congregated,<br />
hardly constitutes pro<strong>of</strong> that Foster had homosexual relationships and<br />
shortchanges the significance <strong>of</strong> his career, which is a classic American<br />
saga <strong>of</strong> wasted talent and unscrupulous publisher greed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> central historical tenet that has failed in practice more <strong>of</strong>ten than<br />
succeeded is the discussion <strong>of</strong> ambiguity in evidence. A good example <strong>of</strong><br />
effective discussion <strong>of</strong> ambiguity is William J. Mann’s biography <strong>of</strong> silentscreen<br />
film idol and Hollywood decorator to the stars Billy Haines. 24<br />
Although Mann was prevented from documenting some facts due to Ted<br />
Turner’s purchase and subsequent sequestration <strong>of</strong> the MGM archives,<br />
he nevertheless presents a more convincing case for the physical relationship<br />
<strong>of</strong> Cary Grant and Randolph Scott than does Boze Hadleigh,<br />
whose Hollywood Gays devotes two chapters to Grant and Scott based on<br />
lengthy (but circumspect and inconclusive) interviews he conducted with<br />
both men before Grant died. 25 One <strong>of</strong> the reasons Mann succeeds where<br />
Bozeman fails is that he has done his background homework, has corroborated<br />
information from interviews with extensive double checking,<br />
and discusses evidentiary ambiguity ad nauseam. Whatever such attention
to detail detracts from narrative and “scoop” value, it certainly adds to<br />
credibility. <strong>The</strong> focus <strong>of</strong> Mann’s biography <strong>of</strong> Billy Haines, the number<br />
one male box <strong>of</strong>fice attraction in Hollywood from 1926 to 1931 who lived<br />
an openly gay life and sacrificed his career rather than give up his longtime<br />
lover Jimmy Shields to pacify Louis B. Mayer, certainly has more to<br />
say to the current generation <strong>of</strong> gays than the incidental screen gossip<br />
gleaned by Bozeman about stars who snuck around for “nookie.” Mann<br />
employs a larger cast <strong>of</strong> characters on a much broader sociohistorical<br />
palette and introduces names to the lesbigay celluloid closet that are<br />
<strong>of</strong>ten ignored—Claudette Colbert, Elsa Maxwell, and Rod La Rocque,<br />
among many less famous others. Of course, theater and film are natural<br />
subjects for a gay biographer since the arts have been historically associated<br />
with people on the fringe and homosexuals in particular. Still, if the<br />
stories are told with little reference to theater or studio history, they<br />
have little to impart beyond the cheap thrill afforded by any grocerystore<br />
rag.<br />
Similarly, <strong>The</strong>o Aronson’s roundabout portrait <strong>of</strong> the heir presumptive<br />
to the English throne, Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld, achieves<br />
an authority that few previous accounts <strong>of</strong> the Cleveland Street Scandal<br />
and its aftermath attain. 26 Again, it is not so much the evidence itself<br />
that has changed—the royal family, probably under the direction <strong>of</strong><br />
Prince Eddy’s father, Edward VII, destroyed all papers related to the<br />
affair shortly after Prince Albert Victor (Eddy) died in 1892. <strong>The</strong> depth<br />
with which existing evidence is examined and analyzed as well as<br />
Aronson’s comprehensive look at not only Eddy’s relationship to the<br />
Cleveland Street Scandal but also unrelated sensations like Jack the<br />
Ripper murders, to which he has in the past been linked, bolster reader<br />
confidence. Aronson, incidentally, sums up the plethora <strong>of</strong> Ripper scholarship<br />
deftly and succinctly but relies for his own primary evidence<br />
on the <strong>file</strong>s <strong>of</strong> the director <strong>of</strong> public prosecutions at the Public Records<br />
Office—a nightmare <strong>of</strong> bureaucratic disorganization if ever one<br />
existed—and conducts a thorough examination <strong>of</strong> periodical and newspaper<br />
accounts <strong>of</strong> the period—no mean task.<br />
Perhaps the most effective lesbigay biographies <strong>of</strong> recent years are<br />
those <strong>of</strong> Alla Nazimova and Stephen Tennant. 27 Here the evidence is pr<strong>of</strong>use,<br />
some oral history sources are still available, and corroborating evidence<br />
exists in abundance. Ironically, Nazimova, a failed icon <strong>of</strong> the stage<br />
and screen by the 1930s, is restored to her rightful place in American<br />
theater as the premier interpreter <strong>of</strong> Ibsen to American audiences. Her<br />
multiple lesbian love affairs (immortalized perhaps for all time when her<br />
love nest became the Garden <strong>of</strong> Allah, that seediest and coziest <strong>of</strong> gathering<br />
places for the Hollywood gliterati <strong>of</strong> the 1930s) as well as those <strong>of</strong><br />
her arch-rival, Eva La Gallienne, are secondary to the persistence <strong>of</strong> her<br />
97
98 L&C/Millennial Thoughts<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essionalism. On the other hand, Stephen Tennant, relatively unknown<br />
even to gay cognoscenti as the lover <strong>of</strong> poet Siegfried Sassoon, was so<br />
excessive even as an outrageous member <strong>of</strong> the minor nobility, “in an electric<br />
brougham wearing a football jersey and earrings,” for example, as the<br />
Daily Express described his arrival at a 1927 society ball, that he became<br />
an icon <strong>of</strong> eccentricity more than <strong>of</strong> fagdom. 28 Like Nazimova, he is a<br />
person about whom so much documentary evidence exists that the biographical<br />
quest becomes one <strong>of</strong> weighing what is fair and just about the<br />
person more than it is reconstituting shavings <strong>of</strong> sexual scandal into<br />
shards <strong>of</strong> pseudo-history.<br />
Discretion about sexuality may not be, as many writers maintain,<br />
solely a protective device. It may simply be the better part <strong>of</strong> taste and<br />
“common sense.” Gore Vidal condemns gay nomenclature as too limiting<br />
<strong>of</strong> the range and complexity <strong>of</strong> human experience, nor is the gay movement<br />
his sole source <strong>of</strong> dissatisfaction with sexuality in America. 29 Even<br />
Ma Rainey’s notorious lesbian blues <strong>of</strong> 1928 echo the defiance <strong>of</strong> a sexual<br />
nonconformist who refuses to be categorized: <strong>The</strong>y say I do it / Ain’t<br />
nobody caught me / <strong>The</strong>y sure got to prove it on me. 30 Certainly history, with its<br />
century-old emphasis on evidence, is an appropriate place to apply stringent<br />
qualifications and definitions, whatever the political needs <strong>of</strong> the<br />
moment.<br />
<strong>The</strong> final historical sin results from willful ignorance as well as the<br />
inevitable toll <strong>of</strong> three decades <strong>of</strong> identity politics.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Varieties <strong>of</strong> Gay Experience<br />
Whose papers get collected? Which gay dissertation director decides<br />
who gets written about? In the WorldCat records one finds a preponderance<br />
<strong>of</strong> information not only about the Religious Right but about<br />
mainstream denominations and congregations that have rather selflessly<br />
examined their collective consciences about homosexuality and<br />
stood behind the lines as sub-rosa allies for these thirty years. <strong>The</strong> story<br />
<strong>of</strong> these groups and how they have influenced the growth <strong>of</strong> gay spirituality<br />
would make a fascinating document <strong>of</strong> far-reaching historical<br />
interest in an era when the word “Christian” has become synonymous<br />
with intolerance. 31<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are many facets <strong>of</strong> gay lives that remain undocumented because<br />
a younger gay generation may well want to ignore reminders <strong>of</strong> oppression<br />
in the gay past, and, <strong>of</strong> course, every generation is more interested<br />
in its own accomplishments than in those <strong>of</strong> some other. Jeb Alexander’s<br />
diary, Jeb and Dash, for example, provides only one less glamorous example<br />
<strong>of</strong> the life <strong>of</strong> a repressed gay Washington bureaucrat from 1919 to<br />
1945 from which, nevertheless, we gather many significant details about<br />
the continuity <strong>of</strong> gay experience over a span <strong>of</strong> several decades. 32
Library historians and archivists are in a unique position to discover<br />
and publicize gay archives and particularly findings that new collections<br />
reveal. In this they should be pioneers rather than followers in establishing<br />
acceptable historical standards in order to curb the unbridled zeal <strong>of</strong><br />
the converted to any hint <strong>of</strong> same-sex inclination while addressing the<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional antipathy to the sexual nature <strong>of</strong> biographical subjects,<br />
period. It is probably not by accident that the first full-length biographical<br />
dissertation about a gay librarian was written by a historian rather<br />
than a librarian, and while it is true that Laura Bragg is important not<br />
only as the first female museum director <strong>of</strong> a major museum in America<br />
but also for her association with the Charleston writers <strong>of</strong> the 1920s<br />
Southern literary renascence, it seems symptomatic <strong>of</strong> not only homophobia<br />
but ahistoricity that librarians did not first claim her as one <strong>of</strong><br />
their own. 33 <strong>The</strong>re are lesbigay librarians and archivists worthy <strong>of</strong> inclusion<br />
in the biographical canon. How many librarians can cite the achievements<br />
<strong>of</strong> Jeanette Howard Foster? As the fifteen examples included in<br />
Jessie Carney Smith’s Notable Black American Women demonstrate, librarians<br />
and archivists play a central role in minority communities and at the<br />
point <strong>of</strong> intersection between those communities and the world beyond. 34<br />
So, finally, before gay librarians and archivists clean up the whole palace <strong>of</strong> history,<br />
they have to air their own rooms.<br />
Let the reader pretend for a moment that by the year 2075 lesbigay<br />
identity won’t really be a negative tag, that cases <strong>of</strong> discrimination, victimization,<br />
and persecution will be almost nonexistent in Wyoming and<br />
Alabama as well as in Israel and Iraq. Given that unlikely scenario, what<br />
purpose will gay archives serve other than to document varieties <strong>of</strong> gender<br />
experience? When there’s no longer a revolution to fight, will gays<br />
look back with pride not only on their ability to march and to champion<br />
the causes célèbres but also to be inclusive in their collection and interpretation<br />
<strong>of</strong> those aspects <strong>of</strong> their experience that are personally distasteful<br />
to them? Will all they have to disclose be the fact that they were<br />
or were not gay (so what?), and, if so, with whom they slept (ho hum),<br />
down to what sexual acts were committed (close the door!). Perhaps they<br />
merely dropped campy bons mots now and then, overdressed, flipped<br />
their wrists, donned leather chaps, marched in a gay parade, indulged in<br />
interior decoration on the grand scale, pierced their nipples, or drove a<br />
pick-up truck, thus confirming social stereotypes <strong>of</strong> gays. Or is there a<br />
more fundamental significance to the quality <strong>of</strong> their lives that makes<br />
them worthy <strong>of</strong> study or remembering? With such a standard in view,<br />
whether gays are silent or outspoken, they can begin to place their<br />
archival efforts in more coherent historical form than prescribed gay collection<br />
areas, the magnetic force <strong>of</strong> celebrity, or the transient sexual<br />
mores <strong>of</strong> the decade. <strong>The</strong>y can literally live their lives from the inside,<br />
without undue concern for what posterity may make <strong>of</strong> the result.<br />
99
100 L&C/Millennial Thoughts<br />
Postscript<br />
As Emma Tennant, Stephen’s niece, wrote in her own reckoning with<br />
her family’s and her uncle’s past, “As with the dreams and documents<br />
that fed my obsession with the past, there is no way <strong>of</strong> saying that what<br />
is true to me is not also history.” 35 Just as the letters themselves can no<br />
longer afford me a truer sense <strong>of</strong> the John Noonan I knew than the postmortem<br />
romance I have construed <strong>of</strong> our friendship, it will take more<br />
discerning eyes than mine to sift what is false from what is true in my<br />
boasts, using what papers still exist, what witnesses still live, and what<br />
background facts our individual histories afford. It will be left to the historian<br />
to say what, if anything, any such story has to tell other people<br />
about the quality <strong>of</strong> relationship <strong>of</strong> these two men who just happened, by<br />
the way, to be gay. <strong>The</strong> words we wrote tried vainly to stab at feelings,<br />
some <strong>of</strong> which escaped the pen and some <strong>of</strong> which endured in ink. As to<br />
what should be made <strong>of</strong> the evidence we collected <strong>of</strong> our tenuous and<br />
very fleeting past or whether it has any historical significance at all, one<br />
must trust to the laws <strong>of</strong> historical principle and the processes <strong>of</strong> decay.<br />
Notes<br />
1. Throughout this essay I use “gay” in its most inclusive sense to embrace<br />
lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, and “others” whose interests in homosexual<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s are personal. I use “lesbian” when speaking specifically <strong>of</strong> women who are<br />
gay. “Lesbigay” is used to denote gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals.<br />
2. <strong>The</strong> figures come from a recent unpublished citation study, James V.<br />
Carmichael, Jr., “Deconstructing the Myth <strong>of</strong> a Boom in Gay Publishing:<br />
Quantitative Measures vs. Qualitative Advances,” a paper delivered at the<br />
Society for the History <strong>of</strong> Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Madison,<br />
Wisconsin, 16 July 1999. Contact Jim_Carmichael@uncg.edu. Among the<br />
notable historical 1995 titles are John Boswell’s posthumously published Same-Sex<br />
Unions in Modern Europe, Gary P. Leup’s history <strong>of</strong> homosexuality in Japan (Male<br />
Colors), Scott Lively’s <strong>The</strong> Pink Swastika, Colin Spencer’s Homosexuality: A History,<br />
and Neil Miller’s remarkable Out <strong>of</strong> the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the<br />
Present. Biographical subjects include Oscar Wilde, T. E. Lawrence, John Maynard<br />
Keynes, David Norris, and Robert Mappelthorpe.<br />
3. <strong>The</strong> most wide-ranging sampler <strong>of</strong> these discoveries is contained in Martin<br />
B. Duberman, Martha Vincus, and George Chauncey, Jr., eds., Hidden from History:<br />
Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (New York: New American Library, 1989);<br />
Jonathan N. Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A., rev. ed.<br />
(New York: Meridian, 1992).<br />
4. George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making <strong>of</strong> the Gay<br />
Male World, 1890–1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994); James T. Sears, Lonely Hunters:<br />
An Oral History <strong>of</strong> Lesbian and Gay Southern Life, 1948–1968 (New York: Eastview Press,<br />
1997); Gean Harwood, <strong>The</strong> Oldest Gay Couple in America: A 70 Year Journey Through<br />
Same-Sex America (Seacaucus, N.J.: Birch Lane Press, 1997). <strong>The</strong> later writings <strong>of</strong><br />
Paul Monette epitomize the AIDS memoir, but a fine, lesser-known example is
101<br />
John R. Noonan, <strong>The</strong> Singing Bird Will Come: An AIDS Journal (Latham, N.Y.:<br />
Canticle Press, 1997).<br />
5. See Colm Tóibín, “Roaming the Greenwood,” James White Review 16<br />
(Spring 1999): 3–11, esp. 11, for a thorough, even-handed, and commonsensical<br />
critique <strong>of</strong> “queer readings” <strong>of</strong> James, in particular.<br />
6. Alan V. Miller, comp., Directory <strong>of</strong> the International Association <strong>of</strong> Lesbian and<br />
Gay Archives and Libraries (Toronto: Canadian Gay Archives, 1987); Lesbian and<br />
Gay Archives Roundtable, Lavender Legacies: Guide to Sources in North America, 1998,<br />
available at www.archivists.org/units/lagar/htm, accessed 21 June 1999.<br />
7. Polly J. Thistlethwaite, “<strong>The</strong> Gay and Lesbian Past: An Interpretive<br />
Battleground,” Gay Community News (Boston) 4 (Winter 1995): 10–11, 24. For a<br />
fine example <strong>of</strong> the degree <strong>of</strong> specificity and currency needed in gay subject headings,<br />
see Dee Michel, Gay Studies <strong>The</strong>saurus: A Controlled Vocabulary for Indexing and<br />
Accessing Materials <strong>of</strong> Relevance to Gay Culture, History, Politics, and Psychology (<strong>The</strong><br />
author, 1985). Copies <strong>of</strong> the thesaurus are available for $15.00 by writing Dee<br />
Michel, 2236 Hillington Green, Madison, WI 53705.<br />
8. Polly J. Thistlethwaite, “Gays and Lesbians in Library History,” in Wayne<br />
A. Wiegand and Donald G. Davis, Jr., eds., <strong>The</strong> Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library History (New<br />
York: Garland Publishing Company, 1994).<br />
9. Eric Bryant, “Pride & Prejudice,” Library Journal 120 (June 1995): 37–39;<br />
Stephen Joyce and Alvin M. Schrader, “Hidden Perceptions: Edmonton Gay Males<br />
and the Edmonton Public Library,” Canadian Journal <strong>of</strong> <strong>Information</strong> and Library Science<br />
22 (April 1997): 19–37. For information and documentation on the backlash, see<br />
James V. Carmichael, Jr., “Homosexuality and United States Libraries: Land <strong>of</strong><br />
the Free, but Not Home to the Gay,” Proceedings <strong>of</strong> the 64th International Federation <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Associations Conference 1998, booklet 7, 136–45, esp. 141.<br />
10. Israel D. Fishman, “Founding Father,” in James V. Carmichael, Jr., ed.,<br />
Daring to Find Our Names: <strong>The</strong> Search for Lesbigay Library History (Westport, Conn.:<br />
Greenwood Press, 1998), 107–12. Fishman, incidentally, has disclaimed this essay,<br />
according to a letter to be published in the Library Quarterly.<br />
11. To be fair, Gittings was honored in 1998 with many others at a dinner given<br />
by the Intellectual Freedom Committee, and when the Philadelphia Free Public<br />
Library and PrideFest America honored her at a ceremony at the Free Library on<br />
27 April 1999, ALA director William Gordon was on hand to note her accomplishments<br />
on behalf <strong>of</strong> the association. See American Libraries 30 (June–July 1999): 43.<br />
12. For some <strong>of</strong> these negative examples, see the illustration on page 102 in<br />
Molly McGarry and Fred Wasserman, eds., Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History <strong>of</strong><br />
Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth Century America (New York: New York Public<br />
Library, 1997), <strong>of</strong> a report <strong>file</strong>d in 1899 at the NYPL by a customer who was<br />
accosted in the men’s room; see also John Howard’s detailed account <strong>of</strong> the 1953<br />
sting conducted by Atlanta police in the men’s room at the Atlanta Public Library<br />
using a two-way mirror in “<strong>The</strong> Library, the Park, and the Pervert: Public Space<br />
and Homosexual Encounter in Post World War II Atlanta,” Radical History Review<br />
62 (Spring 1995): 166–87; and Louise Robbins, “A Closet Curtained by<br />
Circumspection: Doing Research on the McCarthy Era Purge <strong>of</strong> Gays from the<br />
Library <strong>of</strong> Congress,” in Carmichael, Jr., ed., Daring to Find Our Names, 55–64.<br />
13. Completely Queer: <strong>The</strong> Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia (New York: Henry Holt,<br />
1996).<br />
14. Cal Gough and Ellen Greenblatt, Gay and Lesbian Library Service (New York:<br />
Garland, 1990; now under revision for a second edition); Norman Kester, Liberating<br />
Minds: <strong>The</strong> Stories and Lives <strong>of</strong> Lesbian and Gay Librarians and <strong>The</strong>ir Allies (Jefferson,<br />
N.C.: McFarland, 1997); and Carmichael, Jr., ed., Daring to Find Our Names.
102 L&C/Millennial Thoughts<br />
15. Marilyn Miller spoke at the rally <strong>of</strong> lesbigay librarians protesting Denver’s<br />
rescission <strong>of</strong> its antidiscrimination policies. See John Berry, Francine Fiak<strong>of</strong>f,<br />
Evan St. Lifer, and Michael Rogers, “Under Protest: ALA Midwinter in Denver,”<br />
Library Journal 118 (March 1993): 32–38.<br />
16. Mark A. Thompson, Letter, New Yorker, 26 September 1994, 14.<br />
17. Margaret R. Gladney, “Biographical Research on Lesbigay Subjects:<br />
Editing the Letters <strong>of</strong> Lillian Smith,” 47-54, in Carmichael, Jr., ed., Daring to Find<br />
Our Names, 51–52.<br />
18. Paul [i.e., Andrew] Sullivan, “Sleeping with the Enemy,” New Republic, 9<br />
September 1991, 43.<br />
19. Exceptions exist: the novels <strong>of</strong> Anita Brookner are exemplary; a model <strong>of</strong><br />
biographical treatment is Victoria Glendinning’s Edith Sitwell: A Lion among<br />
Unicorns (New York: Knopf, 1981), esp. 158–60.<br />
20. Daniel Harris, <strong>The</strong> Rise and Fall <strong>of</strong> Gay Culture (New York: Ballantine Books,<br />
1999).<br />
21. See for, example, explorations <strong>of</strong> this topic in Bruce Bawer, ed., Beyond<br />
Queer: Challenging Gay Left Orthodoxy (New York: Free Press, 1996).<br />
22. Lynn Witt, Sherry Thomas, and Eric Marcus, eds., Out in All Directions: <strong>The</strong><br />
Almanac <strong>of</strong> Gay and Lesbian America (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 27, 37–38;<br />
Michael J. Tyrkus and Michael Bronski, eds., Gay and Lesbian Biography (Detroit:<br />
St. James Press, 1997); <strong>The</strong> Gay Almanac (New York: Berkeley, 1996); Completely<br />
Queer; Linda O. McMurry, George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol (New York:<br />
Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1981). See also Carver’s biography in American National<br />
Biography (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1999), vol. 4.<br />
23. Ken Emerson, Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise <strong>of</strong> American Popular Culture<br />
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997); Calvin Elliker, Stephen Foster Collins: A<br />
Guide to Research (New York: Garland, 1988).<br />
24. William J. Mann, Wisecracker: <strong>The</strong> Life and Times <strong>of</strong> William Haines,<br />
Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Star (New York: Penguin Group, 1998).<br />
25. Boze Hadleigh, Hollywood Gays (New York: Barricade, 1996), 237–308.<br />
26. <strong>The</strong>o Aronson, Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld (London: John<br />
Murray, 1994).<br />
27. Gavin Lambert, Nazimova: A Biography (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1997); Philip<br />
Hoare, SeriousPleasures:<strong>The</strong>Life<strong>of</strong>StephenTennant (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990).<br />
28. Hoare, Serious Pleasures, back dust jacket (not cited in notes).<br />
29. Gore Vidal, Gore Vidal, Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings (San<br />
Francisco: Cleis Press, 1999).<br />
30. Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Prove It on Me Blues, Paramount Records 12668,<br />
June 1928. Re<strong>issue</strong>d on Ma Rainey: <strong>The</strong> Complete 1928 Sessions in Chronological Order,<br />
Document DOCD-5156, 1993.<br />
31. John J. Carey’s <strong>The</strong> Sexuality Debate in North American Churches, 1988–1995<br />
(Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1995) concentrates on the reactionary backlash<br />
<strong>of</strong> the 1990s.<br />
32. Ina Russell, ed., Jeb and Dash: A Diary <strong>of</strong> a Gay Life, 1918–1945 (Boston: Faber<br />
and Faber, 1993).<br />
33. Louise A. Allen, “Laura Bragg: A New Woman Practicing Progressive<br />
Social Reform as a Museum Administrator and Educator” (Ph.D. dissertation,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> South Carolina, 1997).<br />
34. Jessie Carney Smith, ed., Notable Black American Women (Detroit: Gale<br />
Research, 1992).<br />
35. Emma Tennant, Strangers: A Family Romance (New York: New Directions,<br />
1999), 182.
<strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> Youth Services Librarianship:<br />
A Review <strong>of</strong> the Research Literature<br />
Christine A. Jenkins<br />
Youth services librarianship—a term that encompasses all library services<br />
to youth (children and young adults, ages zero to eighteen) in school<br />
and public library settings—has long been considered the classic success<br />
story <strong>of</strong> American libraries. This classic success, however, has received little<br />
attention from library history scholars. Further, past and current<br />
research in the history <strong>of</strong> children’s, young adult, and/or school librarianship<br />
is scattered through scholarly and mass market publications in library<br />
and information science, history, education, and English. This essay provides<br />
a review <strong>of</strong> the existing research literature <strong>of</strong> this multidisciplinary<br />
field and suggests a research agenda for future scholars in this area.<br />
Introduction<br />
In considering the historiography <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship, one is<br />
struck by how <strong>of</strong>ten a call for further research in this area has been<br />
sounded and how limited the response to that call has been. Margo<br />
Sasse’s 1<strong>973</strong> article examining biographical reference tools found that<br />
youth services librarians were rarely included in either standard biographical<br />
reference tools or in the specialized resources focused entirely<br />
on women. 1 Mary Niles Maack, Suzanne Hildenbrand, and Lillian<br />
Gerhardt have repeated Sasse’s call for more and better research on the<br />
history <strong>of</strong> youth services librarians and librarianship in 1982, 1989, and<br />
1999, respectively. 2 Although this body <strong>of</strong> work has indeed grown in the<br />
years since Sasse’s initial challenge, the growth has been slow, and a field<br />
<strong>of</strong> study declared wide open in 1<strong>973</strong> continues to be as wide open as ever.<br />
One emblematic instance <strong>of</strong> the lack <strong>of</strong> research focused on any aspect<br />
<strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship is the Public Library Inquiry, the exhaustive<br />
study <strong>of</strong> American public libraries conducted in the late 1940s. <strong>The</strong> study,<br />
supervised by sociologist Robert D. Leigh, was the project <strong>of</strong> a team <strong>of</strong><br />
social scientists who published their findings in a series <strong>of</strong> seven books.<br />
<strong>The</strong> approach <strong>of</strong> the PLI to library service to the young is perhaps best<br />
typified by Oliver Garceau’s volume, <strong>The</strong> Public Library in the Political<br />
Process, which describes the children’s room as “one <strong>of</strong> the busiest, as well<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
104 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
as one <strong>of</strong> the pleasantest places in the library” and credits children’s<br />
librarians with primary responsibility for the development <strong>of</strong> modern<br />
children’s literature. 3 This, however, is the sole mention <strong>of</strong> children’s services<br />
in Garceau’s 239-page text. Likewise, Leigh’s summary report on<br />
the PLI contains his <strong>of</strong>t-quoted declaration that “children’s rooms and<br />
children’s librarians have been the classic success <strong>of</strong> the public library,”<br />
yet no part <strong>of</strong> the PLI was directed to the study <strong>of</strong> this classic success<br />
story. 4 As Frances Henne stated in her critique <strong>of</strong> the PLI at the Chicago<br />
Graduate Library <strong>School</strong>’s 1949 symposium devoted to the study, “it was<br />
quite disappointing for children’s librarians to find that children’s<br />
work—which, according to the Inquiry, accounted for over half <strong>of</strong> the<br />
public library circulation—accounted for less than 1/250th <strong>of</strong> the Inquiry<br />
itself.” She added dryly that perhaps the PLI staff “felt that public<br />
library service to children had reached a stage <strong>of</strong> relative perfection that<br />
obviated the need for careful analysis.” 5 Like many other activities<br />
involving women and children, youth services librarianship has been<br />
simultaneously revered and ignored, and the origins and history <strong>of</strong> school<br />
and public library service to youth are only beginning to be seriously<br />
examined by library historians.<br />
Much <strong>of</strong> the early research in this area is in the form <strong>of</strong> broad historical<br />
overviews written for a practitioner audience. Many <strong>of</strong> these are in<br />
themselves primary sources <strong>of</strong> data. <strong>The</strong>se writings will be reviewed first<br />
in order to lay the groundwork for an examination <strong>of</strong> the more scholarly<br />
(and generally more recent) research, which has a narrower focus and an<br />
intended audience <strong>of</strong> historians, researchers, and academicians. <strong>The</strong> literature<br />
will be categorized and examined according to particular aspects<br />
<strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship, using Fannette Thomas’s definition <strong>of</strong><br />
youth services librarianship as a framework. According to Thomas, youth<br />
services librarianship is evidenced by the fulfillment <strong>of</strong> five conditions:<br />
(1) specialized collections, (2) specialized space, (3) specialized personnel,<br />
and (4) specialized programs/services designed for youth, (5) all<br />
existing within a network <strong>of</strong> other youth services organizations and agencies.<br />
6 Given this definition, this review does not include research on the<br />
collections or uses <strong>of</strong> Sunday school libraries, social libraries, circulating<br />
libraries, or other public library forerunners to which children may have<br />
had access before the advent <strong>of</strong> public youth services librarianship as we<br />
know it today.<br />
Primary and Secondary Sources, Scholarly and Otherwise<br />
An overview <strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship requires both<br />
primary and secondary sources. Pr<strong>of</strong>essional texts that are in themselves<br />
primary sources, while <strong>of</strong>ten not particularly scholarly, provide a glimpse
105<br />
into the pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s “common wisdom” about itself during the late nineteenth<br />
and twentieth centuries. Here it must be noted that the model <strong>of</strong><br />
youth services librarianship as it is currently configured first evolved in<br />
American and British public libraries—thus the emphasis on library<br />
development in the United States. A baseline account <strong>of</strong> public library<br />
service to young people in the United States can be found in Public<br />
Libraries in the United States <strong>of</strong> America (1876), a thirty-nine-chapter government-sponsored<br />
report that includes two chapters on youth services:<br />
Samuel Warren and S. N. Clark’s “<strong>School</strong> and Asylum Libraries” and<br />
William I. Fletcher’s “Public Libraries and the Young”; the former is a<br />
report on funding legislation for common school libraries, the latter an<br />
essay arguing for the elimination <strong>of</strong> age restrictions that barred young<br />
readers from public libraries. 7 Useful early primary sources include<br />
Arthur Bostwick’s 1910 text, <strong>The</strong> American Public Library, which contains<br />
two fairly comprehensive chapters on youth services in school and public<br />
libraries; W. C. Berwick Sayers’s 1911 manual for British librarians,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Children’s Library; J. W. Emery’s 1917 text for Canadian librarians, <strong>The</strong><br />
Library, the <strong>School</strong> and the Child; Alice I. Hazeltine’s 1917 anthology <strong>of</strong><br />
selected writings on children’s librarianship from library literature;<br />
Sophie Powell’s 1917 text on the educational role <strong>of</strong> public and school<br />
libraries; and the two invaluable ALA-sponsored textbooks on youth services<br />
in public libraries by Effie L. Power and in school libraries by Lucile<br />
F. Fargo, both published in 1930. 8 Another useful primary source is a<br />
four-volume series <strong>of</strong> yearbooks (1929–32) published by the ALA’s<br />
Section for Library Work with Children that covers specific developments<br />
in youth services at that time. 9<br />
A detailed and thorough picture <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship during<br />
the 1940s as viewed from a social science perspective is provided in Youth,<br />
Communication and Libraries, the proceedings <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago’s<br />
1947 Library Institute, edited by school library leaders Frances Henne,<br />
Alice Brooks, and Ruth Ersted. 10 <strong>School</strong> librarianship was a rapidly<br />
expanding field in the postwar baby boom years, and its attractive<br />
salaries and regular hours threatened to draw librarians away from public<br />
library children’s work. In an attempt to recruit public librarians, the<br />
ALA’s Division <strong>of</strong> Libraries for Children and Young People sponsored the<br />
publication <strong>of</strong> Harriet Long’s Rich the Treasure: Public Library Service to<br />
Children (1953), an informative—though understandably rosy—picture <strong>of</strong><br />
the pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s history and accomplishments. 11 A 1954 thematic <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Trends on public libraries featured articles on public library service<br />
to children by Elizabeth Nesbitt and to young adults by Jean Roos. 12<br />
While neither piece is long or detailed, both reveal how youth services<br />
librarians viewed themselves and their work during the 1950s. As noted<br />
above, the first two volumes <strong>of</strong> the Public Library Inquiry were published in
106 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
1949, and public children’s librarians were understandably concerned<br />
about the PLI’s overall lack <strong>of</strong> coverage <strong>of</strong> youth services. <strong>The</strong> ALA’s<br />
Division <strong>of</strong> Libraries for Children and Young People responded to this<br />
lack by commissioning a study <strong>of</strong> children’s work in public libraries. 13<br />
<strong>The</strong> study was conducted by Elizabeth Gross, who based her report on<br />
past and current library service to children on data gathered from a mail<br />
survey <strong>of</strong> more than five hundred public libraries in 1957–58. 14 Dorothy<br />
Broderick’s Introduction to Children’s Work in Public Libraries (1965) and<br />
Gross’s Public Library Service to Children (1967) contain descriptive handson<br />
information about U.S. public youth services librarianship during the<br />
mid-1960s. 15 All <strong>of</strong> these texts were written by current or former practitioners<br />
for a practitioner audience, and all include some account <strong>of</strong> the<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ession’s history.<br />
More substantive coverage began appearing in the 1920s with the publication<br />
<strong>of</strong> Gwendolen Rees’s Libraries for Children (1924), which has several<br />
chapters on the history <strong>of</strong> school and public library service to<br />
children in the United States and Great Britain. 16 Frances Clarke<br />
Sayers’s succinct but useful essay on the origins <strong>of</strong> library service to children<br />
appeared in a 1963 thematic <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Trends on youth services<br />
librarianship. 17 <strong>The</strong> best known, however, is Harriet Long’s <strong>of</strong>t-cited<br />
Public Library Service to Children (1969), an account <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship<br />
in the United States from the Colonial period to the outbreak <strong>of</strong><br />
World War I that contains both an overview and a case study <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Cleveland Public Library from 1900 to 1914. 18 Although brief and relatively<br />
undocumented by modern standards, Long’s work was the first substantive<br />
historical study to place youth services history into the larger<br />
context <strong>of</strong> the Progressive Era child welfare movement. <strong>The</strong> output <strong>of</strong><br />
history inspired by the American Library Association’s Centennial in<br />
1976 included two library history anthologies, both <strong>of</strong> which featured<br />
articles on youth services librarianship: Clara O. Jackson’s article in the<br />
library history anthology Century <strong>of</strong> Service (1976) and Sara Fenwick’s article<br />
in a Library Trends <strong>issue</strong> on “Trends in Libraries and Librarianship:<br />
1876–1976.” 19 Jackson’s is an institutional history, while Fenwick’s study<br />
stresses the interactions between youth services librarians, the schools,<br />
and other contemporaneous child welfare agencies.<br />
Scholarly Historical Research<br />
Scholarly research in the history <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship began<br />
to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s, though this literature still remains<br />
sparse. Most works have been published in journals or by presses that<br />
specialize in library literature. However, there have also been three historical<br />
monographs published by trade and university presses with
107<br />
greater visibility among history academicians: Dee Garrison’s Apostles <strong>of</strong><br />
Culture: <strong>The</strong> Public Librarian and American Society, 1876–1920 (1979), Abigail<br />
Van Slyck’s Free to All: Carnegie Libraries & American Culture, 1890–1920<br />
(1995), and Alison M. Parker’s Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform,<br />
and Pro-Censorship Activism, 1873–1933 (1997). 20 Although not their major<br />
focus, each book includes a chapter or more on some aspect <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
library history. Unfortunately, each work illustrates some <strong>of</strong> the<br />
analytical pitfalls that scholars have encountered in writing women’s history.<br />
Also unfortunately, as a result <strong>of</strong> their visibility, these texts are<br />
likely to be the sole information sources on the history <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
librarians and librarianship encountered by most historians. All three are<br />
discussed and critiqued in the appropriate sections below.<br />
Studies by Manuel Lopez and by Fannette Thomas trace the nineteenth-century<br />
development <strong>of</strong> children’s public libraries in the United<br />
States and Great Britain in order to identify the essential elements <strong>of</strong><br />
children’s libraries. 21 Both describe the historical development <strong>of</strong> separate<br />
collections, separate rooms, and separate personnel; Thomas also<br />
documents the specific services <strong>of</strong>fered by the eight children’s libraries<br />
she identifies as pioneers in the field. Thomas’s outstanding study <strong>of</strong> the<br />
genesis <strong>of</strong> library service to children from 1875 to 1906 continues to be<br />
one <strong>of</strong> the richest and most valuable works in this area. Sybille Jagusch’s<br />
dissertation describes the late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century history<br />
<strong>of</strong> youth services but focuses primarily on the lives <strong>of</strong> Caroline Hewins<br />
and Anne Carroll Moore, probably the two most influential youth services<br />
librarians <strong>of</strong> the time. 22<br />
Thus far, few historical studies <strong>of</strong> library service specific to young<br />
adults have appeared. Two very different works deserve mention: Marie<br />
Inez Johnson’s 1940 master’s thesis from Columbia is on the development<br />
<strong>of</strong> separate service for young people in public libraries during the<br />
1920s and 1930s. 23 Miriam Braverman’s 1979 book provides concrete<br />
details—how and when services were founded, what was <strong>of</strong>fered, and so<br />
on—to document the history <strong>of</strong> American public library service to young<br />
adults from the 1920s to the 1960s. 24 Braverman based her work on primary<br />
source documents, plus interviews <strong>of</strong> librarians in three large urban<br />
library systems, and places her study in the context <strong>of</strong> both the developmental<br />
needs <strong>of</strong> adolescents and the particular social conditions facing<br />
urban teens during the 1950s and 1960s.<br />
Although school district funds have supported libraries in a sporadic<br />
fashion since the nineteenth century, school libraries as they are currently<br />
configured grew out <strong>of</strong> early public library service to schools in the<br />
late 1890s and early 1900s. Thus, much <strong>of</strong> the early history <strong>of</strong> school<br />
librarianship must be gleaned from sources that focus on public library<br />
history. Lucile Fargo’s textbook, <strong>The</strong> Library in the <strong>School</strong>, first published in
108 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
1930, provides a useful baseline for school libraries as they were envisioned<br />
by the first generation <strong>of</strong> school librarians. 25 <strong>The</strong>re have been a<br />
number <strong>of</strong> master’s theses and Ph.D. dissertations on the institutional<br />
history <strong>of</strong> school libraries in a particular state or region; most are<br />
descriptive rather than analytical and fail to place their subjects in the<br />
sociopolitical context <strong>of</strong> their times. Among the exceptions are two welldocumented<br />
and thoughtful reports on the history <strong>of</strong> school libraries in<br />
the South by Margaret Rufsvold (1934) and Frances Lander Spain<br />
(1946). 26 In addition, both Frederic Aldrich’s and Constance Melvin’s<br />
accounts <strong>of</strong> the development <strong>of</strong> school libraries in Ohio and Pennsylvania,<br />
respectively, are institutional histories that, while not comprehensive,<br />
place the narrative into the larger legislative history <strong>of</strong> the state. 27<br />
Another interesting approach may be found in Henry Cecil and Willard<br />
Heaps’s survey <strong>of</strong> U.S. school libraries, which includes a chapter on history<br />
embedded in an in-depth portrait <strong>of</strong> the field in 1940. 28 Two texts<br />
focus on developments in the field specific to media and technology: Paul<br />
Saettler’s encyclopedic account <strong>of</strong> the evolution <strong>of</strong> educational technology<br />
explores the impact <strong>of</strong> advances in social science research and educational<br />
media on school libraries, and Gene Lanier’s dissertation<br />
examines the conceptual and philosophical shift that changed school<br />
libraries into instructional material centers during the 1950s and<br />
1960s. 29 Kathy Latrobe’s anthology, <strong>The</strong> Emerging <strong>School</strong> Library Media<br />
Center: Historical Issues and Perspectives (1998), <strong>of</strong>fers by far the most comprehensive<br />
history <strong>of</strong> the field, while the first chapter <strong>of</strong> Morris,<br />
Gillespie, and Spirt’s textbook on school library administration gives a<br />
succinct overview <strong>of</strong> school library history from 1876 to the 1990s. 30<br />
Finally, there are dissertations by Patricia Pond and by Charles Koch<br />
on the history <strong>of</strong> U.S. school librarians’ national organization, the<br />
American Association <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Librarians (AASL). Pond’s comprehensive<br />
and well-documented account <strong>of</strong> school librarians’ efforts to organize<br />
within three national associations (the National Education Association<br />
[NEA], the National Council <strong>of</strong> Teachers <strong>of</strong> English [NCTE], and the<br />
ALA) from 1896 to 1951 contains a wealth <strong>of</strong> information and is one <strong>of</strong><br />
the only examples <strong>of</strong> a truly contextualized history <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
librarianship. 31 Koch’s work is an authorized history <strong>of</strong> the AASL from<br />
1950 to 1971 and has the strengths and problems associated with <strong>of</strong>ficially<br />
sanctioned works. 32<br />
General Public Library History: City, State, and National<br />
In a passage in Joanne Passet’s Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in<br />
the American West, 1900–1917, a Wyoming librarian recalls a child “who<br />
wandered forlornly through the stacks [hunting for] . . . the few juvenile
ooks distributed among the common shelves.” 33 This striking image<br />
serves as a metaphor for the historian’s search for documentation <strong>of</strong><br />
youth services librarianship within institutional histories <strong>of</strong> public<br />
libraries. Much <strong>of</strong> the published history <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship<br />
consists <strong>of</strong> several paragraphs on the children’s room and/or early children’s<br />
services (<strong>of</strong>ten under “special user groups”), plus the name <strong>of</strong> the<br />
library’s first and/or most notable children’s librarian. Among the few<br />
exceptions to this pattern are Phyllis Dain’s history <strong>of</strong> New York Public<br />
Library; C. H. Cramer’s history <strong>of</strong> the Cleveland Public Library;<br />
Rosemary Dumont’s study <strong>of</strong> big city public libraries, focusing on Boston,<br />
Cincinnati, Cleveland, and St. Louis; and Chieko Tachihata’s history <strong>of</strong><br />
public libraries in Hawaii. 34 Anniversary years <strong>of</strong> library systems’ youth<br />
services departments are <strong>of</strong>ten celebrated in print with an abbreviated<br />
retrospective <strong>of</strong> the library’s past; while these texts are created for a general<br />
audience, the vintage photos that are traditionally used to illustrate<br />
them may be <strong>of</strong> value to the library history scholar.<br />
Library service to youth as it is currently understood originated in the<br />
United States and Great Britain, but today library collections and services<br />
for young people may be found throughout the world. <strong>The</strong>ir histories<br />
are just beginning to be written and available to an English-speaking<br />
audience. Fortunately, over the last several decades the International<br />
Federation <strong>of</strong> Library Associations has published four volumes <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
Service to Children from 1963 to 1983. 35 Each volume contains individual<br />
reports on some fifteen to twenty-five countries detailing the context,<br />
history, and current status <strong>of</strong> library services to youth. Some countries<br />
are included in each volume; others appear only once. More recent<br />
scholarly historical studies <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship in France,<br />
Norway, Russia, Canada, and Puerto Rico have appeared in refereed<br />
journals. 36<br />
Specialized Library Collections<br />
109<br />
A separate collection <strong>of</strong> library materials for young people is the first<br />
condition for youth services librarianship. Children’s literature scholar<br />
Anne Pellowski notes that the “history <strong>of</strong> U.S. children’s libraries cannot<br />
be separated from that <strong>of</strong> children’s literature.” 37 Youth services librarianship<br />
began with specialized collections. Specialized space, personnel,<br />
services, and networks began with the establishment <strong>of</strong> public libraries.<br />
Collections, however, greatly predate the other elements <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
librarianship, and the librarian’s knowledge <strong>of</strong> the collection—the<br />
texts—is the bedrock <strong>of</strong> expertise upon which the pr<strong>of</strong>ession rests.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is a vast and interdisciplinary literature on the history <strong>of</strong> children’s<br />
and young adult literature, with research located primarily
110 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
(though not exclusively) in the fields <strong>of</strong> education, literature, and library<br />
science. While all <strong>of</strong> it may be <strong>of</strong> interest to practicing librarians, there<br />
are areas within this body <strong>of</strong> scholarship that are particularly relevant to<br />
historians <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship. <strong>The</strong>se areas include historical<br />
research in children’s and young adult literature <strong>of</strong> the nineteenth and<br />
twentieth centuries; children’s and young adult book reviewing and evaluation,<br />
notably the evolution <strong>of</strong> critical standards as applied to children’s<br />
literature; children’s and young adult book publishing; children’s and<br />
young adult popular culture/series books; children’s and young adult<br />
book censorship; and children’s and young adult literature and services<br />
for special user populations.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are numerous historical accounts <strong>of</strong> various aspects <strong>of</strong> literature<br />
for young readers, several <strong>of</strong> which provide a broad view <strong>of</strong> this very large<br />
field. Among the most comprehensive are two on children’s literature,<br />
one on children’s publishing, and one on children’s book reviewing. A<br />
Critical History <strong>of</strong> Children’s Literature (originally published in 1953 and<br />
revised in 1969) is a lengthy literary history from the collective perspective<br />
<strong>of</strong> its four authors: a children’s author, a public children’s librarian,<br />
a school librarian, and a children’s book reviewer. Anne Pellowski’s massive<br />
volume, accurately titled <strong>The</strong> World <strong>of</strong> Children’s Literature (1968), is<br />
the most comprehensive source for historians with an interest in children’s<br />
literature and library collections, containing forty-five hundred<br />
annotated references to monographs, bibliographies, and articles on all<br />
aspects <strong>of</strong> children’s literature, including youth services librarianship, in<br />
eighty-four countries throughout the world. 38 A useful entry into the specific<br />
historiography <strong>of</strong> twentieth-century children’s book publishing is<br />
provided by Robin Gottlieb’s Publishing Children’s Books in America,<br />
1919–1976, an annotated bibliography <strong>of</strong> more than seven hundred references<br />
to information and research on all areas <strong>of</strong> children’s publishing<br />
history. Finally, <strong>The</strong> Rise <strong>of</strong> Children’s Book Reviewing in America, 1865–1881<br />
by Richard Darling provides a very detailed picture <strong>of</strong> the genesis <strong>of</strong> children’s<br />
book reviewing. 39<br />
Children’s and young adult literature textbooks commonly include the<br />
history <strong>of</strong> various genres <strong>of</strong> books for young readers. Among the studies<br />
<strong>of</strong> particular relevance to research on library collections for young readers<br />
is Barbara Bader’s comprehensive history <strong>of</strong> children’s picture books,<br />
which emphasizes twentieth-century literature. 40 Betsy Hearne analyzes<br />
the canon <strong>of</strong> twentieth-century American picture books as identified by<br />
scholars, reviewers, and practitioners. 41 Studies by Jagusch and Bader<br />
and essay collections in honor <strong>of</strong> Anne Carroll Moore and Lillian H.<br />
Smith cover various aspects <strong>of</strong> the intertwined histories <strong>of</strong> children’s literature<br />
and librarianship from the 1920s to the 1990s. 42 Three useful
111<br />
sources—two popular and one scholarly—give a comprehensive grounding<br />
in the history <strong>of</strong> young adult literature: Alleen Pace Nilsen and<br />
Kenneth Donelson’s Literature for Today’s Young Adults (1993), Michael<br />
Cart’s From Romance to Realism (1996), and Susan McEnally Jackson’s dissertation<br />
on the history <strong>of</strong> the junior novel (1986). 43 <strong>The</strong> first two provide<br />
conversational yet informative accounts <strong>of</strong> this history; the third examines<br />
the evolution <strong>of</strong> the literature that became the core <strong>of</strong> early library<br />
collections for young adult readers. Terri Butler’s research looks at the<br />
history <strong>of</strong> audiovisual materials, a later addition to children’s library collections.<br />
44<br />
<strong>The</strong> Newbery and Caldecott Medals for excellence in writing and in<br />
illustration, respectively, are chosen each year by an ALA committee <strong>of</strong><br />
children’s librarians and are awarded amidst great ceremony at ALA’s<br />
annual conference. Youth services librarians have always been responsible<br />
for the selection <strong>of</strong> the medal winners, but this pr<strong>of</strong>essional jurisdiction<br />
has not gone unchallenged; Christine Jenkins’s study follows the<br />
critical course <strong>of</strong> one such challenge in the late 1930s. 45 Irene Smith’s<br />
History <strong>of</strong> the Newbery and Caldecott Medals (1957) contains valuable information<br />
about the evolution <strong>of</strong> the awards and their accompanying rituals.<br />
46 Horn Book Magazine has published a series <strong>of</strong> volumes containing<br />
descriptions <strong>of</strong> each year’s winners, plus the texts <strong>of</strong> each recipient’s<br />
acceptance speech. 47 Award winners are frequently studied as representative<br />
examples <strong>of</strong> publishing and evaluation trends over time. One <strong>of</strong><br />
the richest analyses is Lyn Ellen Lacy’s survey <strong>of</strong> trends in Caldecott<br />
Medal winners’ illustration and book design. 48<br />
<strong>The</strong> evaluation <strong>of</strong> library materials for young readers is a part <strong>of</strong> the<br />
daily work <strong>of</strong> youth services librarians. Sheila Eg<strong>of</strong>f provides an overview<br />
<strong>of</strong> reviewers’ evolving critical standards for children’s books, while Julia<br />
Lord contends that librarians’ critical standards have actually changed<br />
very little over time, an unfortunate state she blames on children’s<br />
librarians’ romanticized notions <strong>of</strong> children and childhood. 49 Although<br />
Lord’s collection <strong>of</strong> primary source pr<strong>of</strong>essional literature is extensive,<br />
her conclusions do not appear to be based on the evidence she cites.<br />
Several journals dedicated to reviews and critical writing on children’s<br />
literature have played—and continue to play—an important role in<br />
librarians’ book evaluation process. 50 Horn Book Magazine, founded by<br />
Bertha Mahoney Miller in 1924, and the Bulletin <strong>of</strong> the Center for Children’s<br />
Books, founded in 1948 and edited by Zena Sutherland from 1958 to 1985,<br />
are two <strong>of</strong> the oldest and best-known arbiters <strong>of</strong> excellence in children’s<br />
publishing. 51 Horn Book’s seventy-fifth anniversary <strong>issue</strong> was published in<br />
September 1999 and contains several articles <strong>of</strong> interest to historians:<br />
Barbara Bader traces the history <strong>of</strong> the journal itself, while Kathleen
112 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
Krull looks at its role in the evolution <strong>of</strong> children’s book reviewing. In a<br />
joint examination <strong>of</strong> the canon <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional/inspirational texts written<br />
by and for earlier generations <strong>of</strong> children’s librarians, Betsy Hearne and<br />
Christine Jenkins identify the beliefs about children’s literature and<br />
about children, respectively, that have informed the pr<strong>of</strong>essional ethos <strong>of</strong><br />
twentieth-century youth services librarianship. 52<br />
Throughout their history, youth services librarians have promoted critically<br />
acclaimed children’s literature through collaborations with other<br />
groups with an interest in children’s books and reading. For example, in<br />
the early decades <strong>of</strong> the twentieth century, children’s books were most<br />
commonly purchased and received as Christmas or holiday gifts.<br />
Children’s Book Week was inaugurated in November 1919 as an annual<br />
children’s book promotion campaign in anticipation <strong>of</strong> holiday shopping.<br />
<strong>The</strong> week was a collaborative project by three influential people with a<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional interest in children’s books: Franklyn Mathiews, librarian <strong>of</strong><br />
the Boy Scouts; Frederic Melcher, publisher and editor <strong>of</strong> Publishers<br />
Weekly; and librarian Anne Carroll Moore. To Mathiews, Children’s Book<br />
Week was part <strong>of</strong> a moral crusade against dime novels and “cheap reading”;<br />
to Melcher it was an opportunity for children’s book publishers to<br />
give their products maximum visibility for holiday sales. To Moore, it<br />
supported librarians’ ongoing campaign to encourage children’s library<br />
use and to heighten public awareness <strong>of</strong> the variety and value <strong>of</strong> good literature<br />
for young readers.<br />
Historical research on children’s book editing and publishing, children’s<br />
popular print culture, and children’s intellectual freedom are all<br />
connected to the history <strong>of</strong> children’s librarianship. In 1918 Macmillan<br />
hired Louise Seaman Bechtel to head its new juvenile division, and<br />
Macmillan Children’s Books began publication in 1919. 53 <strong>The</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
relationship between children’s book editors and children’s librarians<br />
has traditionally been a close one. Indeed, children’s book editors<br />
were <strong>of</strong>ten former children’s librarians themselves. Betsy Hearne’s article<br />
on that interconnected world is based on interviews with editor and<br />
former librarian Margaret McElderry. 54 Over the past several years Horn<br />
Book Magazine has published a series <strong>of</strong> interviews with long-time children’s<br />
book editors by Leonard Marcus. 55 Marcus has edited a collection<br />
<strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>essional correspondence between children’s editor Ursula<br />
Nordstrom and the well-known authors and illustrators she worked with<br />
in her thirty-three years as director <strong>of</strong> Harper’s Department <strong>of</strong> Books for<br />
Boys and Girls. 56 Marcus has also written a biography <strong>of</strong> children’s<br />
author Margaret Wise Brown, whose life included close connections with<br />
publishers and with progressive educators. 57<br />
<strong>The</strong> selection <strong>of</strong> “the best” children’s literature implies a larger pool <strong>of</strong><br />
books that are not selected. <strong>The</strong> Stratemeyer Syndicate’s popular written-
113<br />
to-order children’s series books were particularly problematic for early<br />
librarians, and Edward Stratemeyer, publisher <strong>of</strong> thousands <strong>of</strong> massproduced<br />
children’s series titles, was the bête noire <strong>of</strong> children’s librarians<br />
throughout his long career. 58 For example, when Effie L. Power<br />
devoted several pages <strong>of</strong> her 1930 textbook Library Work with Children to a<br />
section on “fiction which fails to meet accepted standards,” she included<br />
a representative critique <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> Bobbsey Twins and <strong>The</strong>ir <strong>School</strong>mates. 59<br />
Studies by Paul Deane and Faye R. Kensinger put series books into their<br />
historical context, including run-ins with critical librarians. 60 Several<br />
studies on the history <strong>of</strong> children and comics have included information<br />
on children’s librarians’ varying responses to comics during the 1940s<br />
and 1950s. 61<br />
Children’s librarians have also been enmeshed in the struggles surrounding<br />
children’s book censorship. Joseph Bryson and Elizabeth Detty<br />
trace the legal history <strong>of</strong> censorship in school libraries. 62 Alison Parker’s<br />
history <strong>of</strong> the procensorship activism <strong>of</strong> the Woman’s Christian<br />
Temperance Union draws upon ALA journals and proceedings, including<br />
extensive quotes from Anne Carroll Moore and Caroline Hewins, to<br />
make a case for censorship as business as usual in Progressive Era<br />
American libraries. 63 Three studies look at ALA children’s librarians’<br />
conflicted relationship with censorship as they moved from their earlier<br />
role <strong>of</strong> child protector to their more recent one <strong>of</strong> child advocate. 64 This<br />
evolution is highlighted in Christine Jenkins’s study <strong>of</strong> the ALA Youth<br />
Services Divisions’ anticensorship activities in the years between the<br />
ALA’s adoption <strong>of</strong> the Library Bill <strong>of</strong> Rights in 1939 and its adoption <strong>of</strong><br />
the <strong>School</strong> Library Bill <strong>of</strong> Rights in 1955. 65 Ralph Wagner traces a very<br />
different history <strong>of</strong> Catholic high school librarians who attempted to<br />
incorporate the Church’s standards by including their negative evaluation<br />
<strong>of</strong> seventy-five books listed in the 1942 edition <strong>of</strong> the Standard Catalog<br />
for High <strong>School</strong> Libraries. 66<br />
<strong>The</strong> intertwining history <strong>of</strong> literature and libraries for youth has rarely<br />
focused on the reader. One exception is the study <strong>of</strong> library services to<br />
African-American children, whose history as library users and readers<br />
has been complicated by racial segregation, discrimination, and limited<br />
access to publishing resources. <strong>The</strong> “all-white world <strong>of</strong> children’s books”<br />
described by Nancy Larrick in 1965 was—and remains—symptomatic <strong>of</strong><br />
patterns <strong>of</strong> discrimination and inclusion/exclusion woven into the<br />
American social fabric and thus into American youth services librarianship.<br />
67 <strong>The</strong> traditional marginalization <strong>of</strong> African-American children<br />
necessitates an especially diligent focus on the user by historians, and<br />
this focus has informed reflective and nuanced scholarship in this area.<br />
Joseph Alvarez and Barbara Bader look at the contributions <strong>of</strong> Arna<br />
Bontemps, an African-American librarian and children’s book author
114 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
whose works reflected the lives and experiences <strong>of</strong> African-American<br />
children, and <strong>of</strong> Carter Woodson, prolific writer and publisher/owner <strong>of</strong><br />
Associated Press, which published a number <strong>of</strong> African-American children’s<br />
books. 68 Beryl Banfield relates the history <strong>of</strong> the Council on<br />
Interracial Books for Children, whose Bulletin reviewed and analyzed<br />
children’s literature with an eye toward representations <strong>of</strong> minority status<br />
groups. 69 Violet Harris, Rudine Sims, Kay Vandergrift, and Dorothy<br />
Broderick examine literary representations <strong>of</strong> black characters in children’s<br />
literature. 70 Broderick’s detailed analysis <strong>of</strong> all children’s books<br />
with African-American characters included in the classic library selection<br />
tool, H. W. Wilson’s Children’s Catalog, is particularly relevant to library<br />
historians as an examination <strong>of</strong> the titles likely to be included in children’s<br />
library collections. Nancy Tolson looks at early efforts by librarians<br />
and booksellers in promoting African-American children’s literature, and<br />
Cheryl Knott Malone examines library service to black children in the<br />
segregated branches <strong>of</strong> Louisville’s public library system. 71<br />
Specialized Library Space<br />
Specialized space is the second condition for youth services in libraries.<br />
<strong>The</strong> children’s room itself, as a physical space and a location, is <strong>of</strong>ten<br />
treated as a given by historians rather than as an element <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
librarianship with a distinct history. Library children’s rooms as<br />
they are currently configured were greatly influenced by the Carnegie<br />
library building program, particularly the architectural plans available to<br />
communities with Carnegie library grants. George Bobinski’s historical<br />
study <strong>of</strong> Carnegie libraries reproduces the six floor plans provided by the<br />
Carnegie Corporation, four <strong>of</strong> which include a separate children’s reading<br />
room that <strong>of</strong>ten matched the adult reading room in size. 72<br />
Unfortunately, these illustrations are the only coverage <strong>of</strong> children’s<br />
rooms in Bobinski’s research. Abigail Van Slyck’s book is superior to<br />
Bobinski’s in laying out a contextual and well-illustrated architectural<br />
and institutional history <strong>of</strong> the American public library from 1890 to<br />
1920, including two chapters relevant to youth services. 73 Chapter 5<br />
examines the library as a workplace, focusing in large part on the children’s<br />
room as a purposeful space for youth services librarianship.<br />
Chapter 6 is a less successful attempt to describe children’s library experiences<br />
based upon published writing: several writers’ memoirs <strong>of</strong> childhood<br />
visits to Carnegie libraries, plus several librarians’ accounts <strong>of</strong> daily<br />
life in the children’s room. Thomas’s dissertation on the genesis <strong>of</strong> public<br />
library children’s services contains a chapter on their establishment in<br />
both remodeled and newly built space, while her 1990 article provides a<br />
more succinct account <strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> early children’s rooms. 74 Finally,
Gerald Greenberg’s account <strong>of</strong> public libraries’ innovative response to<br />
summer’s hot weather describes the evolution <strong>of</strong> open air “reading<br />
rooms” on public library ro<strong>of</strong>s, in city parks, and at beaches. All were<br />
heavily used by children. 75<br />
Specialized Personnel: Youth Services Librarians<br />
Specialized personnel—librarians assigned specifically to work with<br />
young library users—is the third condition <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship.<br />
Thus far, biographical research on youth services librarians is growing<br />
but still very uneven—a handful <strong>of</strong> subjects is studied extensively, but<br />
the lives and work <strong>of</strong> many equally intriguing subjects remain unexamined.<br />
<strong>The</strong> best sources <strong>of</strong> biographical scholarship on individual youth<br />
services librarians are two standard reference books, Dictionary <strong>of</strong><br />
American Library Biography (1978) and its Supplement (1990). 76<br />
Goedeken’s prosopographical study <strong>of</strong> these texts, he notes that 301 subjects<br />
(87 women and 214 men) were chosen for the initial volume and 51<br />
individuals (13 women and 38 men) for the Supplement. 77 In the first volume,<br />
25 (24 women and 1 man) <strong>of</strong> those 301 subjects—8 percent <strong>of</strong> the<br />
total—are known chiefly for their involvement in some aspect <strong>of</strong> school<br />
or public youth services librarianship. In the Supplement, 6 (6 women and<br />
0 men) <strong>of</strong> the 51 subjects, or 12 percent <strong>of</strong> the total, are youth services<br />
librarians. Overall, the two volumes pro<strong>file</strong> 352 subjects (100 women and<br />
252 men), including 31 (30 women and 1 man) in youth services. Youth<br />
services subjects comprise 9 percent <strong>of</strong> the full total, which is a larger<br />
proportion than might be expected, given the generally low pro<strong>file</strong> that<br />
youth services librarianship and its practitioners have had in library history<br />
scholarship overall. Not surprisingly, the full group <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
subjects is 97 percent female. Both statistically and anecdotally, the<br />
female-intensive nature <strong>of</strong> children’s librarianship is evident throughout<br />
its history.<br />
Public Librarians<br />
115<br />
As the only work on this subject from a trade publisher, Dee Garrison’s<br />
Apostles <strong>of</strong> Culture has long been the most readily available history <strong>of</strong><br />
librarianship as a female-intensive pr<strong>of</strong>ession. 78 Although published in<br />
1979 and long out <strong>of</strong> print, Garrison’s book (plus her earlier article, “<strong>The</strong><br />
Tender Technicians,” on which the book’s final section is based) is probably<br />
the most-cited historical work on women in librarianship. Garrison<br />
includes children’s librarians in her examination <strong>of</strong> the status and economic<br />
problems associated with female-intensive service pr<strong>of</strong>essions.<br />
Unfortunately, her analysis <strong>of</strong> youth services librarians and librarianship<br />
In
116 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
is based on a selective and decontextualized reading <strong>of</strong> prescriptive articles<br />
and essays from a handful <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional journals. Thus, her conclusions<br />
are flawed as well.<br />
Jagusch’s title for her biographical dissertation on Anne Carroll Moore<br />
and Caroline M. Hewins is “First among Equals,” which aptly describes<br />
the founding mothers <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship. According to Davis<br />
and Tucker’s American Library History, accurately subtitled A Comprehensive<br />
Guide to the Literature, there were fifteen biographical studies <strong>of</strong> Anne<br />
Carroll Moore <strong>of</strong> varying lengths available in 1988; since that time, several<br />
more have appeared. 79 A look at the best <strong>of</strong> these reveals fuller coverage<br />
<strong>of</strong> her life and work than <strong>of</strong> any other youth services librarian.<br />
Cumins, Lundin, and Bader focus on her impact on children’s publishing<br />
and reviewing, while McElderry’s piece is a brief but vivid memoir <strong>of</strong> her<br />
work under Moore’s supervision. 80 Poor, Sayers, and Jagusch contribute<br />
full-length biographies that, taken together, depict a charismatic and<br />
tyrannical leader who is in large part responsible for the central position<br />
children’s librarians have occupied in the world <strong>of</strong> children’s publishing<br />
throughout this century. 81<br />
Biographical studies <strong>of</strong> youth services librarians appear infrequently<br />
and predictably focus on librarians with national visibility. For several<br />
reasons, including Anne Carroll Moore’s long tenure as superintendent<br />
<strong>of</strong> children’s work and the proximity to the New York City publishing<br />
houses, there is a strong trend among subjects toward involvement in the<br />
New York Public Library and in the American Library Association.<br />
Caroline M. Hewins was a prolific writer, an active member <strong>of</strong> the ALA,<br />
and the author <strong>of</strong> the first widely circulated bibliography <strong>of</strong> high quality<br />
books for children, Recommended Books for Boys and Girls (1882). 82 She also<br />
mentored Anne Carroll Moore. Mary Gould Davis, New York Public’s<br />
head <strong>of</strong> storytelling, was originally hired by Moore. 83 Frances Clarke<br />
Sayers, librarian, teacher, and pr<strong>of</strong>essional leader, was Moore’s successor<br />
at the New York Public Library from 1941 to 1952. 84 Originally hired by<br />
Moore in 1937 as a branch children’s librarian, Augusta Baker served as<br />
head <strong>of</strong> youth services at New York Public from 1961 to 1974. 85<br />
<strong>The</strong> bulk <strong>of</strong> Lutie Stearns’s pr<strong>of</strong>essional work was for the Wisconsin<br />
Free Library Commission. 86 She was an early youth services advocate<br />
within the ALA and was especially active in efforts to abolish the age<br />
restrictions that hindered children’s library access during the 1870s and<br />
1880s. Effie Power worked as a children’s library administrator in St.<br />
Louis, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh and wrote the ALA-published textbook<br />
on children’s services in the late 1920s. 87 Sarah Bogle’s career included<br />
positions as a public librarian, director <strong>of</strong> Pittsburgh’s Training <strong>School</strong><br />
for Children’s Librarians, and ALA executive. 88 Mildred Batchelder was
the coordinator <strong>of</strong> the ALA’s youth divisions. 89 Before going into juvenile<br />
publishing, Margaret McElderry worked as a children’s librarian under<br />
Moore’s supervision. 90 Siddie Joe Johnson’s fame was more regional, but<br />
she was also an active member <strong>of</strong> the ALA’s Children’s Library<br />
Association. 91 Pura Belpre, the New York Public Library’s first Puerto<br />
Rican librarian, was known for her pioneering work with Latino/Latina<br />
children as a storyteller, writer, and librarian. 92 Virginia Haviland was a<br />
children’s librarian at Boston Public Library and a reviewer for Horn Book<br />
who went on to become head <strong>of</strong> the Children’s Book Section at the<br />
Library <strong>of</strong> Congress. 93<br />
A recent book about Edith Guerrier stands out as an exception to the<br />
relative abundance <strong>of</strong> biographies <strong>of</strong> well-known pr<strong>of</strong>essional “founding<br />
mothers.” 94 Essentially a scholarly edition <strong>of</strong> Guerrier’s autobiography,<br />
the work details the career and accomplishments <strong>of</strong> a librarian in the<br />
Boston Public Library who did extensive work with library-sponsored<br />
clubs for teenage working girls. Guerrier’s interest in improving members’<br />
work lives led to the founding <strong>of</strong> the Paul Revere Pottery to provide<br />
employment to the club girls.<br />
<strong>School</strong> Librarians<br />
Biographies <strong>of</strong> school librarians are less plentiful: Mary Peacock<br />
Douglas was a long-time school library activist in North Carolina and in<br />
the ALA; Mary Gaver was a school librarian who became a library educator<br />
and was elected ALA president in the 1960s; Alice Harrison was<br />
one <strong>of</strong> the twenty-four school library pioneers included in the first edition<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography. 95 Sayers’s article on Anne<br />
Eaton is more <strong>of</strong> a tribute than a biography; Eaton was also known for<br />
her work as a reviewer and bibliographer <strong>of</strong> recommended children’s<br />
books. 96<br />
Young Adult Librarians<br />
117<br />
Young adult librarianship—that is, public library work directed specifically<br />
toward secondary school–age youth—is a relatively recent development,<br />
and its ranks are thin when compared to school and children’s<br />
librarianship. All three biographical studies <strong>of</strong> young adult librarians to<br />
appear thus far—by Atkinson, Campbell, and Hannigan—are group<br />
biographies; all pro<strong>file</strong> Margaret Alexander Edwards and Mabel<br />
Williams, while two <strong>of</strong> the three include Margaret Scoggin and Jean<br />
Roos. 97 It appears that these four women may be the “first among<br />
equals” <strong>of</strong> young adult librarianship.
118 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
Organizational History<br />
As Effie L. Power stated in her inaugural address as chair <strong>of</strong> the ALA’s<br />
Children’s Library Association, “<strong>The</strong> consciousness that none <strong>of</strong> us is<br />
working alone in her endeavor to bring worthwhile books to children<br />
should strengthen us.” 98 Many school and public librarians were the sole<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional youth services librarian in their building or institution; they<br />
created and maintained collegial connections through library associations<br />
and conferences, pr<strong>of</strong>essional journals, personal correspondence,<br />
and formal and informal networks <strong>of</strong> colleagues and friends. Thus,<br />
research on individual librarians inevitably leads to research on pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
networks. Batchelder’s article is a memoir <strong>of</strong> national youth services<br />
leadership, while Bush traces the connections between four<br />
well-known women—Moore, Hewins, Alice Tyler, and Bertha Mahoney<br />
Miller—in their various roles as reviewers, librarians, and children’s literature<br />
advocates. 99 Anne Lundin surveyed teachers <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
and literature working in library and information science schools for<br />
information on coverage <strong>of</strong> history in their courses and learned that<br />
some <strong>of</strong> the courses included the study <strong>of</strong> some <strong>of</strong> the youth services<br />
biographees listed above. 100<br />
Specialized Programs and Services<br />
<strong>The</strong> fourth component <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship is specialized<br />
services and programming. <strong>The</strong> ultimate purpose <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
library programming in both school and public libraries is the promotion<br />
<strong>of</strong> reading and literacy. This goal underlies a wide range <strong>of</strong> activities, all<br />
designed to facilitate connections between young people and texts. Some<br />
<strong>of</strong> these services involve the provision <strong>of</strong> books to children who cannot<br />
come to the library themselves through such innovations as home<br />
libraries, traveling libraries, and bookmobiles. 101 Library history contains<br />
many accounts <strong>of</strong> librarians as secular missionaries delivering books to<br />
readers <strong>of</strong> all ages via horseback, sleigh, and foreign aid package, traveling<br />
in person to developing areas to reach children who lack library service,<br />
or rebuilding and restocking libraries ravaged by war. 102 Early public<br />
library outreach in urban settings focused in large part on providing book<br />
collections—and librarians—to public schools, laying the groundwork for<br />
the establishment <strong>of</strong> school libraries as they are currently configured. 103<br />
Other library services and programs directed toward young readers’<br />
recreational reading include story hours, summer reading programs,<br />
young author programs, audiovisual programs, storytelling, and other<br />
performances. 104 Reference work with children contributes to children’s<br />
informational reading. 105 Youth services librarians publish book reviews,
119<br />
distribute reading promotional materials, celebrate Children’s Book<br />
Week, and write columns and articles on children’s reading for newspapers,<br />
magazines, and other publications that reach a broader public.<br />
106 Some <strong>of</strong> these activities have been studied by historians, but most<br />
have not.<br />
Storytelling is one <strong>of</strong> the oldest forms <strong>of</strong> library programming with<br />
young people. While this craft is older than print itself, library storytelling<br />
occupies a unique niche within the much larger field. <strong>The</strong> World<br />
<strong>of</strong> Storytelling by Anne Pellowski provides a comprehensive and welldocumented<br />
history <strong>of</strong> storytelling. Alvey’s lengthy dissertation on the<br />
history <strong>of</strong> storytelling contains useful information on library storytelling,<br />
and Greene’s text includes two succinct chapters: one on the general history<br />
<strong>of</strong> storytelling and one on the specific history <strong>of</strong> storytelling in a<br />
library setting. 107 “Story-Telling around the World,” a five-part symposium<br />
published in 1940 in Library Journal, gives a picture <strong>of</strong> storytelling’s<br />
international history from the pr<strong>of</strong>essional perspective <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
librarians. 108<br />
<strong>The</strong>re have been several biographical studies <strong>of</strong> prominent storytellerlibrarians;<br />
among them are works treating Mary Gould Davis, the New<br />
York Public Library’s first superintendent <strong>of</strong> storytelling; and Augusta<br />
Baker, New York Public Library librarian and storyteller as well as coauthor<br />
<strong>of</strong> the first two editions <strong>of</strong> Greene’s book. 109 <strong>The</strong> foundation <strong>of</strong><br />
library storytelling is a knowledge <strong>of</strong> traditional folktales and folklore<br />
collections. DelNegro’s study analyzes the coverage <strong>of</strong> folklore and the<br />
art <strong>of</strong> storytelling in the nine editions (1947–97) <strong>of</strong> Arbuthnot and<br />
Sutherland’s classic text, Children and Books, and in doing so traces the<br />
evolution <strong>of</strong> storytelling as a library activity and <strong>of</strong> folklore texts as story<br />
sources for librarians. 110<br />
If the history <strong>of</strong> library programs and services for children is insufficiently<br />
studied, the history <strong>of</strong> library programs and services for young<br />
adults is nearly nonexistent. <strong>The</strong> works <strong>of</strong> Braverman and <strong>of</strong> Craver are<br />
exceptional in this respect. Braverman’s best-known work is her 1979<br />
study <strong>of</strong> the two major types <strong>of</strong> library programming—social service and<br />
cultural—for young adults. 111 Her 1981 study used this model as a framework<br />
for analyzing young adult librarians’ provision <strong>of</strong> career information<br />
during the 1960s. 112 <strong>The</strong> latter study provides some useful data to<br />
those tracing the history <strong>of</strong> library services to teens, but it is apparent<br />
that the study was conducted to bolster arguments for the continuation<br />
<strong>of</strong> this service rather than to create a nuanced picture <strong>of</strong> library service<br />
to teens during that time. Craver’s work builds on Braverman’s service<br />
model to examine young adult public library programming during the<br />
1960s in greater depth. 113 She found that libraries initially provided both<br />
social service and cultural programming, but subsequent funding cuts
120 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
caused the social service function to be dropped, while the less costly cultural<br />
programming based on book-related subjects continued, despite its<br />
apparent lack <strong>of</strong> broad appeal.<br />
A Network <strong>of</strong> Child Welfare and Social Service Agencies<br />
<strong>The</strong> fifth and final condition for youth services librarianship is fulfilled<br />
when the first four conditions—specialized collection, space, personnel,<br />
and services—are located within a network <strong>of</strong> child welfare organizations<br />
and agencies. State, regional, and national pr<strong>of</strong>essional organizations can<br />
provide the necessary infrastructure for pr<strong>of</strong>essional networks. For<br />
example, Catherine Burr’s study traces the history <strong>of</strong> a state organization,<br />
the Missouri Association <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Librarians, from 1950 to 1975. 114<br />
Elizabeth Burr’s history <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin public library service to children<br />
describes a heterogeneous network <strong>of</strong> state-based organizations and<br />
agencies working collaboratively. 115 Anderson’s dissertation on Batchelder<br />
provides excellent coverage <strong>of</strong> the ALA’s Youth Services Divisions during<br />
her lengthy career as the executive <strong>of</strong> the ALA’s Youth Services Divisions<br />
from 1936 to 1966. 116 <strong>The</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional network <strong>of</strong> ALA youth services<br />
librarians is described in Marilyn Karrenbrock’s history and analysis <strong>of</strong><br />
Top <strong>of</strong> the News, the ALA journal published from 1942 to 1987 that functioned<br />
as a national forum for youth services librarians to share their<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional work and concerns with colleagues and peers. 117 <strong>The</strong><br />
research <strong>of</strong> Pond and Koch covers the several national organizations for<br />
school librarians that eventually evolved into the American Association<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Librarians (AASL) in 1950. 118 Jenkins’s work on the history <strong>of</strong><br />
the ALA’s Youth Services Divisions from 1939 to 1955 also pictures their<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional networks within the ALA. 119<br />
Youth services libraries have collaborated with various social welfare<br />
agencies, but schools were the first and most critical institution in this<br />
regard. As noted earlier, the first school libraries were extensions <strong>of</strong> public<br />
library service. Large urban libraries <strong>of</strong>ten had an <strong>of</strong>fice or department<br />
with one or more librarians assigned exclusively to work with<br />
schools. In some cases, school/library cooperation eventually led to the<br />
establishment <strong>of</strong> public library branches within the school. Sometimes,<br />
however, common interests and goals meant that librarians were competing<br />
for the same funding sources. <strong>The</strong>re have been numerous suggestions<br />
by advisory and legislative bodies that children’s library service<br />
should be provided by one agency rather than two to eliminate what was<br />
perceived as costly duplication. For example, a report <strong>issue</strong>d by the State<br />
<strong>of</strong> New York’s Commissioner <strong>of</strong> Education recommended that all library<br />
service to children be transferred to elementary school libraries. This was<br />
never enacted, but the ensuing responses and discussions highlighted the
complex nature <strong>of</strong> school/library cooperation. J. Gordon Burke and<br />
Gerald Shields’s text begins with the text <strong>of</strong> the report, followed by<br />
responses from five youth services library leaders in New York at that<br />
time. 120 Budd Gambee’s study (rather eerily titled “An Alien Body”)<br />
describes problems in school/public library relations from 1876 to<br />
1920. 121 In the late 1940s conflicts between the school and public library<br />
sections <strong>of</strong> the ALA resulted in the formation <strong>of</strong> a separate school library<br />
organization, the American Association <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Librarians (AASL), in<br />
1950. <strong>The</strong> story <strong>of</strong> this conflict is told from various perspectives in four<br />
different dissertations on the activities <strong>of</strong> the ALA’s youth services leadership<br />
at that time. 122<br />
Studies that place the history <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship in the<br />
larger social context are beginning to appear. Among them are Virginia<br />
Mathews’s autobiographical account <strong>of</strong> connections between libraries<br />
and other agencies from a political perspective, along with Eileen<br />
Cooke’s article on the legislative history <strong>of</strong> funding for youth services in<br />
libraries. 123 Barbara Brand investigates the early connections between<br />
the female-intensive social welfare pr<strong>of</strong>essions <strong>of</strong> librarianship, social<br />
work, and public health from 1870 to 1920. 124 Jella Lepman’s autobiographical<br />
account <strong>of</strong> her activities during the 1940s and 1950s in establishing<br />
an International Youth Library in Germany is a chatty narrative<br />
and travelogue describing the range <strong>of</strong> alliances she forged with social<br />
welfare and political organizations in pursuit <strong>of</strong> her library goal. 125<br />
Young Library Users<br />
121<br />
<strong>The</strong> five elements <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship—specialized collections,<br />
rooms, personnel, and services in a network <strong>of</strong> other agencies and<br />
organizations—are assembled in order to provide libraries and library<br />
services to young people. Thus, the final element in this review is the<br />
young people themselves—the library users that provide the “why” <strong>of</strong><br />
youth services librarianship. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, this<br />
most important component is also the least studied by library historians.<br />
Only a handful <strong>of</strong> historical studies have focused on young library users.<br />
Christine Pawley’s outstanding historical dissertation on the reading and<br />
library use <strong>of</strong> the residents <strong>of</strong> Osage, Iowa, in the 1890s has yielded two<br />
articles that examine children’s reading patterns. 126 Judith Gutman<br />
examined Lewis Hine’s photos for the New York Child Welfare Exhibit <strong>of</strong><br />
1911 to glean information about the young library users being photographed.<br />
127 Abigail Van Slyck uses adults’ memoirs <strong>of</strong> their childhood<br />
public library experiences to describe the children’s room, collection, and<br />
librarian from the perspective <strong>of</strong> a young library user. 128 Reading Rooms, a<br />
lengthy (486-page) anthology <strong>of</strong> fiction and nonfiction about public
122 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
libraries, is not a study, but it also includes a number <strong>of</strong> autobiographical<br />
accounts by pr<strong>of</strong>essional writers <strong>of</strong> themselves as young library users. 129<br />
Research Agenda<br />
A passage from Sidney Ditzion’s respected text, Arsenals <strong>of</strong> a Democratic<br />
Culture: A Social History <strong>of</strong> the American Public Library Movement in New<br />
England and the Middle States from 1850 to 1900, provides a telling starting<br />
point for considering the state <strong>of</strong> historiography <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship.<br />
<strong>The</strong> years he describes from 1850 to 1900 saw the establishment<br />
<strong>of</strong> all five conditions <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship: the first collections,<br />
space, personnel, and services for young library users in a network <strong>of</strong><br />
other child welfare agencies and organizations. American public libraries<br />
pioneered this work; the library facilities and services they created continue<br />
to be a model for children’s libraries worldwide. Despite these<br />
momentous developments, a single sentence in Ditzion’s 200-page book<br />
describes the genesis <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship: “<strong>The</strong> children’s<br />
room proper was an innovation <strong>of</strong> the last decade <strong>of</strong> the century.” 130<br />
Historians <strong>of</strong> youth services in libraries may feel daunted by the vast<br />
quantity <strong>of</strong> research that needs doing. On the other hand, by using<br />
Ditzion’s words as a baseline, we are reminded how far the field has come<br />
since 1947.<br />
Women’s Historiography: Lerner and Hildenbrand<br />
Pioneering women’s historian Gerda Lerner theorized a much-cited<br />
conceptual framework <strong>of</strong> research perspectives that describes the various<br />
stages <strong>of</strong> women’s inclusion in historiography. 131 Library historian<br />
Suzanne Hildenbrand built upon Lerner’s perspectives to create a theoretical<br />
model specific to scholarship on women in library history: (0)<br />
invisibility; (1) compensatory or contributions history; (2) discrimination<br />
or oppression history; (3) women’s cultural history; and (4) women in history.<br />
132 This typology begins with zero because the study <strong>of</strong> history, as it<br />
has been traditionally understood in Western culture, has not included<br />
women. That is, the presence <strong>of</strong> women is not denied, but their work and<br />
lives are assumed to exist solely in the shadow <strong>of</strong> men; women themselves<br />
are invisible. <strong>The</strong> first scholarly perspective that includes women<br />
is compensatory or contributions history. It is based on the assumption<br />
that the experiences <strong>of</strong> men and women have been basically similar and<br />
that the addition <strong>of</strong> some influential but hitherto overlooked Great<br />
Women is sufficient to effect the inclusion <strong>of</strong> women in history. <strong>The</strong> second<br />
perspective, discrimination or oppression history, assumes that male<br />
and female experiences have been fundamentally different and seeks to
document discrimination against women as a historically oppressed<br />
group. <strong>The</strong> third perspective, women’s cultural history, also assumes that<br />
male and female experiences have been fundamentally different but<br />
focuses instead on the historically undervalued activities in which women<br />
have engaged. <strong>The</strong> fourth and final perspective, the “women in history”<br />
model, is based on the assumption that men and women are neither completely<br />
similar or dissimilar but are instead influenced by a wide range <strong>of</strong><br />
variables, including—but not limited to—gender. This awareness <strong>of</strong> the<br />
contextual gender system enables researchers to view more clearly the<br />
power relationships in a given context and how the various actors—male<br />
and female—fit into that frame.<br />
<strong>The</strong> model proposed by Lerner and modified by Hildenbrand may be<br />
used to understand not only the history <strong>of</strong> women generally but also the<br />
historiography <strong>of</strong> the extremely female-intensive specialization <strong>of</strong> youth<br />
services librarianship. First, youth services librarianship was absent from<br />
library history. <strong>The</strong>n, a few exceptional Great Youth Services Librarians<br />
began to appear in library history. Next, historians related accounts <strong>of</strong><br />
the discrimination faced by youth services librarians inside and outside<br />
the pr<strong>of</strong>ession; they also wrote about youth services work as a women’s<br />
culture. Finally, historians integrated women into history and youth services<br />
librarianship into the overall history <strong>of</strong> librarianship. Following a<br />
brief discussion <strong>of</strong> sources for information about the past, I will attempt<br />
to sketch a research agenda for the history <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship<br />
based on the five categories identified earlier (collection, space, etc.) and<br />
adding users and other themes, always with Lerner’s typology in the<br />
background to suggest the range <strong>of</strong> questions still to be answered. This<br />
research agenda is by no means comprehensive but rather reflects the<br />
particular interests that I bring to this field.<br />
Primary Sources<br />
123<br />
When children are affected, adults are eager to advise and recommend.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is an abundance <strong>of</strong> prescriptive literature on all aspects <strong>of</strong><br />
youth services librarianship. Contemporaneous published primary<br />
sources contain lists <strong>of</strong> recommended books, activities, decor, circulation<br />
procedures, bulletin board displays, audiovisual materials and programming,<br />
and so on, as well as advice on the ideal librarian’s personality,<br />
demeanor, and education. As yet, however, very few scholars have used<br />
descriptive primary sources as a “reality check” to the prescriptive literature.<br />
In addition, researchers have frequently succumbed to the temptation<br />
<strong>of</strong> using a single vivid quote to represent librarians’ views, without<br />
indicating when individuals were speaking for themselves and when their<br />
views represented a pr<strong>of</strong>essional consensus.
124 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
Published sources are invaluable, but it may be possible to supplement<br />
them with unpublished institutional <strong>file</strong>s, such as reports, minutes, correspondence,<br />
circulation records, personal papers, and work journals.<br />
Oral history is another underused primary source; historians examining<br />
the recent past should consider the value <strong>of</strong> conducting (and archiving)<br />
interviews. Unfortunately, difficulties arise in the use <strong>of</strong> existing<br />
recorded oral histories in formats for which playback equipment is no<br />
longer readily available, such as reel-to-reel audiotape and videotape.<br />
Specialized Collections<br />
<strong>The</strong> first library collections for young readers were more or less invisible,<br />
as readers <strong>of</strong> all ages drew their books from a single library collection.<br />
Lerner’s next perspective <strong>of</strong> contributions history is reflected in<br />
histories <strong>of</strong> early children’s collections like the Bingham library (see<br />
below). <strong>The</strong>re were also early singular books, such as Alice in Wonderland,<br />
a book some consider to be the first book truly written for children, as<br />
well as early singular authors, illustrators, publishers, and journals.<br />
Children’s literature is well represented in discrimination history: children’s<br />
literature was—and is—rarely included in discussions <strong>of</strong> the<br />
canon, and otherwise respected authors’ works for children are <strong>of</strong>ten<br />
ignored by literary historians. Next, the cultural history <strong>of</strong> children’s literature<br />
accurately portrays it as a world unto itself, with its own awards,<br />
reviewing sources, evaluation criteria, and listservs. Finally, research<br />
could focus on children’s literature as part <strong>of</strong> an overall body <strong>of</strong> literature,<br />
children’s collections within the larger library collection, children’s<br />
authors among all authors, the censorship <strong>of</strong> children’s books as an event<br />
in a more global history <strong>of</strong> censorship.<br />
Librarians created numerous lists <strong>of</strong> recommended books and materials<br />
for children’s collections. What books were actually in the library collection?<br />
What books and other materials were excluded? In the<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional literature, for example, much was written about the ill<br />
effects <strong>of</strong> series books. What was the actual incidence <strong>of</strong> series books in<br />
children’s collections? What part did book reviews, both in-house and in<br />
review journals, play in selection decisions? What can library collections<br />
tell us about the canon?<br />
Some McCarthy era library censorship campaigns were successful,<br />
while others were not. What role(s) did children’s librarians play in these<br />
varying outcomes? American Legion posts’ Americanism Committees,<br />
the National Organization for Decent Literature, and other procensorship<br />
groups sometimes targeted libraries. Did their pressure tactics have<br />
an effect on children’s library collections?
Specialized Space<br />
Without designated children’s space in the library, there is little physical<br />
evidence <strong>of</strong> children’s past library use, which in turn renders children’s<br />
library presence invisible. Early public libraries had age restrictions. How<br />
were these enforced? In the course <strong>of</strong> their gradual removal, were there<br />
similar patterns in libraries according to geographic area and size <strong>of</strong><br />
community or library?<br />
<strong>The</strong> establishment <strong>of</strong> children’s rooms was a national phenomenon<br />
that took hold and spread throughout the country during the 1890s.<br />
What political, social, and cultural factors shaped this trend? What was<br />
the decision process by which a library gained a children’s area or room?<br />
Who was responsible? Librarians? Women’s clubs? A coalition effort?<br />
Adult library users? What arguments were used? How was the expense<br />
justified? Some <strong>of</strong> the first children’s rooms have been documented in<br />
floor plans or photos, but the process <strong>of</strong> their creation has not been<br />
examined in any depth.<br />
Some historians and other observers have viewed the common relegation<br />
<strong>of</strong> the children’s room to the library basement or other out-<strong>of</strong>-theway<br />
library locations as evidence <strong>of</strong> its second-class status. Others view<br />
this physical separation as a more positive move to allow children and<br />
children’s librarians control over their own space with minimal disturbance<br />
from others. How was the children’s space’s location seen by the<br />
librarians? By young library users? By adult library users?<br />
Children’s library space could usually be identified by the presence <strong>of</strong><br />
low tables and chairs, but children’s rooms in diverse locations <strong>of</strong>ten had<br />
other common decor and design elements that appear to have signified<br />
the room’s identity as a space for children. What were these signifiers?<br />
What was the relation between this space and the rest <strong>of</strong> the library?<br />
How did the children’s room compare to other spaces being designed for<br />
children at that time, such as kindergartens, playgrounds, and hospital<br />
children’s wards? What influence did the Arts and Crafts domestic architecture<br />
<strong>of</strong> that time have on the decor <strong>of</strong> the library children’s room?<br />
Specialized Personnel: Librarians<br />
125<br />
According to Lerner’s model, once women ceased to be invisible to historians,<br />
their lives and work were studied using the first perspective <strong>of</strong><br />
contributions or compensatory history, seeking to add a few Great<br />
Women to the field’s pantheon <strong>of</strong> Great Men. As noted earlier, this pattern<br />
also describes the historiography <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship.<br />
Thus far, much <strong>of</strong> this history has focused on a handful <strong>of</strong> Great
126 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
Librarians from the first generation <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essionals involved in library<br />
work with young people. <strong>The</strong> lives and work <strong>of</strong> some <strong>of</strong> these pioneers<br />
have been documented, particularly Minerva Sanders, Caroline Hewins,<br />
Lutie Stearns, and the omnipresent Anne Carroll Moore. Who were the<br />
others in that first generation <strong>of</strong> children’s librarians?<br />
<strong>The</strong> next generation <strong>of</strong> children’s librarians received specialized training<br />
at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Carnegie in Pittsburgh, or Case<br />
Western in Cleveland. Who were these students? What curriculum did<br />
they study? What was their work history following graduation? One<br />
model for this research can be found in Elizabeth Cardman’s groundbreaking<br />
study using student records to document the personal and pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
lives <strong>of</strong> the 361 students who attended the Illinois Library<br />
<strong>School</strong> in its first fourteen years from 1893 to 1907. 133 What might student<br />
records tell historians about the graduates <strong>of</strong> the Carnegie Library<br />
<strong>of</strong> Pittsburgh’s Training <strong>School</strong> for Children’s Librarians, or about students<br />
who went into children’s work from other library school programs?<br />
<strong>The</strong> ideal personality and demeanor for the children’s librarian (sunny<br />
disposition, comfortable manner, boundless patience, good sense <strong>of</strong><br />
humor, and relentlessly positive attitude) were no doubt familiar to practitioners.<br />
At the same time, the negative stereotype <strong>of</strong> a librarian pictured<br />
her (and it was always a “her”) quite differently—a grim-visaged<br />
spinster with an exaggerated sense <strong>of</strong> decorum. Is it possible to determine<br />
where reality lay between these two extreme images? What information<br />
might work journals or photographs reveal about children’s<br />
librarians in and out <strong>of</strong> the workplace?<br />
Historically, youth services librarianship has been a female-intensive<br />
specialization within a female-intensive field. In a field that has been<br />
over 97 percent female, the culture <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship was a<br />
woman’s culture. <strong>The</strong> history <strong>of</strong> this pr<strong>of</strong>ession is women’s cultural history,<br />
and the feminist theory that informs the study <strong>of</strong> women’s history<br />
can be usefully applied. In addition, for years youth services librarians<br />
had one <strong>of</strong> the lowest marriage rates <strong>of</strong> any pr<strong>of</strong>ession. Thus the history<br />
<strong>of</strong> youth services librarians is the history <strong>of</strong> single women and could be<br />
viewed through that lens as well. 134<br />
Children’s librarianship was one <strong>of</strong> a number <strong>of</strong> female-intensive child<br />
welfare pr<strong>of</strong>essions that grew out <strong>of</strong> Progressive Era social activism, and<br />
the histories <strong>of</strong> these pr<strong>of</strong>essions are beginning to be written. 135 A comparative<br />
study <strong>of</strong> youth services librarians and women in other femaleintensive<br />
child welfare pr<strong>of</strong>essions would be enlightening. How did the<br />
experiences <strong>of</strong> youth services librarians within the ALA compare to the<br />
experiences <strong>of</strong> elementary teachers within the NEA or those in the more<br />
child-oriented and presumably more female-intensive pr<strong>of</strong>essional specializations<br />
within the American Nurses Association or the National
Association <strong>of</strong> Social Workers? 136 As these female-intensive groups<br />
worked within male-dominated pr<strong>of</strong>essional organizations to achieve<br />
their goals, did they face similar barriers? Employ similar strategies? <strong>The</strong><br />
meaning <strong>of</strong> such networks for individual librarians might be gleaned<br />
from their letters and other correspondence.<br />
Specialized Programs and Services<br />
At some point early in this history, there were no library-sponsored<br />
activities for children. What were the first activities for children? How<br />
did children’s programming become established, and how was it justified?<br />
What sort <strong>of</strong> resistance or encouragement did it encounter? Early public<br />
library children’s departments sponsored numerous children’s clubs. <strong>The</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong>ficial record connects them with reading, and one also finds mentions<br />
<strong>of</strong> library-sponsored walking and hiking clubs, sewing clubs, and nature<br />
clubs, as well as worker clubs for delivery boys, Western Union messengers,<br />
and young garment industry piece-workers. Are there any archival<br />
records <strong>of</strong> library clubs? Why did library clubs die out? How did they<br />
relate to other youth organizations and agencies, such as the Boy Scouts,<br />
Boys and Girls Clubs, the YMCA and YWCA?<br />
Public libraries sponsored regular radio and television programming<br />
aimed at reading promotion for children and teens. Children’s librarians<br />
provided library service to children in this country’s Japanese internment<br />
camps during World War II. What other services did youth services<br />
library outreach programs provide? What part did these programs play in<br />
the library’s overall outreach program?<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Networks and the Wider Historical Context<br />
127<br />
Historically, children’s librarianship has been a fairly small field compared<br />
to teaching and nursing, so that children’s library services and<br />
their connections with other agencies remained invisible to many. How<br />
were connections between libraries, schools, and public health facilities<br />
initiated and established? This is now a potentially rich area <strong>of</strong> study<br />
because <strong>of</strong> recent historical work that has been done on other social and<br />
child welfare organizations. Histories <strong>of</strong> other child welfare organizations<br />
have been or are being written, but as yet they contain little information<br />
about the interrelated work and services <strong>of</strong> children’s libraries and<br />
librarians. 137 What role(s) did children’s libraries and librarians play in<br />
the general movement toward child welfare during the Progressive Era?<br />
We know that there were <strong>of</strong>ten strong connections between settlement<br />
house work and public library work. Caroline Hewins, for example, lived<br />
for twelve years in a settlement house in Hartford. Did other librarians
128 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
live in settlements, and what might their lives tell us about relations<br />
between urban libraries and urban settlements? What was the relationship<br />
<strong>of</strong> the public library with the schools, public health departments,<br />
and playgrounds? <strong>The</strong> kindergarten movement began somewhat earlier<br />
than children’s librarianship, and several studies <strong>of</strong> its history have been<br />
published. 138 Kindergarten work and children’s librarianship were <strong>of</strong>ten<br />
compared, and it was not uncommon for children’s librarians to have a<br />
background in kindergarten work. What were the connections between<br />
public libraries and librarians and kindergartens and kindergarten teachers?<br />
How did children’s librarians work with the General Federation <strong>of</strong><br />
Women’s Clubs and other service organizations?<br />
At this point, studies generally focus on children’s, young adult, or<br />
school librarians. What might be learned by studying them together, as<br />
the contemporaries that they were? We need a history <strong>of</strong> youth services<br />
that encompasses both school and public libraries.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Public <strong>The</strong>y Served: Young Library Users<br />
Thus far, the historical study <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship has<br />
focused on the work from only one side <strong>of</strong> the desk. What <strong>of</strong> the library<br />
users? In order to understand this field fully, we need accounts from the<br />
viewpoint <strong>of</strong> the young people and the adults who made use <strong>of</strong> the services<br />
the library provided. How did children, parents, and teachers view<br />
the library as a place and as a service?<br />
A large part <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship occurs on a one-to-one<br />
basis as librarians continually strive to put that “right book” into the<br />
hands <strong>of</strong> that “right child.” Many books, including many reference books,<br />
are devoted to this practice, but there has been little historical analysis<br />
<strong>of</strong> readers’ advisory work with young readers.<br />
Contextual History: Youth Services Librarianship in History<br />
All these pr<strong>of</strong>essions were predicated on women’s access to higher<br />
education. <strong>The</strong>re are several studies <strong>of</strong> women as they gained access to<br />
and entered the pr<strong>of</strong>essions. 139 <strong>The</strong> history <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship<br />
is part <strong>of</strong> this history. Youth services history could also inform and<br />
be informed by the history <strong>of</strong> publishing and the history <strong>of</strong> children’s<br />
literature.<br />
Children’s library service was one small part <strong>of</strong> a far larger governmental<br />
bureaucracy. Keeping it financially viable required consistent<br />
(and constant) advocacy within a public sector that was continually<br />
underfunded. <strong>The</strong> survival <strong>of</strong> children’s librarianship for the past one<br />
hundred or more years indicates that librarians have been successful
political players. What leadership style did children’s librarians employ?<br />
How did they utilize “women’s ways <strong>of</strong> knowing” to support women’s<br />
ways <strong>of</strong> wielding power?<br />
Histories <strong>of</strong> children and childhood are beginning to be written. 140 Few<br />
<strong>of</strong> these histories include any mention <strong>of</strong> children in libraries, while histories<br />
<strong>of</strong> libraries, from Ditzion’s time to our own, pay scant attention to<br />
youth services. We need institutional history that includes children’s history.<br />
We know children were there. <strong>The</strong> work <strong>of</strong> historians can make<br />
them visible.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was some early public library service to children in Great<br />
Britain, but the model for youth services librarianship as it is currently<br />
configured took shape and matured in the United States. Has the U.S.<br />
model been used in other countries? If so, how? If not, what other models<br />
have been followed? As in other areas having to do with women and<br />
children, youth services librarianship has been simultaneously revered<br />
and ignored throughout its illustrious history.<br />
Conclusion<br />
129<br />
According to Jesse Shera’s canonical history <strong>of</strong> early American<br />
libraries, Foundations <strong>of</strong> the Public Library, the founding <strong>of</strong> the Bingham<br />
Library for Youth in Salisbury, Connecticut, in 1803 was “the first<br />
instance in which a municipal governing body contributed active financial<br />
assistance to public library service.” 141 Thus, the first public library<br />
as the term is currently understood was a library created specifically for<br />
young people. Thirty-one years later, in 1834, the Peterborough, New<br />
Hampshire, Town Library was founded and became a far better-known<br />
claimant to the “earliest public library” designation. <strong>The</strong> Peterborough<br />
library was for residents <strong>of</strong> all ages, but Shera notes that more than half<br />
<strong>of</strong> its inaugural collection—approximately 200 books out <strong>of</strong> 370—were<br />
described as “the Juvenile Library,” or books for young readers. 142 Thus,<br />
from the very early years children have been a significant constituent<br />
group <strong>of</strong> library users.<br />
<strong>The</strong> early scholars <strong>of</strong> women’s history knew that women were present<br />
throughout the past—the task was not so much that <strong>of</strong> ferreting out an<br />
obscure history but that <strong>of</strong> making the invisible visible. <strong>The</strong> same holds<br />
true for library scholars who would place children—and the women (and<br />
some men) who worked with them—in the mainstream rather than the<br />
margins. If they have been invisible, it is because no one was looking for<br />
them; rather, they were unsought and thus unfound. But we know they<br />
were there.<br />
Contributions history is fine and should continue, but it is not enough.<br />
Discrimination history is certainly needed if only to respond to those who
130 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
insist that children’s librarians were not library directors simply because<br />
they didn’t wish to be. But even as we raise questions about apparent discrimination<br />
(why, for example, were children’s rooms so <strong>of</strong>ten relegated<br />
to the library’s basement?) we should continue using a cultural history<br />
perspective as well. What happened in those basement children’s rooms?<br />
What were librarians and young readers doing, saying, and reading?<br />
Finally, there is the perspective <strong>of</strong> women in history. Historically, children<br />
have been viewed as peripheral to history, and those who work with them<br />
have been dismissed as inconsequential. But the record tells a different<br />
story. Photos <strong>of</strong> children using libraries adorned annual reports from<br />
coast to coast. We know they were there. Now it is time to find them.<br />
<strong>The</strong> amount <strong>of</strong> work that remains to be done to even begin laying a<br />
foundation for a twenty-first-century history <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship<br />
is daunting. <strong>The</strong>re is so much to learn, so many questions to ask and<br />
answer, so much to make visible.<br />
An Ample Field, Amelia Munson’s 1950 book about the emerging field <strong>of</strong><br />
young adult librarianship, begins with a chapter that describes the many<br />
responsibilities <strong>of</strong> this rewarding and demanding pr<strong>of</strong>essional specialization.<br />
She ends her true-to-life account <strong>of</strong> library work with teenagers<br />
with a challenge to the reader: “Of course it’s a job! What did you think?<br />
Maybe you’re right. Maybe you ought to take up needlepoint instead.” 143<br />
Every page <strong>of</strong> Munson’s text promotes the growing field <strong>of</strong> library service<br />
to young adults with unflagging energy. Indeed, even at the close <strong>of</strong><br />
twelve enthusiastic chapters, it appears that she could continue almost<br />
indefinitely. But instead she concludes and turns back to the work at<br />
hand, writing, “But all these things are not for telling now; / I have, God<br />
knows, an ample field to plow.” 144<br />
Historical research in youth services librarianship is an equally ample<br />
field that has lain fallow for far too long. It is time—and, I hope, not yet past<br />
time, given the potential fragility <strong>of</strong> print on paper resources—for historians<br />
to step up to this scholarship with the same positive problem-solving<br />
attitude and pr<strong>of</strong>essional zeal characteristic <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession itself. It is<br />
time to find and to write the history <strong>of</strong> youth services librarianship.<br />
Notes<br />
1. Margo Sasse, “Invisible Women: <strong>The</strong> Children’s Librarian in America,”<br />
Library Journal 98 (January 1<strong>973</strong>): 213–17.<br />
2. Mary Niles Maack, “Toward a History <strong>of</strong> Women in Librarianship: A<br />
Critical Analysis with Suggestions for Further Research,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
17 (Spring 1982): 164–85; Suzanne Hildenbrand, “ ‘Women’s Work’ within<br />
Librarianship: Time to Expand the Feminist Agenda,” Library Journal 114<br />
(September 1989): 153–55; Lillian N. Gerhardt, “Tilling the Field <strong>of</strong> Children’s<br />
Literature,” <strong>School</strong> Library Journal 45 (July 1999): 30–33.
131<br />
3. Oliver Garceau, <strong>The</strong> Public Library in the Political Process: A Report <strong>of</strong> the Public<br />
Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press, 1949), 49.<br />
4. Robert D. Leigh, <strong>The</strong> Public Library in the United States: <strong>The</strong> General Report <strong>of</strong><br />
the Public Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press, 1950), 100.<br />
5. Leslie I. Poste, “<strong>The</strong> Public Library Inquiry,” Library Journal 74<br />
(September 1949): 1170; Frances Henne, “Special Discussion <strong>of</strong> Service for<br />
Children and Young People,” in Lester Asheim, ed., A Forum on the Public Library<br />
Inquiry: Conference at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Graduate Library <strong>School</strong>, August 8–13,<br />
1949 (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press, 1950), 237.<br />
6. Fannette H. Thomas, “<strong>The</strong> Genesis <strong>of</strong> Children’s Library Services in the<br />
American Public Library, 1876–1906” (Ph.D. dissertation, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Wisconsin–Madison, 1982).<br />
7. Public Libraries in the United States <strong>of</strong> America (Washington, D.C.:<br />
Government Printing Office, 1876), 38–59, 412–18.<br />
8. Arthur E. Bostwick, <strong>The</strong> American Public Library (New York: D. Appleton,<br />
1910); W. C. Berwick Sayers, <strong>The</strong> Children’s Library: A Practical Manual for <strong>School</strong>,<br />
Public and Home Libraries (London and New York: George Routledge/Dutton,<br />
1911); J. W. Emery, <strong>The</strong> Library, the <strong>School</strong> and the Child (Toronto: Macmillan 1917);<br />
Alice I. Hazeltine, Library Work with Children (White Plains, N.J.: H. W. Wilson Co.,<br />
1917); Sophie Powell, <strong>The</strong> Children’s Library: A Dynamic Factor in Education (New<br />
York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1917); Effie L. Power, Library Work with Children (Chicago:<br />
American Library Association, 1930); Lucile F. Fargo, <strong>The</strong> Library in the <strong>School</strong><br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1930).<br />
9. American Library Association, Committee on Library Work with<br />
Children, Children’s Library Yearbook, vols. 1–4 (Chicago: American Library<br />
Association, 1929–1932).<br />
10. Frances Henne, Alice Brooks, and Ruth Ersted, eds., Youth, Communication<br />
and Libraries: Papers Presented before the Library Institute at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago<br />
August 11–16, 1947 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1949).<br />
11. Harriet G. Long, Rich the Treasure: Public Library Service to Children<br />
(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1953).<br />
12. Elizabeth Nesbitt, “Library Service to Children,” Library Trends 3 (October<br />
1954): 118–28; Jean Roos, “Library Service to Young Adults,” Library Trends 3<br />
(October 1954).<br />
13. Garceau, <strong>The</strong> Public Library in the Political Process; Bernard Berelson, <strong>The</strong><br />
Library’s Public: A Report <strong>of</strong> the Public Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia<br />
<strong>University</strong> Press, 1949).<br />
14. Elizabeth Henry Gross, Children’s Service in Public Libraries (Chicago:<br />
American Library Association, 1963).<br />
15. Dorothy Broderick, An Introduction to Children’s Work in Public Libraries (New<br />
York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1965); Elizabeth H. Gross, Public Library Service to Children<br />
(Dobbs Ferry: Oceana Publications, 1967).<br />
16. Gwendolen Rees, Libraries for Children: A History and a Bibliography (London:<br />
Grafton, 1924).<br />
17. Frances Clarke Sayers, “<strong>The</strong> Origins <strong>of</strong> Public Library Work with<br />
Children,” Library Trends 12 (July 1963): 6–13.<br />
18. Harriet G. Long, Public Library Service to Children: Foundation and<br />
Development (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1969).<br />
19. Clara O. Jackson, “Service to Urban Children,” in Sidney L. Jackson,<br />
Eleanor B. Herling, and E. J. Josey, eds., Century <strong>of</strong> Service: Librarianship in the<br />
United States and Canada (Chicago: American Library Association, 1976), 20–41;
132 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
Sara Innis Fenwick, “Library Services to Children and Young People,” Library<br />
Trends 25 (July 1976): 329–60.<br />
20. Dee Garrison, Apostles <strong>of</strong> Culture: <strong>The</strong> Public Librarian and American Society,<br />
1876–1920 (New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1979); Abigail Van Slyck, Free to All:<br />
Carnegie Libraries & American Culture, 1890–1920 (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago<br />
Press, 1995); Alison M. Parker, Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform, and Pro-<br />
Censorship Activism, 1873–1933 (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1997).<br />
21. Manuel Lopez, “Children’s Libraries: Nineteenth Century American<br />
Origins,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 11 (1976): 316–42; Thomas, “<strong>The</strong> Genesis.”<br />
22. Sybille Anna Jagusch, “First among Equals: Caroline M. Hewins and<br />
Anne C. Moore: Foundations <strong>of</strong> Library Work with Children” (Ph.D. dissertation,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Maryland, 1990).<br />
23. Sister Marie Inez Johnson, “<strong>The</strong> Development <strong>of</strong> Separate Service for<br />
Young People in Public Libraries <strong>of</strong> the United States, and Its Implications for<br />
Library <strong>School</strong>s” (master’s thesis, Columbia <strong>University</strong>, 1940).<br />
24. Miriam Braverman, Youth, Society, and the Public Library (Chicago:<br />
American Library Association, 1979).<br />
25. Fargo, <strong>The</strong> Library in the <strong>School</strong>. Four editions were published in 1930, 1933,<br />
1939, and 1947.<br />
26. Margaret I. Rufsvold, “History <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Libraries in the South,” Peabody<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Education 12 (July 1934): 14–18; Frances Lander Spain, “High <strong>School</strong><br />
Libraries in the South,” in Will Carson Ryan, ed., Secondary Education in the South<br />
(Chapel Hill: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina Press, 1946), 95–114.<br />
27. Frederic D. Aldrich, <strong>The</strong> <strong>School</strong> Library in Ohio with Special Emphasis on Its<br />
Legislative History (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1959); Sister M. Constance Melvin,<br />
“A History <strong>of</strong> State Administration and Public <strong>School</strong> Libraries in Pennsylvania,”<br />
in John David Marshall, ed., Approaches to Library History: Proceedings <strong>of</strong> the Second<br />
Library History Seminar, Tallahassee, March 4–6, 1965 (Tallahassee: Journal <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
History, 1966), 106–18.<br />
28. Henry L. Cecil and Willard A. Heaps, <strong>School</strong> Library Services in the United<br />
States: An Interpretive Survey (New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1940).<br />
29. Paul Saettler, <strong>The</strong> Evolution <strong>of</strong> American Educational Technology (Englewood,<br />
Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1990); Gene Lanier, “<strong>The</strong> Transformation <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong><br />
Libraries into Instructional Materials Centers” (Ph.D. dissertation, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
North Carolina, 1968).<br />
30. Kathy Latrobe, ed., <strong>The</strong> Emerging <strong>School</strong> Library Media Center: Historical<br />
Issues and Perspectives (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1998); Betty J.<br />
Morris, John T. Gillespie, and Diana L. Spirt, Administering the <strong>School</strong> Library Media<br />
Center, 3rd ed. (New Providence, N.J.: R. R. Bowker, 1992), 1–23.<br />
31. Patricia Pond, “A.A.S.L.: Origins and Development <strong>of</strong> a National<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Association for <strong>School</strong> Librarians, 1896–1951” (Ph.D. dissertation,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago, 1982).<br />
32. Charles Koch, “A History <strong>of</strong> the American Association <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong><br />
Librarians, 1950–1971” (Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Illinois <strong>University</strong>, 1975).<br />
33. Joanne Passet, Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West,<br />
1900–1917 (Albuquerque: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New Mexico Press, 1994), 111.<br />
34. Phyllis Dain, <strong>The</strong> New York Public Library: A History <strong>of</strong> Its Founding and Early<br />
Years (New York: New York Public Library, 1972), 299–306; C. H. Cramer, Open<br />
Shelves and Open Minds: A History <strong>of</strong> the Cleveland Public Library (Cleveland: Case<br />
Western Reserve <strong>University</strong> Press, 1972), 61–75; Rosemary Ruhig Dumont,<br />
Reform and Reaction: <strong>The</strong> Big City Public Library in American Life (Westport, Conn.:<br />
Greenwood Press, 1977), 85–95; Chieko Tachihata, “<strong>The</strong> History and
133<br />
Development <strong>of</strong> Hawaii Public Libraries: <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> Hawaii and Hawaii State<br />
Library” (Ph.D. dissertation, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Southern California, 1981).<br />
35. Section <strong>of</strong> Children’s Libraries, International Federation <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
Associations, ed., Library Service to Children: An International Survey (New York:<br />
K. G. Sauer, 1963, 1966, 1978, 1983).<br />
36. Gaetan Benoit, “Eugene Morel and Children’s Libraries in France,”<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 20 (Summer 1985): 267–86; Mary Niles Maack, “L’Heure<br />
Joyeuse, the First Children’s Library in France: Its Contribution to a New<br />
Paradigm for Public Libraries,” Library Quarterly 63 (July 1993): 257–81; Lis<br />
Byberg, “Public Library Development in Norway in the Early Twentieth Century:<br />
American Influences and State Action,” Libraries & Culture 28 (Winter 1993):<br />
22–34; Iulia P. Malent’eva, “Youth Services in Russian Libraries in an Era <strong>of</strong><br />
Social Change,” Libraries & Culture 33 (Winter 1998): 69–75; Lynne (E. F.)<br />
McKechnie, “Patricia Spereman and the Beginning <strong>of</strong> Canadian Public Library<br />
Work with Children,” Libraries & Culture 34 (Spring 1999): 135–50; Consuelo<br />
Figueras, “A Historical Appraisal <strong>of</strong> the Establishment, Development, Growth,<br />
and Impact <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Libraries in Puerto Rico, 1900–1984” (Ph.D. dissertation,<br />
Florida State <strong>University</strong>, 1990).<br />
37. Anne Pellowski, <strong>The</strong> World <strong>of</strong> Children’s Literature (New York: R. R. Bowker<br />
Co., 1968), 391.<br />
38. Cornelia Meigs, Elizabeth Nesbitt, Anne Thaxter Eaton, and Ruth Hill<br />
Viguers, A Critical History <strong>of</strong> Children’s Literature (New York: Macmillan, 1953; rev.<br />
ed. 1969); Pellowski, <strong>The</strong> World <strong>of</strong> Children’s Literature.<br />
39. Robin Gottlieb, Publishing Children’s Books in America, 1919–1976: An<br />
Annotated Bibliography (New York: Children’s Book Council, 1978); Richard<br />
Darling, <strong>The</strong> Rise <strong>of</strong> Children’s Book Reviewing in America, 1865–1881 (New York:<br />
R. R. Bowker, 1968).<br />
40. Barbara Bader, American Picturebooks from Noah’s Ark to the Beast Within (New<br />
York: Macmillan, 1976).<br />
41. Betsy Hearne, “Perennial Picture Books: Seeded by the Oral Tradition,”<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Youth Services in Libraries 12 (Fall 1998): 26–33.<br />
42. Sybille A. Jagusch, ed., Stepping away from Tradition: Children’s Books <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Twenties and Thirties (Washington, D.C.: Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, 1988); Barbara<br />
Bader, “American Picture Books: From Max’s Metaphorical Monsters to Lilly’s<br />
Purple Plastic Purse,” Horn Book 74 (March–April 1998): 141–56; Frances<br />
Lander Spain, ed., Reading without Boundaries: Essays Presented to Anne Carroll Moore<br />
on the Occasion <strong>of</strong> the Fiftieth Anniversary <strong>of</strong> the Inauguration <strong>of</strong> Library Service to<br />
Children at the New York Public Library (New York: New York Public Library, 1956);<br />
Adele M. Fasick, Margaret Johnston, and Ruth Osler, eds., Lands <strong>of</strong> Pleasure:<br />
Essays on Lillian H. Smith and the Development <strong>of</strong> Children’s Libraries (Metuchen, N.J.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1990).<br />
43. Alleen Pace Nilsen and Kenneth L. Donelson, Literature for Today’s Young<br />
Adults, 4th ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 545–79; Michael Cart, From<br />
Romance to Realism: 50 Years <strong>of</strong> Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature (New York:<br />
HarperCollins, 1996); Susan McEnally Jackson, “<strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> the Junior Novel<br />
in the United States, 1870–1980” (Ph.D. dissertation, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North<br />
Carolina, 1986).<br />
44. Terri Payne Butler, “Moving Pictures: Morton Schindel Revisited,” Horn<br />
Book 74 (September–October 1998): 554–67.<br />
45. Christine Jenkins, “Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Jurisdiction and ALA Youth Services<br />
Women: Of Nightingales, Newberies, Realism and the Right Books, 1937–1945,”<br />
Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 813–39.
134 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
46. Irene Smith, A History <strong>of</strong> the Newbery and Caldecott Medals (New York: Viking<br />
Press, 1957).<br />
47. Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books, 1922–1955; with Acceptance Papers,<br />
Biographies and Related Materials (Boston: Horn Book, 1955); Newbery and Caldecott<br />
Medal Books, 1956–1965; with Acceptance Papers, Biographies and Related Materials<br />
(Boston: Horn Book, 1965); Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books, 1966–1975; with<br />
Acceptance Papers, Biographies and Related Materials (Boston: Horn Book, 1975);<br />
Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books, 1976–1985; with Acceptance Papers, Biographies and<br />
Related Materials (Boston: Horn Book, 1986).<br />
48. Lyn Ellen Lacy, Art and Design in Children’s Picture Books: An Analysis <strong>of</strong><br />
Caldecott Award–Winning Illustrations (Chicago: American Library Association,<br />
1986).<br />
49. Sheila Eg<strong>of</strong>f, “Precepts and Pleasures: Changing Emphases in the<br />
Writing and Criticism <strong>of</strong> Children’s Literature,” in Sheila Eg<strong>of</strong>f, G. T. Stubbs,<br />
and L. F. Ashley, eds., Only Connect: Readings on Children’s Literature (Toronto:<br />
Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1969), 419–46; Julia Wood Lord, “<strong>The</strong> Cosmic World <strong>of</strong><br />
Childhood: <strong>The</strong> Ideology <strong>of</strong> the Children’s Librarians, 1900–1965” (Ph.D. dissertation,<br />
Emory <strong>University</strong>, 1969).<br />
50. Mary Ellen Meacham, “<strong>The</strong> Development <strong>of</strong> Children’s Book Reviewing<br />
in Selected Journals from 1924–1984” (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Woman’s<br />
<strong>University</strong>, 1989).<br />
51. Joan Blodgett Peterson Olson, “An Interpretive History <strong>of</strong> the Horn Book<br />
Magazine, 1924–1<strong>973</strong>” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford <strong>University</strong>, 1976); Ann Weeks<br />
Carlson, “Zena Sutherland: Reviewer, Teacher, and Author,” Library Trends 44<br />
(Spring 1996): 776–93.<br />
52. Barbara Bader, “Realms <strong>of</strong> Gold and Granite,” Horn Book 75<br />
(September–October 1999): 524–31; Kathleen Krull, “Revisiting Eleanor,<br />
Marshall, and Roald,” Horn Book 75 (September–October 1999): 564–71; Betsy<br />
Hearne and Christine Jenkins, “Sacred Texts: What Our Foremothers Left Us in<br />
the Way <strong>of</strong> Psalms, Proverbs, Precepts, and Practices,” Horn Book 75<br />
(September–October 1999): 536–58.<br />
53. Rita J. Smith, “Just Who Are <strong>The</strong>se Women? Louise Seaman Bechtel and<br />
Ruth Marie Baldwin,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Youth Services in Libraries 11 (Winter 1998):<br />
161–70; Barbara Bader, “Macmillan Children’s Books, 1919–1995,” Horn Book 71<br />
(September–October 1995): 548–61.<br />
54. Betsy Hearne, “Margaret K. McElderry and the Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Matriarchy<br />
<strong>of</strong> Children’s Books,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 755–75.<br />
55. Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with Margaret K. McElderry—Part 1,”<br />
Horn Book 70 (November–December 1993): 692–704; Leonard Marcus, “An<br />
Interview with Margaret K. McElderry—Part 2,” Horn Book 71 (January–February<br />
1994): 34–45; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with William Morris,” Horn Book 71<br />
(January–February 1995): 37–46; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with Susan<br />
Hirschman, Part 1,” Horn Book 72 (March–April 1996): 34–45; Leonard Marcus,<br />
“An Interview with Susan Hirschman, Part 2,” Horn Book 72 (May–June 1996):<br />
282–94; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with Ethel Heins,” Horn Book 72<br />
(November–December 1996): 694–706; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with<br />
Walter Lorraine,” Horn Book 74 (January–February 1998): 168–72; Barbara Bader,<br />
“William R. Scott, Publisher,” Horn Book 74 (July–August 1998): 459–64; Leonard<br />
Marcus, “An Interview with Dorothy Briley,” Horn Book 74 (November–December<br />
1998): 693–702; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with Phyllis Fogelman,” Horn<br />
Book 75 (March–April 1999): 148–63.
135<br />
56. Leonard Marcus, Dear Genius: <strong>The</strong> Letters <strong>of</strong> Ursula Nordstrom (New York:<br />
HarperCollins, 1998).<br />
57. Leonard Marcus, Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon (Boston:<br />
Beacon Press, 1992).<br />
58. Trudi Abel, “A Man <strong>of</strong> Letters, a Man <strong>of</strong> Business: Edward Stratemeyer<br />
and the Adolescent Reader, 1890–1920” (Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers <strong>University</strong>,<br />
1993); Deidre Johnson, Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer Syndicate (New York:<br />
Twayne Publishers, 1993).<br />
59. Power, Library Work with Children, 72–75.<br />
60. Paul Deane, Mirrors <strong>of</strong> American Culture: Children’s Fiction Series in the<br />
Twentieth Century (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1991); Faye R. Kensinger,<br />
Children <strong>of</strong> the Series & How <strong>The</strong>y Grew: or, A Century <strong>of</strong> Heroines & Heroes, Romantic,<br />
Comic, Moral (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State <strong>University</strong> Popular<br />
Press, 1987).<br />
61. Larry D. Dorrell, Dan B. Curtis, and Kuldip R. Rampal, “Book-Worms<br />
without Books? Students Reading Comic Books in the <strong>School</strong> House,” Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Popular Culture 29 (Fall 1995): 223–34; Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal <strong>of</strong> Approval: <strong>The</strong><br />
History <strong>of</strong> the Comics Code (Jackson: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Mississippi Press, 1998), 1–21.<br />
62. Joseph E. Bryson and Elizabeth W. Detty, Legal Aspects <strong>of</strong> Censorship <strong>of</strong> Public<br />
<strong>School</strong> Library and Instructional Material (Charlotteville, Va.: Michie Co., 1982).<br />
63. Parker, Purifying America.<br />
64. Margaret N. Coughlan, “Guardians <strong>of</strong> the Young . . . ” Top <strong>of</strong> the News 33<br />
(Winter 1977): 137–48; Christine Jenkins, “ ‘Since So Many <strong>of</strong> Today’s Librarians<br />
Are Women’: Women and Intellectual Freedom in U.S. Librarianship,<br />
1890–1990,” in Suzanne Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past:<br />
Writing the Women In (New York: Ablex, 1996), 221–49; Louise S. Robbins,<br />
Censorship and the American Library: <strong>The</strong> American Library Association’s Response to<br />
Threats to Intellectual Freedom, 1939–1969 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,<br />
1966), 136–37.<br />
65. Christine Jenkins, “<strong>The</strong> Strength <strong>of</strong> the Inconspicuous: Youth Services<br />
Librarians, the American Library Association, and Intellectual Freedom for the<br />
Young, 1939–1955” (Ph.D. dissertation, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin–Madison, 1995).<br />
66. Ralph D. Wagner, “Not Recommended: A List for Catholic High <strong>School</strong><br />
Libraries, 1942,” Libraries & Culture 30 (Spring 1995): 170–98.<br />
67. Nancy Larrick, “<strong>The</strong> All-White World <strong>of</strong> Children’s Books,” Saturday<br />
Review 11 (September 1965): 63–65, 84–85.<br />
68. Joseph A. Alvarez, “<strong>The</strong> Lonesome Boy <strong>The</strong>me as Emblem for Arna<br />
Bontemps’s Children’s Literature,” African American Review 32 (Spring 1998):<br />
23–31; Barbara Bader, “History Changes Color: A Story in Three Parts,” Horn<br />
Book 73 (January–February 1997): 91–98.<br />
69. Beryl Banfield, “Commitment to Change: <strong>The</strong> Council on Interracial<br />
Books for Children and the World <strong>of</strong> Children’s Books,” African American Review 32<br />
(Spring 1998): 17–22.<br />
70. Violet J. Harris, “African American Children’s Literature: <strong>The</strong> First One<br />
Hundred Years,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Negro Education 59 (1990): 540–65; Rudine Sims,<br />
Shadow & Substance: Afro-American Experience in Contemporary Children’s Fiction<br />
(Urbana, Ill.: National Council <strong>of</strong> Teachers <strong>of</strong> English, 1982); Kay E.<br />
Vandergrift, “Feminist Perspective on Multicultural Children’s Literature in the<br />
Middle Years <strong>of</strong> the Twentieth Century,” Library Trends 41 (Winter 1993):<br />
354–77; Dorothy M. Broderick, Image <strong>of</strong> the Black in Children’s Fiction (New York:<br />
R. R. Bowker, 1<strong>973</strong>).
136 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
71. Nancy Tolson, “Making Books Available: <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> Early Libraries,<br />
Librarians and Booksellers in the Promotion <strong>of</strong> African-American Children’s<br />
Literature,” African American Review 32 (Spring 1998): 9–16; Cheryl Knott<br />
Malone, “Louisville Free Public Library’s Racially Segregated Branches,<br />
1905–1935,” Register <strong>of</strong> the Kentucky Historical Society 93 (Spring 1995): 159–79.<br />
72. George Sylvan Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries: <strong>The</strong>ir History and Impact on<br />
American Library Development (Chicago: American Library Association, 1969).<br />
73. Van Slyck, Free to All, 160–216.<br />
74. Fannette H. Thomas, “Early Appearances <strong>of</strong> Children’s Reading Rooms<br />
in Public Libraries,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Youth Services in Libraries 4 (Fall 1990): 81–85.<br />
75. Gerald S. Greenberg, “ ‘On the Ro<strong>of</strong> <strong>of</strong> the Library Nearest You’:<br />
America’s Open-Air Libraries, 1905–1944,” Library History Round Table, ALA<br />
Annual Conference, New Orleans, 28 June 1999.<br />
76. George S. Bobinski, Jesse H. Shera, and Bohdan S. Wynar, eds., Dictionary<br />
<strong>of</strong> American Library Biography (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1978); Wayne<br />
A. Wiegand, Supplement to the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography (Englewood,<br />
Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1990).<br />
77. Edward A. Goedeken, “ ‘<strong>The</strong> Rainbow Survivors <strong>of</strong> Some Vanished Grey<br />
Moment <strong>of</strong> Reality’: A Prosopographical Study <strong>of</strong> the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library<br />
Biography and Its Supplement,” Libraries & Culture 30 (Spring 1995): 153–69.<br />
78. Garrison, Apostles <strong>of</strong> Culture; Dee Garrison, “<strong>The</strong> Tender Technicians: <strong>The</strong><br />
Feminization <strong>of</strong> American Public Librarianship, 1876–1905,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Social<br />
History 10 (1975): 99–105.<br />
79. Donald G. Davis, Jr., and John Mark Tucker, American Library History: A<br />
Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1989),<br />
3343–44.<br />
80. Julie Cumins, “ ‘Let Her Sound Her Trumpet’: NYPL Children’s<br />
Librarians and <strong>The</strong>ir Impact on the World <strong>of</strong> Publishing,” Biblion 1 (Spring<br />
1993): 83–114; Julie Cumins, “Moore Than Meets the Eye,” <strong>School</strong> Library Journal<br />
45 (July 1999): 26–29; Anne Lundin, “Anne Carroll Moore [1871–1961]: ‘I Have<br />
Spun out a Long Thread,’” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library<br />
Past, 187–204; Barbara Bader, “Only the Best: <strong>The</strong> Hits and Misses <strong>of</strong> Anne<br />
Carroll Moore,” Horn Book 73 (September–October 1997): 520–28; Margaret K.<br />
McElderry, “Remarkable Women: Anne Carroll Moore and Company,” <strong>School</strong><br />
Library Journal 38 (March 1992): 156–62.<br />
81. Anne M. Poor, “Anne Carroll Moore: <strong>The</strong> Velvet Glove <strong>of</strong> Librarianship”<br />
(master’s thesis, Southern Connecticut State College, 1966); Frances Clarke Sayers,<br />
Anne Carroll Moore (New York: Athenaeum, 1972); Jagusch, First among Equals.<br />
82. Caroline M. Hewins and Jennie D. Lindquist, Caroline Hewins: Her Book<br />
(Boston: Horn Book, 1954); Caroline M. Hewins, Recommended Books for Boys and<br />
Girls (Chicago: American Library Association, 1882).<br />
83. E. D. Sword, “Mary Gould Davis: Her Contribution to Storytelling” (master’s<br />
thesis, Southern Connecticut State College, 1972).<br />
84. Eleanor Cameron, “<strong>The</strong> Inimitable Frances,” Horn Book 67 (March–April<br />
1991): 180–85; Ethel L. Heins, “Frances Clarke Sayers: A Legacy,” Horn Book 66<br />
(January–February 1990): 99–109.<br />
85. Augusta Baker, “My Years As a Children’s Librarian,” in E. J. Josey, ed.,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1970), 117–23;<br />
Maxine Modell Merriman, “Augusta Baker: Exponent <strong>of</strong> the Oral Art <strong>of</strong><br />
Storytelling: Utilizing Video as a Medium” (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Woman’s<br />
<strong>University</strong>, 1983); Henrietta M. Smith, “Augusta Baker,” Horn Book 70<br />
(March–April 1995): 292–96.
137<br />
86. Christine Pawley, “Advocate for Access: Lutie Stearns and the Wisconsin<br />
Free Library Commission,” Libraries & Culture (forthcoming).<br />
87. Margaret B. Becker, “Effie Louise Power: Pioneer in the Development <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Services for Children” (master’s thesis, Western Reserve <strong>University</strong>,<br />
1950).<br />
88. Nancy Becker Johnson, “Sarah C. N. Bogle: Librarian at Large” (Ph.D.<br />
dissertation, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Michigan, 1991).<br />
89. Dorothy J. Anderson, “Mildred L. Batchelder: A Study in Leadership”<br />
(Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Woman’s <strong>University</strong>, 1977).<br />
90. Betsy Hearne, “Margaret K. McElderry and the Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Matriarchy<br />
<strong>of</strong> Children’s Books,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 755–75.<br />
91. Janice Fisher Giles, “Siddie Joe Johnson and the Dallas Public Library: A<br />
History <strong>of</strong> Service to Children,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Youth Services in Libraries 6 (Fall 1992):<br />
67–71.<br />
92. Julio L. Hernandez-Delgado, “Pura Teresa Belpre, Storyteller and<br />
Pioneer Puerto Rican Librarian,” Library Quarterly 62 (1992): 425–40.<br />
93. Karen Patricia Smith, “Initiative and Influence: <strong>The</strong> Contributions <strong>of</strong><br />
Virginia Haviland to Children’s Services, Research, and Writing,” Library Trends<br />
44 (Spring 1996): 736–54.<br />
94. Edith Guerrier, An Independent Woman: <strong>The</strong> Autobiography <strong>of</strong> Edith Guerrier,<br />
ed. and introduction by Molly Matson (Amherst: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Massachusetts<br />
Press, 1992).<br />
95. Budd L. Gambee, “A Firm Persuasion: <strong>The</strong> Career <strong>of</strong> Mary Peacock<br />
Douglas,” North Carolina Libraries 43 (1985): 72–86; Mary Virginia Gaver, A Braided<br />
Cord: Memoirs <strong>of</strong> a <strong>School</strong> Librarian (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988); Billie<br />
Grace U. Herring, “Alice S. Harrison: Pioneer <strong>School</strong> Librarian, 1882–1967”<br />
(master’s thesis, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas, 1968).<br />
96. Frances Clarke Sayers, “Anne Eaton <strong>of</strong> Lincoln <strong>School</strong>,” Horn Book 23<br />
(1947): 331–39.<br />
97. Joan Atkinson, “Pioneers in Public Library Service to Young Adults,” Top<br />
<strong>of</strong> the News 43 (1986): 27–44; Patty Campbell, Two Pioneers <strong>of</strong> Young Adult Library<br />
Services (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1998); Jane Anne Hannigan, “A Feminist<br />
Analysis <strong>of</strong> the Voices for Advocacy in Young Adult Services,” Library Trends 44<br />
(Spring 1996): 851–74.<br />
98. Effie L. Power, “Children’s Librarians Section <strong>of</strong> the ALA,” ALA Bulletin<br />
19 (March 1925): 102.<br />
99. Mildred Batchelder, “<strong>The</strong> Leadership Network in Children’s<br />
Librarianship: A Remembrance,” in Jagusch, ed., Stepping away from Tradition,<br />
71–120; Margaret Bush, “New England Book Women: <strong>The</strong>ir Increasing<br />
Influence,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 719–35.<br />
100. Anne Lundin, “<strong>The</strong> Pedagogical Context <strong>of</strong> Women in Children’s Services<br />
and Literature Scholarship,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 840–50.<br />
101. Fannette H. Thomas, “Home Libraries: A Look in the Past <strong>of</strong> Children’s<br />
Services,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Youth Services in Libraries 6 (Fall 1992): 41–52; Joane E. Passet,<br />
“Reaching the Rural Reader: Traveling Libraries in America, 1892–1920,”<br />
Libraries & Culture 26 (Winter 1991): 100–118; Christine Pawley, “Advocate for<br />
Access: Lutie Stearns and the Traveling Libraries <strong>of</strong> the Wisconsin Free Library<br />
Commission, 1895–1914,” Libraries & Culture (forthcoming).<br />
102. Passet, Cultural Crusaders, 79–101; Pawley, “Advocate for Access”;<br />
Christine Jenkins, “ALA Youth Services Librarians and the CARE-UNESCO<br />
Children’s Book Fund: Selecting the ‘Right Book’ for Children in Cold War
138 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
America, 1950–1958,” Libraries & Culture 3 (Winter 1996): 209–34; Jella Lepman,<br />
A Bridge <strong>of</strong> Children’s Books, trans. Edith McCormick (Leicester, U.K.:<br />
Brockhampton Press; Chicago: American Library Association, 1969).<br />
103. Pond, “A.A.S.L.”; Fargo, <strong>The</strong> Library in the <strong>School</strong>.<br />
104. Jill L. Locke, “Summer Reading Activities—Way Back When,” Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Youth Services in Libraries 6 (Fall 1992): 72–78; Carol A. Doll, “Audiovisual<br />
Materials and Programming for Children: A Long Tradition,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Youth<br />
Services in Libraries 6 (Fall 1992): 53–62.<br />
105. Lillian K. Orsini, “Reference Service to Children—Past, Present, and<br />
Future,” in Melvin J. Voigt, ed., Advances in Librarianship, vol. 1 (New York:<br />
Academic Press, 1970), 159–70.<br />
106. Paula Quint, “A Celebration <strong>of</strong> Reading: 75 Years <strong>of</strong> National Children’s<br />
Book Week,” <strong>School</strong> Library Journal 40 (November 1994): 22–25; Leonard S.<br />
Marcus, ed., 75 Years <strong>of</strong> Children’s Book Week Posters: Celebrating Great Illustrators <strong>of</strong><br />
American Children’s Books (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1994); Lynn S. Cockett, “Writing<br />
for Parents about Children’s Literature in Mass Market Publications,<br />
1900–1950,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 794–812.<br />
107. Anne Pellowski, <strong>The</strong> World <strong>of</strong> Storytelling (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1990);<br />
Richard Gerald Alvey, “<strong>The</strong> Historical Development <strong>of</strong> Organized Story-Telling<br />
to Children in the United States” (Ph.D. dissertation, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Pennsylvania,<br />
1974); Ellin Green, Storytelling: Art and Technique (New Providence, N.J.: R. R.<br />
Bowker, 1996).<br />
108. Ruth A. Hill, “Story-Telling around the World: A Symposium: Part I:<br />
United States,” Library Journal 65 (April 1940): 285–89; Blanche Weber, “Story-<br />
Telling around the World: A Symposium: Part II: Europe,” Library Journal 65 (May<br />
1940): 379–81; Frances W. Trotter, “Story-Telling around the World: A<br />
Symposium: Part III: Canada,” Library Journal 65 (June 1940): 484–87; Ann M.<br />
Faender and Eloise W. Winstedt, “Story-Telling around the World: A Symposium:<br />
Hawaii,” Library Journal 65 (July 1940): 574–77; Hildamar Escalante, “Story-<br />
Telling around the World: A Symposium: South America,” Library Journal 65<br />
(August 1940): 624–27.<br />
109. Sword, “Mary Gould Davis”; Merriman, “Augusta Baker”; Baker, “My<br />
Years as a Children’s Librarian”; Smith, “Augusta Baker.”<br />
110. Janice DelNegro, “A Change <strong>of</strong> Storyteller: Folktales in Children and Books<br />
from Arbuthnot to Sutherland,” Library Trends 47 (Winter 1999): 579–601.<br />
111. Braverman, Youth, Society, and the Public Library.<br />
112. Miriam Braverman, “Youth, Unemployment, and Work with Young<br />
Adults,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 16 (1981): 353–64.<br />
113. Kathleen W. Craver, “Social Trends in American Young Adult Library<br />
Service, 1960–1969,” Libraries & Culture 23 (Winter 1988): 18–28.<br />
114. Catherine Reed Murray Burr, “Missouri Association <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Librarians,<br />
1950–1975” (Ph.D. dissertation, St. Louis <strong>University</strong>, 1981).<br />
115. Elizabeth Burr, “Wisconsin Public Library Service to Children: Its History<br />
and Development from 1872 to 1984,” Wisconsin Library Bulletin 79 (Winter 1984):<br />
138–46.<br />
116. Anderson, “Mildred L. Batchelder.”<br />
117. Marilyn H. Karrenbrock, “A History and Analysis <strong>of</strong> Top <strong>of</strong> the News,”<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Youth Services in Libraries 1 (1987): 29–43.<br />
118. Pond, “A.A.S.L.”; Koch, “A History.”<br />
119. Jenkins, “Strength <strong>of</strong> the Inconspicuous.”<br />
120. Gordon Burke and Gerald R. Shields, Children’s Library Service: <strong>School</strong> or<br />
Public? (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974).
139<br />
121. Budd L. Gambee, “ ‘An Alien Body’: Relationships between the Public<br />
Library and the Public <strong>School</strong>s, 1876–1920,” in Ball State <strong>University</strong> Library Science<br />
Lectures, First Series (Muncie, Ind.: Department <strong>of</strong> Library Science, Ball State<br />
<strong>University</strong>, 1<strong>973</strong>), 1–23.<br />
122. Anderson, “Mildred L. Batchelder”; Pond, “A.A.S.L.”; Koch, “A History”;<br />
Jenkins, “Strength <strong>of</strong> the Inconspicuous.”<br />
123. Virginia H. Mathews, “Kids Couldn’t Wait <strong>The</strong>n Either, but Sometimes<br />
<strong>The</strong>y Had To,” American Libraries 28 (June–July 1997): 76–80; Eileen Cooke, “<strong>The</strong><br />
Political Viability <strong>of</strong> Youth Services: A Bit <strong>of</strong> Legislative History,” Bottom Line 7<br />
(Winter–Spring 1994): 21–25.<br />
124. Barbara Elizabeth Brand, “<strong>The</strong> Influence <strong>of</strong> Higher Education on Sex-<br />
Typing in Three Pr<strong>of</strong>essions, 1870–1920: Librarianship, Social Work, and Public<br />
Health” (Ph.D. dissertation, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Washington, 1978).<br />
125. Lepman, A Bridge <strong>of</strong> Children’s Books; Robert Sink, “Democratic Images:<br />
Children in the Library: Lewis Hine’s Photographs for the Child Welfare Exhibit<br />
<strong>of</strong> 1911,” Biblion 1 (Spring 1993): 12–18.<br />
126. Christine Pawley, “ ‘What to Read and How to Read’: <strong>The</strong> Social<br />
Infrastructure <strong>of</strong> Children’s Reading, Osage, Iowa, 1870–1900,” Library Quarterly<br />
68 (July 1998): 276–97; Christine Pawley, “Better than Billiards: Reading and the<br />
Public Library in Osage, Iowa, 1890–1895,” in James P. Danky and Wayne A.<br />
Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse America: Essays on the Historical Sociology <strong>of</strong><br />
Print (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1998).<br />
127. Judith Mara Gutman, “Democratic Images: Lewis Hine’s Library<br />
Photographs: A Critic’s View,” Biblion 1 (Spring 1993): 25–38.<br />
128. Van Slyck, Free to All, 201–16.<br />
129. Susan Allen Toth and John Coughlan, eds., Reading Rooms: America’s<br />
Foremost Writers Celebrate Our Public Libraries with Stories, Memoirs, Essays, and Poems<br />
(New York: Doubleday, 1991).<br />
130. Sidney Ditzion, Arsenals <strong>of</strong> a Democratic Culture: A Social History <strong>of</strong> the<br />
American Public Library Movement in New England and the Middle States from 1850 to<br />
1900 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1947), 96.<br />
131. Gerda Lerner, <strong>The</strong> Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (New<br />
York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1979).<br />
132. Suzanne Hildenbrand, “Some <strong>The</strong>oretical Considerations on Women in<br />
Library History,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 18 (1983): 382–90.<br />
133. Elizabeth R. Cardman, “Interior Landscapes: Personal Perspectives on<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Lives: <strong>The</strong> First Generation <strong>of</strong> Librarians at the Illinois Library<br />
<strong>School</strong>, 1893–1907” (Ph.D. dissertation, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-<br />
Champaign, 1996).<br />
134. Studies in this area include Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and<br />
Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press,<br />
1985); Lee Chambers-Schiller, Liberty a Better Husband: Single Women in America:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Generations <strong>of</strong> 1780–1840 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale <strong>University</strong> Press, 1984);<br />
Joanne J. Meyerowitz, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago (Chicago:<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1988).<br />
135. <strong>The</strong>re are several studies that focus on the women in these femaleintensive<br />
child welfare pr<strong>of</strong>essions. See Robyn Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion<br />
in American Reform, 1890–1935 (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1991); Linda<br />
Gordon, Putting Children First: Women, Maternalism, and Welfare in the Twentieth<br />
Century (Madison: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin–Madison, Institute for Research on<br />
Poverty, 1993); Molly Ladd-Taylor, Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State,<br />
1890–1930 (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1994).
140 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship<br />
136. One example <strong>of</strong> this scholarship is Marjorie Murphy, Blac<strong>kb</strong>oard Unions:<br />
<strong>The</strong> AFT and the NEA, 1900–1980 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell <strong>University</strong> Press, 1990).<br />
137. <strong>The</strong>re are a number <strong>of</strong> studies that focus on the child welfare agencies<br />
and work that grew out <strong>of</strong> the Progressive Era. <strong>The</strong>y include Walter I. Trattner,<br />
Crusade for the Children: A History <strong>of</strong> the National Child Labor Committee and Child Labor<br />
in America (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970); Dominick Carvallo, Muscles and<br />
Morals: Organized Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880–1920 (Philadelphia: <strong>University</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong> Pennsylvania Press, 1981); Murray and Adeline Levine, Helping Children: A<br />
Social History (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1992); Duncan Lindsey, <strong>The</strong><br />
Welfare <strong>of</strong> Children (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1994); Eve P. Smith and<br />
Lisa A. Merkel-Holguin, eds., History <strong>of</strong> Child Welfare (New Brunswick, N.J.:<br />
Transaction Publishers, 1996); Kriste Lindenmeyer, A Right to Childhood: <strong>The</strong> U.S.<br />
Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912–1946 (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press,<br />
1997); Ruth Hutchinson Crocker, Social Work and Social Order: <strong>The</strong> Settlement<br />
Movement in Two Industrial Cities, 1889–1930 (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press,<br />
1992).<br />
138. Studies <strong>of</strong> kindergarten teachers and the kindergarten movement include<br />
Elizabeth Dale Ross, <strong>The</strong> Kindergarten Crusade: <strong>The</strong> Establishment <strong>of</strong> Preschool<br />
Education in the United States (Athens: Ohio <strong>University</strong> Press, 1976); Michael<br />
Steven Shapiro, Child’s Garden: <strong>The</strong> Kindergarten Movement from Froebel to Dewey<br />
(<strong>University</strong> Park: Pennsylvania State <strong>University</strong> Press, 1983); and Norman<br />
Brosterman, Inventing Kindergarten (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1997).<br />
139. Examples <strong>of</strong> these studies include Barbara Harris, Beyond Her Sphere:<br />
Women and the Pr<strong>of</strong>essions in American History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,<br />
1978); Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History <strong>of</strong> Wage-Earning Women in the<br />
United States (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1982); Joyce Antler, <strong>The</strong><br />
Educated Woman and Pr<strong>of</strong>essionalization: <strong>The</strong> Struggle for a New Feminine Identity,<br />
1890–1920 (New York: Garland, 1987).<br />
140. A number <strong>of</strong> studies on the history <strong>of</strong> childhood, children, and adolescents<br />
have been written. Among them are Grace Palladino, Teenagers: An American<br />
History (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Harvey J. Graff, ed., Conflicting Paths:<br />
Growing Up in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1995);<br />
Elliott West and Paula Petrik, eds., Small Worlds: Children and Adolescents in America,<br />
1850–1950 (Lawrence: <strong>University</strong> Press <strong>of</strong> Kansas, 1992); N. Ray Hiner and<br />
Joseph M. Hawes, eds., Growing Up in America: Children in Historical Perspective<br />
(Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1985); David Nasaw, Children <strong>of</strong> the City: At<br />
Work and Play (Garden City: Doubleday, 1985).<br />
141. Jesse H. Shera, Foundations <strong>of</strong> the Public Library: <strong>The</strong> Origins <strong>of</strong> the Public<br />
Library Movement in New England, 1629–1855 (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago<br />
Press, 1949), 160.<br />
142. Ibid., 64–65.<br />
143. Amelia H. Munson, An Ample Field (Chicago: American Library<br />
Association, 1950), 11.<br />
144. Ibid., 116.
<strong>The</strong> Failure or Future <strong>of</strong> American Archival<br />
History: A Somewhat Unorthodox View<br />
Richard J. Cox<br />
<strong>The</strong> quality <strong>of</strong> research on American archival history has been uneven<br />
and the quantity not very impressive. This essay reviews some <strong>of</strong> the highlights<br />
<strong>of</strong> American archival history research, especially the growing interest<br />
in cultural and public history that has produced some studies <strong>of</strong><br />
interest to scholars curious about the history <strong>of</strong> archives. <strong>The</strong> essay also<br />
focuses more on why such research still seems so far removed from the<br />
interests <strong>of</strong> most archivists. <strong>The</strong> essay will consider some hopeful signs,<br />
such as the re-emergence <strong>of</strong> records and record-keeping systems as a core<br />
area for study, for a renewed emphasis on American archival history. While<br />
much needs to be done, I am optimistic that the golden age <strong>of</strong> historical<br />
research on American archives lies ahead.<br />
Introduction<br />
Today, many lament the loss <strong>of</strong> historical perspectives in library and<br />
information science education and practice. Donald G. Davis, Jr., asks the<br />
following: “Where do the values that have informed us for millennia have<br />
a place—or do they at all?” 1 It is ironic that American archivists face a<br />
similar challenge, given the long-term tradition <strong>of</strong> history in this field<br />
and the many pr<strong>of</strong>essionals who have such educational backgrounds. 2<br />
But they do, perhaps as a result <strong>of</strong> other priorities, an educational infrastructure<br />
only beginning to focus individuals on archives and records as<br />
important topics for study, and a weak self-image that sustains minimal<br />
desire for publishing historical scholarship.<br />
At first glance, the state <strong>of</strong> American archival history appears not to be<br />
a significant problem. <strong>The</strong>re continues to be published a fair number <strong>of</strong><br />
histories <strong>of</strong> archival programs and biographies within mainstream pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
journals. This suggests that all is well. However, this idea <strong>of</strong><br />
what constitutes archival history is too narrow. Besides, there continues<br />
to be a lack <strong>of</strong> broader, more substantive histories <strong>of</strong> record keeping,<br />
archival development, and archival theory and practice, indicating that<br />
the historical dimension in the pr<strong>of</strong>essional education and work <strong>of</strong><br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
142 L&C/American Archival History<br />
archivists is somewhat lacking. <strong>The</strong>re are few in the field who seem able<br />
to connect such aspects into a more holistic view <strong>of</strong> archival history.<br />
My 1983 essay was the first effort to summarize and describe the varied<br />
and sometimes rich literature on the history <strong>of</strong> American archives. In<br />
that essay I noted that there still remained a need for extensive state histories,<br />
institutional histories, regional histories, and a single-volume synthesis.<br />
3 All remain needs fifteen years later. I discovered when I reviewed<br />
the literature in the early 1990s that a decade after my initial survey very<br />
little new research had been done <strong>of</strong> any quality and certainly not any<br />
that created much <strong>of</strong> a blip on the radar screen <strong>of</strong> historical research. 4<br />
<strong>The</strong> best histories <strong>of</strong> our national archives are twenty to thirty years old, 5<br />
and the best efforts to write an overview analysis <strong>of</strong> historical societies<br />
are nearly forty years old. 6 <strong>The</strong>re also remains only one comprehensive<br />
history <strong>of</strong> archival development in a single state, and it is more than<br />
three decades old. 7 While there have been important new uses <strong>of</strong> primary<br />
sources for smaller studies, there have been few major monographs<br />
on archival history topics completed in the last twenty years. 8<br />
I should note that the genesis <strong>of</strong> my own research and writing developed<br />
as a result <strong>of</strong> my trying to understand the evolution <strong>of</strong> archives<br />
and records programs I worked in, leading to research conducted for a<br />
master’s thesis on the development <strong>of</strong> early Maryland archives. I<br />
worked on this type <strong>of</strong> research and writing with the logical assumption<br />
that a historical perspective would help me to understand in a better<br />
fashion what I was working on and the reason why things were as they<br />
were in the organizations and pr<strong>of</strong>ession in which I labored. I also drew<br />
on my own experience to write a rationale for the value <strong>of</strong> archival history.<br />
9 While this essay has always been favorably commented on and<br />
cited, it has not—it seems to me—led to a great upsurge <strong>of</strong> interest<br />
among the archival community for writing on archival history. In hindsight,<br />
it may be that such a practical emphasis led to a very internally<br />
focused inquiry that works against broader and more engaging research<br />
and scholarship. 10<br />
Promising Developments for Historical Research within Archivy<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are some promising signs within the American archival discipline<br />
regarding research on archival history. <strong>The</strong> expansion <strong>of</strong> graduate<br />
education has led to a stronger curriculum with a more serious focus on<br />
research and an attempt to attract students with an interest in archives<br />
to doctoral programs. As <strong>of</strong> yet, there have been few contributions to<br />
archival history that have had a major impact on the field or on others<br />
working in related realms. With what has been done, however, we can see<br />
a more sophisticated reliance on and interpretation <strong>of</strong> sources. 11
Moreover, some new developments, such as the creation <strong>of</strong> new bibliographic<br />
standards, have led to analyses that provide a broader (if still<br />
applied) historical background <strong>of</strong> theory and practices. 12<br />
<strong>The</strong>re has been a peripheral connection <strong>of</strong> education to an interest in<br />
history. With the emergence <strong>of</strong> a North American interest in the theoretical<br />
approach <strong>of</strong> diplomatics as a means for understanding records<br />
and record-keeping systems, there has been a revisiting <strong>of</strong> older ideas <strong>of</strong><br />
archival science. 13 This has led to a re-articulation <strong>of</strong> archival history.<br />
Although not directly connected to American archival history, Richard<br />
Brown’s essay on a medieval record keeper shows the way for future<br />
work. Brown argues that archivists must not superimpose modern concepts<br />
<strong>of</strong> records on earlier concerns to manage records, especially as this<br />
has been seen in the rebirth <strong>of</strong> diplomatics as the crux <strong>of</strong> an archival science.<br />
Rather, archivists must be willing to understand the historical<br />
development <strong>of</strong> records management for what it tells us about records,<br />
not for what it suggests about an archivist’s or records manager’s current<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional image. 14<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are other promising trends in research about archival history.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re continues to be a steady, if unspectacular, number <strong>of</strong> articles published<br />
on this topic in the primary North American journals in the field.<br />
Since 1990 every other <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> Archivaria and one in three <strong>issue</strong>s <strong>of</strong> the<br />
American Archivist have included an essay on archival history. However, this<br />
does not bode well for understanding American archival history, since<br />
many <strong>of</strong> these essays focus on Europe. 15 More important, however, has<br />
been the trend toward essays reliant on archival sources and those that<br />
establish parameters for a broader understanding <strong>of</strong> records and<br />
archives. 16 Members <strong>of</strong> the American archival pr<strong>of</strong>ession are old enough<br />
now to write and publish memoirs, most notably Robert Warner’s account<br />
<strong>of</strong> his effort to lead the U.S. National Archives back to an independent<br />
agency status. Memoirs have notorious problems in terms <strong>of</strong> their veracity<br />
and utility, but Warner’s story is a compelling addition to the rich and<br />
troubled history <strong>of</strong> this institution—an institution that has been intertwined<br />
with the historical evolution <strong>of</strong> the American archival pr<strong>of</strong>ession. 17<br />
Even with these encouraging aspects, however, it is readily obvious that<br />
American archival history is a weak link in the pr<strong>of</strong>essional chain.<br />
Glimpses from Outside<br />
143<br />
What is not a weak link, however, is the growing interest by those outside<br />
the archival and records pr<strong>of</strong>ession in the historical evolution <strong>of</strong><br />
writing, records, record keeping, archives, and historical sources. This<br />
interest is emerging in studies <strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> literacy, public memory,<br />
the culture wars, and the computer’s societal impact.
144 L&C/American Archival History<br />
<strong>The</strong> historical study <strong>of</strong> literacy has become a prime source <strong>of</strong> understanding<br />
how record-keeping systems have emerged. Archivists first<br />
became aware <strong>of</strong> this area <strong>of</strong> scholarship in 1979 when M. T. Clanchy<br />
published his work on the origins <strong>of</strong> records systems in medieval<br />
England, a far-reaching and pioneering study that bridged the gap<br />
between orality and writing and foresaw what was occurring in contemporary<br />
society with computers. 18 While much <strong>of</strong> this scholarship may<br />
seem irrelevant to the American archivist because it concerns either<br />
ancient or medieval notions <strong>of</strong> literacy and writing, the scholarship does<br />
reaffirm more recent notions <strong>of</strong> records as transactions and challenges<br />
many <strong>of</strong> the assumptions made about the origins <strong>of</strong> archives. At the least,<br />
scholarship in this area has led to some major re-assessments about writing<br />
with more detail about how records represent writing systems. 19<br />
Rosalind Thomas’s work on Greece and Rome, for example, directly confronts<br />
long-accepted notions <strong>of</strong> centralized government archives. 20 <strong>The</strong><br />
re-creation <strong>of</strong> the medieval notion <strong>of</strong> record keeping, because <strong>of</strong> the<br />
renewed interest in diplomatics as a core component <strong>of</strong> archival science,<br />
is certainly challenged in studies by individuals such as Patrick Geary,<br />
who demonstrate how unsystematic these early record keepers seemed to<br />
be. 21 More directly relevant are the works by David Cressy on English literacy<br />
in the era <strong>of</strong> American colonization. Cressy provides an interesting<br />
perspective on document formation, the uses <strong>of</strong> communication, and the<br />
power <strong>of</strong> records and information in Tudor, Elizabethan, and Stuart<br />
England—all laying the groundwork for a fuller understanding <strong>of</strong> early<br />
American record keeping. 22<br />
<strong>The</strong> studies <strong>of</strong> historical literacy have also challenged stereotypical<br />
notions <strong>of</strong> the evolution <strong>of</strong> writing and records. In an important set <strong>of</strong><br />
essays on alternative literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes, a portrait<br />
<strong>of</strong> nontextual writing and record keeping describes how, “in this particular<br />
Amerindian writing tradition, a pictorial system is better suited to an<br />
environment where a multitude <strong>of</strong> <strong>of</strong>ten unrelated languages is spoken,<br />
allowing communication across language boundaries. By nature, alphabetic<br />
writing systems lack this flexibility.” 23 Such insights have great<br />
potential for helping us to re-interpret the development <strong>of</strong> records and<br />
archives, discerning that it is not merely the textual information that<br />
makes them valuable but their role as evidence and symbol.<br />
<strong>The</strong> larger context for the development <strong>of</strong> archives may be the idea <strong>of</strong><br />
public memory, a strong new focus for studying the meaning <strong>of</strong> the past<br />
that is enriched by interdisciplinary research. 24 Archives—both the individual<br />
records/collections and the institutional repositories—are clearly<br />
a symbolic marker on the landscape. Archives mark the past and are<br />
formed by the past. Elsewhere I have written about how scholarship on<br />
public memory has managed to avoid specific or in-depth discussion <strong>of</strong>
145<br />
archives and historical records. 25 But the scholarship has become so vast<br />
and far-reaching that it is hard not to see it as providing a more substantial<br />
framework for understanding at least the cultural significance<br />
(there are other significant noncultural aspects as well) <strong>of</strong> the origins<br />
and subsequent development <strong>of</strong> archives.<br />
Since the end <strong>of</strong> the Second World War many have written about how<br />
other nations are struggling to remember aspects <strong>of</strong> the horrific acts <strong>of</strong><br />
their forebears. Some <strong>of</strong> these works have discussed the manner in which<br />
records are being or have been used or neglected for such purposes. 26<br />
While other wars have spurred on the collecting and preservation <strong>of</strong><br />
records, the aftermath <strong>of</strong> the Second World War has led to a contested<br />
context for the meaning <strong>of</strong> records. 27 In fact, studies about remembering<br />
painful past events have much to inform archivists about the origins and<br />
nature <strong>of</strong> their pr<strong>of</strong>ession and its institutions. 28 Some <strong>of</strong> this has led to<br />
considerable debate about the meaning and value <strong>of</strong> archives, from the<br />
Civil War to the end <strong>of</strong> the Second World War. 29 Ironically, this contested<br />
past, as in the interpretation and memory <strong>of</strong> the Second World War, has<br />
also been tied to developments that suggest the importance <strong>of</strong> records in<br />
general and archives in particular. This has been most evident in the controversy<br />
surrounding the role <strong>of</strong> Swiss banks in financing Adolf Hitler<br />
and subsequent generations’ efforts to lay claims to assets left by and<br />
stolen from Holocaust victims. 30 <strong>The</strong> result has been powerful social<br />
pressure to move archives from dusty bins visited by scholars to the front<br />
pages <strong>of</strong> newspapers and on the table before public policymakers. This<br />
suggests a different kind <strong>of</strong> archival history—at least the need for such a<br />
history. If we can find studies on historic preservation that enable certain<br />
societal elements to use it to fulfill particular mandates (such as “to<br />
prompt Americans—newcomer and native alike—to accept their aesthetics,<br />
work harder, live more humbly, and appreciate Yankee traditions”),<br />
31 we also need studies that show the factors leading to the<br />
origins and ongoing development <strong>of</strong> archives and historical records<br />
repositories.<br />
Yet the association <strong>of</strong> public memory and archives is far more complex<br />
than what I have just stated. <strong>The</strong>re has been an uneven reception about<br />
the importance <strong>of</strong> archives in public memory. One study about how<br />
Watergate has been perceived includes no discussion <strong>of</strong> the Presidential<br />
Records Act or <strong>of</strong> the legal wrangles and hassles over the ownership <strong>of</strong><br />
the Nixon White House tape recordings, 32 despite the public interest in<br />
such secret record keeping. 33 Another study argues how the personal<br />
accounts by journalists have become the de facto societal archives for<br />
remembering and interpreting the assassination <strong>of</strong> John F. Kennedy. 34<br />
What has been lost in this is an appreciation that there is a need to study<br />
the formation <strong>of</strong> presidential records, if not the memorializing event that
146 L&C/American Archival History<br />
surrounds the establishment <strong>of</strong> presidential libraries; both topics are<br />
worthy <strong>of</strong> focus by archival historians, and neither has been well<br />
treated. 35<br />
It may be that not only the scholarship about public memory but the<br />
debate about its use in multiculturalism, textbook writing, and history<br />
standards are important for a new context for archival history. In these<br />
discussions and diatribes (and there are both, <strong>of</strong>ten side by side) we see<br />
a nearly simultaneous rejection and elevation <strong>of</strong> the value <strong>of</strong> historical<br />
records. 36 Such debates have <strong>of</strong>ten proceeded with little appreciation <strong>of</strong><br />
how archives are formed, but it is likely that continuing discussions will<br />
lead us to some new understanding. This is doubly important in the socalled<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Age, when the computer has become God, information<br />
is the source <strong>of</strong> all power and prestige, and electronic networking is<br />
the only way by which this information can be disseminated.<br />
<strong>The</strong> exploding literature on the challenges posed and promises <strong>of</strong>fered<br />
by the computer also contributes to studies with implications for understanding<br />
the development <strong>of</strong> modern record-keeping systems. Thomas<br />
Landauer’s efforts to reconsider the claims <strong>of</strong> the computer’s productivity<br />
have led him to write extensively about automated record-keeping systems.<br />
37 His work is reminiscent <strong>of</strong> earlier histories completed on <strong>of</strong>fice systems<br />
and work that, while examining <strong>issue</strong>s such as gender and<br />
communication, provides some <strong>of</strong> the most in-depth understanding <strong>of</strong> how<br />
records and information technologies have evolved in the past century and<br />
a half. 38 <strong>The</strong>se studies provide a new understanding about the importance<br />
<strong>of</strong> records and the challenges confronting the maintenance <strong>of</strong> archives.<br />
Histories <strong>of</strong> other information technologies also are useful for understanding<br />
the impact on traditional record-keeping systems. Many<br />
archivists have lamented that telecommunications technologies such as<br />
the telephone, with its ability to provide quicker communication with a<br />
lower cost, have affected what is captured in transactional records.<br />
However, histories <strong>of</strong> the telephone suggest that initially its success was<br />
not certain, and its reasons for success <strong>of</strong>ten had little to do with its technical<br />
attributes. 39 Considering such histories should indicate to archivists<br />
the need for fuller studies <strong>of</strong> records and archives. Has the creation <strong>of</strong><br />
archival programs been sustained by the more ephemeral nature <strong>of</strong> electronic<br />
information systems? Have these new and emerging systems really<br />
affected society’s ability to document itself?<br />
<strong>The</strong> impact <strong>of</strong> computer technology on organizations and individuals<br />
has also prompted many concerns about the social, ethical, political, and<br />
other impacts <strong>of</strong> the technology. 40 From my vantage point it seems that<br />
such concerns have led to a renewed interest in matters that have considerable<br />
implications for understanding the history <strong>of</strong> records systems<br />
and archives, such as access and privacy, handwriting, personal record
147<br />
keeping, and so forth. Regarding privacy and/or access, new scholarship<br />
has emerged that re-examines such complex matters as the impact <strong>of</strong><br />
opening secret police <strong>file</strong>s, the negative ramifications <strong>of</strong> government<br />
secrecy, and the problems inflicted on personal lives by preserving and<br />
opening private papers. 41 While archivists and other records pr<strong>of</strong>essionals<br />
have written extensively on privacy and access over the past two<br />
decades, none <strong>of</strong> their work has led to significant new studies <strong>of</strong> the history<br />
<strong>of</strong> record keeping and archives. That this is a loss can be seen in<br />
E. Wayne Carp’s recent study <strong>of</strong> secrecy in adoption, which provides an<br />
extensive history <strong>of</strong> the evolution <strong>of</strong> adoption records systems since the<br />
mid–nineteenth century. 42<br />
<strong>The</strong> growing influence <strong>of</strong> electronic media has also prompted a new<br />
interest in the cultural history <strong>of</strong> older record-keeping technologies.<br />
Tamara Plakins Thornton’s study <strong>of</strong> American handwriting is a prime<br />
example with a major emphasis on the evolution <strong>of</strong> scripts, the teaching<br />
<strong>of</strong> particular scribal traditions, and the emergence <strong>of</strong> autograph collecting<br />
as part <strong>of</strong> a resistance to other information technologies such as the<br />
typewriter and <strong>of</strong>fice equipment. 43 <strong>The</strong>re has developed, for example, an<br />
intense interest in diary writing, the most intimate and personal recordkeeping<br />
approach. <strong>The</strong> scholarship in this area has stressed the history <strong>of</strong><br />
diary writing and, in some cases, has even argued that the process <strong>of</strong> personal<br />
diary writing has served as a surrogate for local archives and the<br />
documentation process. 44 Some <strong>of</strong> the concern about the new technologies<br />
has been directed toward understanding how objects or artifacts<br />
such as records could be authentic or reliable in the new cyberculture or<br />
virtual reality. Studies that address such matters have a direct connection<br />
to the understanding <strong>of</strong> the continuing evolution <strong>of</strong> record-keeping<br />
systems and archives. Anthony Grafton’s anecdotal history <strong>of</strong> the footnote<br />
is an explanation <strong>of</strong> one form <strong>of</strong> authority. 45 An increasing interest<br />
in forgeries is another indication <strong>of</strong> such concerns and an important one<br />
for archives, given that the origins <strong>of</strong> archival science (diplomatics) rests<br />
with the business <strong>of</strong> detecting forgeries. 46<br />
<strong>The</strong> development <strong>of</strong> the World Wide Web and other information technologies<br />
has also increased the sense that visualization is superseding<br />
text in much the same manner that writing superseded oral communication.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re has been increased attention paid to the history <strong>of</strong> photography,<br />
for example, and this has in some cases provided a new base for<br />
archivists to rethink the evolution <strong>of</strong> this technology as a record-keeping<br />
system. 47 It is also no surprise that the study <strong>of</strong> book collecting as well as<br />
a scholarship that examines the future <strong>of</strong> the book have developed. For<br />
some it might be surprising that the writing about the collecting <strong>of</strong> books<br />
has easily lapsed over into chronicling the acquisition <strong>of</strong> manuscripts and<br />
the origins <strong>of</strong> special collections. 48
148 L&C/American Archival History<br />
<strong>The</strong> onslaught <strong>of</strong> cyberculture is not the only stimulus to useful scholarship<br />
with implications for archival history. While archivists have<br />
focused on small institutional studies and biographies, more substantial<br />
studies that provide probes into certain aspects <strong>of</strong> records and archives<br />
have appeared. Some historians have written detailed accounts <strong>of</strong> particular<br />
record-keeping systems as sources <strong>of</strong> information, such as the census.<br />
49 A growth in the examination <strong>of</strong> nonpr<strong>of</strong>it management has<br />
produced some excellent studies <strong>of</strong> research institutions chronicling<br />
their fiscal management and their development as collections. 50 Textual<br />
criticism has also produced some notable work that historians <strong>of</strong> archives<br />
and records could draw on. This work ranges from the role <strong>of</strong> scribes and<br />
clerical bureaucrats with a sense <strong>of</strong> the influence <strong>of</strong> records in Latin<br />
America to an interpretation <strong>of</strong> the creation <strong>of</strong> the British Empire via<br />
research, classification, and documentation to critiques <strong>of</strong> individual documents.<br />
51 <strong>The</strong> availability and value <strong>of</strong> such research are only beginning<br />
to be appreciated by a fairly limited group <strong>of</strong> archivists.<br />
Finally, the archivist or person interested in archives might find some<br />
insights on the history <strong>of</strong> records and archives in unlikely sources.<br />
Writers who revisit their own past wind up waxing eloquently about their<br />
family papers. 52 <strong>The</strong> current spate <strong>of</strong> popular writings by pr<strong>of</strong>essionals<br />
such as engineers and architects also provides some useful surprises such<br />
as Henry Petroski’s ruminations on paper clips and the pencil. 53 <strong>The</strong> continuing<br />
fascination with measure and quantification has also produced<br />
important references for comprehending the development <strong>of</strong> legislation<br />
for creating records and financial systems such as double-entry bookkeeping.<br />
What we are reading about in these volumes concerns the<br />
records ultimately considered for archives. 54<br />
Conclusion<br />
If we expect to see a vibrant interest in the history <strong>of</strong> archives,<br />
archivists and other information pr<strong>of</strong>essionals need to expand their views<br />
about the topic. <strong>The</strong>re needs to be an acceptance <strong>of</strong> the interdisciplinary<br />
nature <strong>of</strong> research in the field, but it has to be one that will enrich both<br />
those studying this within and without the disciplinary boundaries.<br />
Archivists and other records pr<strong>of</strong>essionals have much to gain from these<br />
other fields, but it is not a one-way benefit. Archivists and records managers<br />
may have a greater sensitivity to pr<strong>of</strong>essional <strong>issue</strong>s that provides<br />
insights others might lack.<br />
<strong>The</strong> other need is to expand archivists’ and others’ views beyond traditional<br />
archives—the traditional efforts to acquire and preserve historic<br />
manuscripts and records—to an understanding <strong>of</strong> records and recordkeeping<br />
systems. I mentioned earlier the resurgence <strong>of</strong> interest in diplo-
matics, but this interest has partly grown because <strong>of</strong> the challenges<br />
posed by electronic records. Archivists have been forced to rethink their<br />
cherished mission, how they define records, and for and with whom they<br />
work. Out <strong>of</strong> this comes the essence <strong>of</strong> a new power for archival history.<br />
Understanding records and record-keeping systems naturally leads us to<br />
think about why they have been created, what uses they have, and <strong>issue</strong>s<br />
about their maintenance. <strong>The</strong> muse <strong>of</strong> history, Clio, would be happy to<br />
help archivists and records managers in such endeavors.<br />
A revitalized archival history will take more than an Archival History<br />
Round Table in the Society <strong>of</strong> American Archivists (where one has<br />
existed for more than a decade) or even partnerships with the Library<br />
History Round Table, which is celebrating its golden anniversary, in the<br />
American Library Association. It will require an understanding <strong>of</strong> the<br />
significance <strong>of</strong> the historical perspective for everyday, practical archival<br />
work. It will require the continued expansion <strong>of</strong> graduate archival education<br />
with time and opportunity to study the history <strong>of</strong> archives and<br />
record keeping. And, finally, it will require a scholarship with more<br />
breadth and depth than what has thus far passed for archival history. My<br />
own sense is that we will see a growth in the historical study <strong>of</strong> records<br />
and record keeping because <strong>of</strong> the modern sensibility about their importance.<br />
Notes<br />
149<br />
1. Donald G. Davis, Jr., “Ebla to the Electronic Dream: <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> Historical<br />
Perspectives in Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Education,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Education for Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science 39 (Summer 1998): 228–35 (quote p. 230).<br />
2. This can be seen in the research they conduct, and this research has not<br />
emphasized historical studies. See Richard J. Cox, “An Analysis <strong>of</strong> Archival<br />
Research, 1970–92, and the Role and Function <strong>of</strong> the American Archivist,” American<br />
Archivist 57 (Spring 1994): 278–88.<br />
3. Richard J. Cox, “American Archival History: Its Development, Needs, and<br />
Opportunities,” American Archivist 46 (Winter 1983): 31–41. For a more comprehensive,<br />
international bibliography <strong>of</strong> the same era, see Frank B. Evans, comp.,<br />
<strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> Archives Administration: A Select Bibliography (Paris: UNESCO, 1979).<br />
4. Richard J. Cox, “Other Atlantic States: Delaware, Florida, Georgia,<br />
Maryland, New Jersey, and South Carolina,” in H. G. Jones, ed., Historical<br />
Consciousness in the Early Republic: <strong>The</strong> Origins <strong>of</strong> State Historical Societies and<br />
Collections, 1791–1861 (Chapel Hill: North Caroliniana Society and North<br />
Carolina Collection, 1995), 102–24.<br />
5. H. G. Jones, <strong>The</strong> Records <strong>of</strong> a Nation: <strong>The</strong>ir Management, Preservation, and Use<br />
(New York: Atheneum, 1969); and Donald R. McCoy, <strong>The</strong> National Archives:<br />
America’s Ministry <strong>of</strong> Documents 1934–1968 (Chapel Hill: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North<br />
Carolina Press, 1978).<br />
6. David D. Van Tassel, Recording America’s Past: An Interpretation <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Development <strong>of</strong> Historical Societies in America 1607–1884 (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Chicago Press, 1960); and Walter Muir Whitehill, Independent Historical Societies:
150 L&C/American Archival History<br />
An Enquiry into <strong>The</strong>ir Research and Publication Functions and <strong>The</strong>ir Financial Future<br />
(Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 1962).<br />
7. H. G. Jones, For History’s Sake: <strong>The</strong> Preservation and Publication <strong>of</strong> North Carolina<br />
History 1663–1903 (Chapel Hill: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina Press, 1966).<br />
8. Works such as Victor Gondos, Jr., J. Franklin Jameson and the Birth <strong>of</strong> the<br />
National Archives 1906–1926 (Philadelphia: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Pennsylvania Press, 1981)<br />
and Burl Noggle, Working with History: <strong>The</strong> Historical Records Survey in Louisiana and<br />
the Nation, 1936–1942 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State <strong>University</strong> Press, 1981)<br />
remain unsurpassed. Barbra Buckner Higginbotham, Our Past Preserved: A History<br />
<strong>of</strong> American Library Preservation 1876–1910 (Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1990) is<br />
closely related and does examine many original sources.<br />
9. Richard J. Cox, “On the Value <strong>of</strong> Archival History in the United States,”<br />
Libraries & Culture 23 (Spring 1988): 135–51.<br />
10. This is similar to problems faced in library history: “Because a sizable percentage<br />
<strong>of</strong> all books that are read come from libraries, a broad history <strong>of</strong> the uses<br />
<strong>of</strong> literacy must eventually incorporate some history <strong>of</strong> the uses <strong>of</strong> libraries. Until<br />
now, historians <strong>of</strong> libraries have focused more on internal pr<strong>of</strong>essional development<br />
than on readers or the circulation <strong>of</strong> books.” Carl F. Kaestle, Helen Damon-<br />
Moore, Lawrence C. Stedman, Katherine Tinsley, and William Vance Trollinger,<br />
Jr., Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading since 1880 (New Haven, Conn.:<br />
Yale <strong>University</strong> Press, 1991), 66.<br />
11. See, for example, the theoretical contribution <strong>of</strong> Trevor Livelton, Archival<br />
<strong>The</strong>ory, Records, and the Public (Lanham, Md.: Society <strong>of</strong> American Archivists and<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1996).<br />
12. Terry Eastwood, ed., <strong>The</strong> Archival Fonds: From <strong>The</strong>ory to Practice (Ottawa:<br />
Bureau <strong>of</strong> Canadian Archivists, 1992) is a good example.<br />
13. This can be seen in the influence <strong>of</strong> the diplomatics approach at the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> British Columbia master’s in archival studies program and the<br />
emergence <strong>of</strong> a substantial amount <strong>of</strong> writing about the history <strong>of</strong> records systems<br />
and record keeping. <strong>The</strong> theoretical foundation <strong>of</strong> this approach was captured<br />
in Luciana Duranti’s six-part series on diplomatics published in Archivaria,<br />
a series recently published as a book (Luciana Duranti, Diplomatics: New Uses for an<br />
Old Science [Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press for the Society <strong>of</strong> American<br />
Archivists, 1998]). That diplomatics has taken on a new and re-invigorated role<br />
can be seen in the special <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> the American Archivist on “Diplomatics and<br />
Modern Records” (volume 59, Fall 1996).<br />
14. Richard Brown, “Death <strong>of</strong> a Renaissance Record-Keeper: <strong>The</strong> Murder <strong>of</strong><br />
Tomasso da Tortona in Ferrara, 1385,” Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 1–43.<br />
15. In the 1990–97 run <strong>of</strong> Archivaria, 18 <strong>of</strong> the 191 articles were on archival history,<br />
and 10 <strong>of</strong> 15 <strong>issue</strong>s had an article on this topic. In the 1990–97 run <strong>of</strong> the<br />
American Archivist, 14 <strong>of</strong> the 267 articles were on archival history, and 10 <strong>of</strong> the 32<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s had an article on this topic. In the American Archivist, 4 <strong>of</strong> the 14 articles<br />
were on European archival history; in Archivaria, 3 <strong>of</strong> the 15 articles were on<br />
European archival history.<br />
16. Some <strong>of</strong> these noteworthy essays on American archives are Alfred E.<br />
Lemmon, “<strong>The</strong> Archival Legacy <strong>of</strong> Spanish Louisiana’s Colonial Records,”<br />
American Archivist 55 (Winter 1992): 142–55; Dennis East, “<strong>The</strong> Ohio Historical<br />
Society and Establishment <strong>of</strong> the State’s Archives: A Tale <strong>of</strong> Angst and Apathy,”<br />
American Archivist 55 (Fall 1992): 562–77; Margaret O’Neill Adams, “Punch Card<br />
Records: Precursors <strong>of</strong> Electronic Records,” American Archivist 58 (Spring 1995):<br />
182–201; Anke Voss-Hubbard, “ ‘No Documents—No History’: Mary Ritter Beard
151<br />
and the Early History <strong>of</strong> Women’s Archives,” American Archivist 58 (Winter 1995):<br />
16–30; and Robert D. Reynolds, Jr., “<strong>The</strong> Incunabula <strong>of</strong> Archival <strong>The</strong>ory and<br />
Practice in the United States: J. C. Fitzpatrick’s Notes on the Care, Cataloguing,<br />
Calendaring and Arranging <strong>of</strong> Manuscripts and the Public Archives Commission’s<br />
Uncompleted ‘Primer <strong>of</strong> Archival Economy,’” American Archivist 54 (Fall 1991):<br />
466–82. A noteworthy historical analysis <strong>of</strong> theoretical matters, with implications<br />
for North American archivy, is Terry Cook, “What Is Past Is Prologue: A History<br />
<strong>of</strong> Archival Ideas since 1898, and the Future Paradigm Shift,” Archivaria 43<br />
(Spring 1997): 17–63.<br />
17. Robert M. Warner, Diary <strong>of</strong> a Dream: A History <strong>of</strong> the National Archives<br />
Independence Movement, 1980–1985 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995).<br />
18. A revised second edition <strong>of</strong> the original 1979 work was <strong>issue</strong>d as M. T.<br />
Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 2nd ed. (Cambridge:<br />
Blackwell, 1993).<br />
19. Of prime importance is Henri-Jean Martin, <strong>The</strong> History and Power <strong>of</strong> Writing,<br />
trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1994). See also<br />
the works by Jack Goody, <strong>The</strong> Interface between the Written and the Oral (Cambridge:<br />
Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1987) and <strong>The</strong> Logic <strong>of</strong> Writing and the Organization <strong>of</strong><br />
Society (Cambridge: Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1986), which seem to serve as<br />
points <strong>of</strong> departure for many other commentators and disciplines on writing and<br />
literacy.<br />
20. Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge:<br />
Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1992). For other interesting works on ancient literacy,<br />
see William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard<br />
<strong>University</strong> Press, 1989) and Denise Schmandt-Besserat, How Writing Came About,<br />
abridged ed. (Austin: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, 1996). <strong>The</strong> latter provides an<br />
interesting look at the origins <strong>of</strong> writing systems from tokens used to capture<br />
ancient commercial transactions.<br />
21. Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms <strong>of</strong> Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End <strong>of</strong> the<br />
First Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton <strong>University</strong> Press, 1994). Other interesting<br />
works on the medieval period are Brian Stock, Listening for the Text: On the<br />
Uses <strong>of</strong> the Past (Philadelphia: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Pennsylvania Press, 1990) and <strong>The</strong><br />
Implications <strong>of</strong> Literacy: Written Language and Models <strong>of</strong> Interpretations in the Eleventh and<br />
Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton <strong>University</strong> Press, 1987).<br />
22. David Cressy, Bonfires and Bells: National Memory and the Protestant Calendar in<br />
Elizabethan and Stuart England (Berkeley: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California Press, 1989);<br />
Coming Over: Migration and Communication between England and New England in the<br />
Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1987); Literacy and<br />
the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge:<br />
Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1980).<br />
23. Peter L. van der Loo in Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D. Mignolo, eds.,<br />
Writing without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes (Durham:<br />
Duke <strong>University</strong> Press, 1994), 84.<br />
24. <strong>The</strong> burst <strong>of</strong> research has been well documented in Patrick H. Hutton,<br />
History as an Art <strong>of</strong> Memory (Hanover: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Vermont, 1993).<br />
25. Richard J. Cox, “<strong>The</strong> Concept <strong>of</strong> Public Memory and Its Impact on<br />
Archival Public Programming,” Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 122–35. I focused<br />
on John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in<br />
the Twentieth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton <strong>University</strong> Press, 1992); David<br />
Glassberg, American Historical Pageantry: <strong>The</strong> Uses <strong>of</strong> Tradition in the Early Twentieth<br />
Century (Chapel Hill: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina Press, 1990); and Michael
152 L&C/American Archival History<br />
Kammen, Mystic Chords <strong>of</strong> Memory: <strong>The</strong> Transformation <strong>of</strong> Tradition in American Culture<br />
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).<br />
26. See, for example, Ian Buruma, <strong>The</strong> Wages <strong>of</strong> Guilt: Memories <strong>of</strong> War in Germany<br />
and Japan (New York: Meridian, 1994).<br />
27. See, especially, the Australian experience in Alistair Thomson, Anzac<br />
Memories: Living with the Legend (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1994).<br />
28. An interesting study to begin with is Kenneth E. Foote, Shadowed Ground:<br />
America’s Landscapes <strong>of</strong> Violence and Tragedy (Austin: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press,<br />
1997).<br />
29. Robert Brent Toplin, ed., Ken Burns’s <strong>The</strong> Civil War: Historians Respond (New<br />
York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1996). <strong>The</strong> Enola Gay Exhibition debate has been<br />
particularly powerful. See, for example, Martin Harwit, An Exhibit Denied:<br />
Lobbying the History <strong>of</strong> Enola Gay (New York: Copernicus, 1996); Edward T.<br />
Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt, eds., History Wars: <strong>The</strong> Enola Gay and Other Battles<br />
for the American Past (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996); and Philip Nobile, ed.,<br />
Judgment at the Smithsonian (New York: Marlowe and Co., 1995).<br />
30. Tom Bower, Nazi Gold: <strong>The</strong> <strong>Full</strong> Story <strong>of</strong> the Fifty-Year Swiss-Nazi Conspiracy to<br />
Steal Billions from Europe’s Jews and Holocaust Survivors (New York: Harper Collins<br />
Publishers, 1997); Isabel Vincent, Hitler’s Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, and<br />
the Pursuit <strong>of</strong> Justice (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1997); and Jean Ziegler,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead, trans. John Brownjohn (New York: Harcourt<br />
Brace and Co., 1998). A similar controversy about stolen art treasures has also<br />
resulted in new studies that re-explore archives and demonstrate their importance.<br />
See Hector Feliciano, <strong>The</strong> Lost Museum: <strong>The</strong> Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the<br />
World’s Greatest Works <strong>of</strong> Art (New York: HarperBooks, 1997); Lynn H. Nicholas, <strong>The</strong><br />
Rape <strong>of</strong> Europa: <strong>The</strong> Fate <strong>of</strong> Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War<br />
(New York: Vintage Books, 1994); and Elizabeth Simpson, ed., <strong>The</strong> Spoils <strong>of</strong> War:<br />
World War II and Its Aftermath: <strong>The</strong> Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery <strong>of</strong> Cultural Property<br />
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with the Bard Graduate Center for<br />
Studies in the Decorative Arts, 1997).<br />
31. James M. Lindgren, Preserving Historic New England: Preservation, Progressivism,<br />
and the Remaking <strong>of</strong> Memory (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1995), 155.<br />
32. Michael Schudson, Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget,<br />
and Reconstruct the Past (New York: Basic Books, 1992).<br />
33. See, for example, Michael R. Beschloss, ed., Taking Charge: <strong>The</strong> Johnson<br />
White House Tapes, 1963–1964 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997); Tom<br />
Blanton, ed., White House E-Mail: <strong>The</strong> Top Secret Computer Messages the Reagan/Bush<br />
White House Tried to Destroy (New York: New Press, 1995); Stanley I. Kutler, ed.,<br />
Abuse <strong>of</strong> Power: <strong>The</strong> New Nixon Tapes (New York: Free Press, 1997); and Ernst R.<br />
May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds., <strong>The</strong> Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the<br />
Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press <strong>of</strong> Harvard <strong>University</strong><br />
Press, 1997).<br />
34. Barbie Zelizer, Covering the Body: <strong>The</strong> Kennedy Assassination, the Media, and the<br />
Shaping <strong>of</strong> Collective Memory (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1992).<br />
35. <strong>The</strong> potential to study such records can be seen in Carol Gelderman, All<br />
the Presidents’ Words: <strong>The</strong> Bully Pulpit and the Creation <strong>of</strong> the Virtual Presidency (New<br />
York: Walker and Company, 1997), which tracks the influence <strong>of</strong> speechwriters on<br />
the modern presidency, and Harold Holzer, comp. and ed., Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters<br />
to the President (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1993), which includes an interesting<br />
description <strong>of</strong> how the president’s secretaries contributed to the creation<br />
<strong>of</strong> his records.
153<br />
36. See, for example, Lynne Cheney, Telling the Truth: Why Our Culture and Our<br />
Country Have Stopped Making Sense—and What We Can Do about It (New York: Simon<br />
and Schuster, 1995); Todd Gitlin, <strong>The</strong> Twilight <strong>of</strong> Common Dreams: Why America Is<br />
Wracked by Culture Wars (New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Co.,<br />
1995); Lawrence W. Levine, <strong>The</strong> Opening <strong>of</strong> the American Mind: Canons, Culture and<br />
History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996); James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me:<br />
Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: New Press, 1995);<br />
Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn, History on Trial: Culture Wars<br />
and the Teaching <strong>of</strong> the Past (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997); Peter N. Stearns,<br />
Meaning over Memory: Recasting the Teaching <strong>of</strong> Culture and History (Chapel Hill:<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina Press, 1993).<br />
37. Thomas K. Landauer, <strong>The</strong> Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and<br />
Productivity (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995).<br />
38. <strong>The</strong> classic work <strong>of</strong> this type remains JoAnne Yates, Control through<br />
Communication: <strong>The</strong> Rise <strong>of</strong> System in American Management (Baltimore, Md.: Johns<br />
Hopkins <strong>University</strong> Press, 1989). For an example <strong>of</strong> the type <strong>of</strong> study that considers<br />
women in the workplace, see Margery W. Davies, Woman’s Place Is at the<br />
Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers 1870–1920 (Philadelphia: Temple<br />
<strong>University</strong> Press, 1982).<br />
39. Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History <strong>of</strong> the Telephone to 1940<br />
(Berkeley: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California Press, 1992).<br />
40. This is why areas <strong>of</strong> scholarship such as cyberculture and social informatics<br />
have developed. For the latter, visit the Center for Social Informatics at<br />
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI. For a view on cyberculture, visit the Resource<br />
Center for Cyberculture Studies at http://otal.umd.edu/~rccs.<br />
41. Timothy Garton Ash, <strong>The</strong> File: A Personal History (New York: Random<br />
House, 1997); Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: A Half<br />
Century <strong>of</strong> Denial (New York: Avon Books, 1995); Angus MacKenzie, Secrets: <strong>The</strong><br />
CIA’s War at Home (Berkeley: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California Press, 1997); David<br />
Rudenstine, <strong>The</strong> Day the Presses Stopped: A History <strong>of</strong> the Pentagon Papers Case<br />
(Berkeley: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California Press, 1996); Janna Malamud Smith, Private<br />
Matters: In Defense <strong>of</strong> the Personal Life (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997); and<br />
Mary Gordon, <strong>The</strong> Shadow Man (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).<br />
42. E. Wayne Carp, Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History <strong>of</strong> Adoption<br />
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1998).<br />
43. Tamara Plakins Thornton, Handwriting in America: A Cultural History (New<br />
Haven, Conn.: Yale <strong>University</strong> Press, 1996).<br />
44. See, for example, Suzanne L. Bunkers and Cynthia A. Huff, eds., Inscribing<br />
the Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s Diaries (Amherst: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Massachusetts<br />
Press, 1996); Andrew Hassam, Sailing to Australia: Shipboard Diaries by Nineteenth-<br />
Century British Emigrants (Melbourne: Melbourne <strong>University</strong> Press, 1995);<br />
Alexandra Johnson, <strong>The</strong> Hidden Writer: Diaries and the Creative Life (New York:<br />
Anchor Book, Doubleday, 1997); Kenneth A. Lockridge, <strong>The</strong> Diary, and Life, <strong>of</strong><br />
William Byrd II <strong>of</strong> Virginia, 1674–1744 (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1987);<br />
Thomas Mallon, A Book <strong>of</strong> One’s Own: People and <strong>The</strong>ir Diaries (New York: Ticknor<br />
and Fields, 1984); James G. Moseley, John Winthrop’s World: History as a Story: <strong>The</strong><br />
Story as History (Madison: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin Press, 1992); Stuart Sherman,<br />
Telling Time: Clocks, Diaries, and English Diurnal Form, 1660–1785 (Chicago:<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press, 1996); and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Life <strong>of</strong> Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812 (New York: Vintage Books,<br />
1990). <strong>The</strong> Sherman and Ulrich studies are especially useful.
154 L&C/American Archival History<br />
45. Anthony Grafton, <strong>The</strong> Footnote: A Curious History (Cambridge, Mass.:<br />
Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1997).<br />
46. For interesting studies on forgeries, see Pat Bozeman, ed., Forged Documents:<br />
Proceedings <strong>of</strong> the 1989 Houston Conference, Organized by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Houston<br />
Libraries (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Books, 1990); Anthony Grafton, Forgers and<br />
Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton<br />
<strong>University</strong> Press, 1990); Charles Hamilton, <strong>The</strong> Hitler Diaries: Fakes That Fooled the<br />
World (Lexington: <strong>University</strong> Press <strong>of</strong> Kentucky, 1991); Robert Harris, Selling<br />
Hitler (New York: Penguin Books, 1986); Steven Naifeh and Gregory White<br />
Smith, <strong>The</strong> Mormom Murders: A True Story <strong>of</strong> Greed, Forgery, Deceit, and Death (New<br />
York: New American Library, 1988).<br />
47. Some interesting and noteworthy works include Julia Hirsch, Family<br />
Photographs: Content, Meaning, and Effect (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1981);<br />
Marianne Hirsch, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory (Cambridge,<br />
Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1997); Celia Lury, Prosthetic Culture: Photography,<br />
Memory, and Identity (New York: Routledge, 1998); and John Tagg, <strong>The</strong> Burden <strong>of</strong><br />
Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories (Minneapolis: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Minnesota Press, 1993).<br />
48. See, for example, Nicholas A. Basbanes, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles,<br />
Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1995).<br />
49. Margo J. Anderson, <strong>The</strong> American Census: A Social History (New Haven,<br />
Conn.: Yale <strong>University</strong> Press, 1988).<br />
50. Jed I. Bergman, in collaboration with William G. Bowen and Thomas I.<br />
Nygren, Managing Change in the Nonpr<strong>of</strong>it Sector: Lessons from the Evolution <strong>of</strong> Five<br />
Independent Research Libraries (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996); and<br />
Kevin M. Guthrie, <strong>The</strong> New-York Historical Society: Lessons from One Nonpr<strong>of</strong>it’s Long<br />
Struggle for Survival (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996).<br />
51. Angel Rama, <strong>The</strong> Lettered City, trans. and ed. John Charles Chasteen<br />
(Durham: Duke <strong>University</strong> Press, 1996); Thomas Richards, <strong>The</strong> Imperial Archive:<br />
Knowledge and the Fantasy <strong>of</strong> Empire (London: Verso, 1993); and Jay Fliegelman,<br />
Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture <strong>of</strong> Performance<br />
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1993).<br />
52. Ian Frazier, Family (New York: HarperPerennial, 1994).<br />
53. Henry Petroski, <strong>The</strong> Evolution <strong>of</strong> Useful Things (New York: Vintage Books,<br />
1992) and <strong>The</strong> Pencil: A History <strong>of</strong> Design and Circumstance (New York: Alfred A.<br />
Knopf, 1990).<br />
54. Alfred W. Crosby, <strong>The</strong> Measure <strong>of</strong> Reality: Quantification and Western Society,<br />
1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1997).
Historical Bibliography and Library History<br />
D. W. Krummel<br />
<strong>The</strong> fields <strong>of</strong> historical bibliography and library history have drawn upon<br />
each other and long been linked in their scholarship. <strong>The</strong> history <strong>of</strong> the<br />
book interest <strong>of</strong> recent years has shown further interdisciplinary relationships.<br />
Several predicaments that result when the two fields are juxtaposed<br />
underscore some <strong>of</strong> the problems that remain to be dealt with. <strong>The</strong><br />
Western orientation <strong>of</strong> both fields is also largely assumed in both, and not<br />
always for the better.<br />
Library history and historical bibliography work together like a stereopticon:<br />
two objects on paper, one image in the viewer. In antiquity they<br />
were one: Egyptian libraries are a story <strong>of</strong> papyrus and scribes, the history<br />
<strong>of</strong> Mesopotamian literature is being revised at the Ebla library, both<br />
accounts are informed by Socrates’ parable <strong>of</strong> Thoth. Readers <strong>of</strong> this<br />
journal, on the other hand, are usually better versed in recent history,<br />
and here the two are separate. Indeed, it pushes an odd envelope to tie<br />
together such near-contemporaries as Anthony Panizzi and William<br />
Blake, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and Andrew Carnegie, Charles Ammi<br />
Cutter and Henry Bradshaw, the Grabhorns and the Farmington Plan.<br />
William Morris and Melvil Dewey may have had much in common (ants<br />
in the pants, broadly speaking, for instance), but sadly they never met,<br />
and I can’t imagine what we might make <strong>of</strong> it if they had.<br />
<strong>The</strong> two fields remain very close, particularly in their literatures. Many<br />
writings fit in both fields, and those that appear to address only one are<br />
<strong>of</strong>ten germane to the other as well. Library historians use book history<br />
sources, which they find out about through contents pages, indexes, footnotes,<br />
and bibliographical guides. Historical bibliographers look at journals<br />
like this one for current awareness <strong>of</strong> library history, <strong>of</strong>ten<br />
retrospective awareness as well.<br />
<strong>The</strong> fields have moved apart over the past few centuries, as their<br />
objects <strong>of</strong> study have come to appeal to different affections, for bibliography<br />
the acts <strong>of</strong> reading, for library history the institutions <strong>of</strong> reading.<br />
<strong>The</strong> former appeals to printers, collectors, and booksellers, also to such<br />
librarians as are fortunate to still remember the experience <strong>of</strong> reading<br />
that told them to become librarians in the first place: their academic<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
156 L&C/Historical Bibliography<br />
friends are mostly in literature and philology departments. <strong>The</strong> academic<br />
counterparts <strong>of</strong> the latter are historians, also such social scientists<br />
as are not petrified at the thought <strong>of</strong> history. In work with colleagues and<br />
in the world <strong>of</strong> learning at large, historical bibliographers thus learn to<br />
cope with allegations <strong>of</strong> preciousness and solipsism, while library historians<br />
learn to write as if they respected their readers.<br />
Over time both fields have become fragmented. Both are enriched by<br />
dialectics (some will say built on fault-lines) that emerged once the fields<br />
were first established. Both are also searching for broader agendas. <strong>The</strong><br />
tensions and paradigm shifts, as usual, both traumatize and excite: the<br />
tensions confirm that some do really care, while the paradigm shifts suggest<br />
that they are very much alive.<br />
Bibliography, for instance, has long separated the listing and description<br />
<strong>of</strong> books from the accounts <strong>of</strong> their history and lore. This may make<br />
sense in theory, but in practice we know how lists <strong>of</strong>ten make lucid and<br />
exciting reading matter, while descriptive prose bogs down so as to work<br />
like a listing. In classic library administrative structure, however, the<br />
descriptive side is still easy to associate with the technical services (cataloging<br />
and now conservation in particular), the history and lore side with<br />
public service and outreach.<br />
As for the descriptive side, it is guided by, and tries valiantly to reconcile,<br />
the rigors <strong>of</strong> AACR-2 cataloging practices, scary to those who have<br />
trouble living with things Procrustean, and the rigors <strong>of</strong> Greg-Bowers,<br />
scary to those who are frightened by the precision <strong>of</strong> formulas in general.<br />
Those who want the latter to go away should be reminded that the cornerstone<br />
course at the Rare Book <strong>School</strong> at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Virginia, and<br />
still the most popular, is in descriptive bibliography. As for cataloging<br />
rules, the continuing intensity <strong>of</strong> the discourse in committee meetings,<br />
particularly for historical materials, could be ample evidence that permanent<br />
solutions, such as might be delegated to a computer, lie ahead <strong>of</strong> us.<br />
Description is a key to access, but it informs other activities as well.<br />
Critical readers love, learn from, and trust “hard evidence” such as can<br />
be coaxed out <strong>of</strong> study <strong>of</strong> the rich heritages <strong>of</strong> the printing crafts.<br />
Technology has clearly captured today’s imagination, so the pursuit <strong>of</strong><br />
bibliographical forensics would appear to be particularly promising. In<br />
any event, two words widely used today (ugly noun hybrids they may be,<br />
but they do fill the bill) are “physicality” and “materiality.”<br />
Descriptive bibliography and library cataloging are mostly based on<br />
book production—the printing primarily, the content secondarily. Rarely<br />
can they delve into later historical events—the circulation and use <strong>of</strong><br />
books, involving distributors, criticism, and readers. Study <strong>of</strong> the “postnatal”<br />
events is thus inherited—along with the accounts, contexts, and<br />
criticism <strong>of</strong> the printing processes—by the other world <strong>of</strong> bibliography,
157<br />
devoted to the history and lore <strong>of</strong> books. Its writings range from displays<br />
<strong>of</strong> erudition by antiquarian booksellers and collectors, typically casual<br />
but <strong>of</strong>ten both delightful and deep, over to academic work that, in spite<br />
<strong>of</strong> and sometimes because <strong>of</strong> its awesome rigor, <strong>of</strong>ten seems superficial.<br />
Mutual respect (or at least as much as learned colleagues can ever<br />
muster) unified the field in days when the literature was smaller and<br />
scholars better able to cross linguistic and ideological border lines.<br />
Is there any difference between historical bibliography and book history?<br />
<strong>The</strong>re may be a generation gap; it is also possible that the scholarship<br />
is now more strongly based in academia (History Departments are<br />
seen, by others more than by themselves, as the power brokers). Nor am<br />
I sure where histoire du livre fits in the picture. To some it is one more participant<br />
now sharing the bibliography stage who would happily take over<br />
the whole stage; to others it is the same as book history. In the study <strong>of</strong><br />
books, its French annales methods range from the refreshing and stimulating<br />
to the apocalyptic and impenetrable. In fact, a case can be made<br />
(strong to some, infuriating to others) for it being mostly book lore<br />
written up by sociology Ph.D.’s. Personally, I like it that both historical<br />
bibliography/book history and library history have largely succeeded in<br />
avoiding the heavy breathing <strong>of</strong> pseudo-scientific methodology. Both<br />
scholarly communities have typically been more literate than numerate,<br />
although quantitative work in both has <strong>of</strong>ten been provocative. But selfconsciousness<br />
is important in academia today. One difference between<br />
historical bibliography and histoire du livre is that the former assumes<br />
descriptive bibliography to be basic, the latter sees it is an option. (But is<br />
bibliographical description a methodology? I leave this for others to<br />
debate.)<br />
As for library history, it has not subdivided its specialties like bibliography,<br />
but it is not without partisanship. (In Francis Bacon’s analogy <strong>of</strong><br />
ants, spiders, and bees, the bees are always one’s own specialty, the other<br />
two are one’s protagonists.) “House history” may contrast with “revisionism,”<br />
but both have their places, the former, for instance, in its<br />
archival source work, the latter in its bold agenda. If the former seems<br />
dotty and uncritical, the latter seems unwilling to formulate a definition<br />
<strong>of</strong> “elitism.” As the outspoken partisans label each other as fogies or<br />
pinkos, they are joined by the geeks, committed either to saving everything,<br />
or to dumping libraries and starting over from scratch, or to doing<br />
both at the same time, but above all to doing something with modern<br />
technology.<br />
Bibliography comes to life through its physical objects; library history,<br />
in contrast, comes to life as it reminds us that its subject is cultural institutions<br />
basic to our civilization itself. It comes to life through its<br />
crossovers—as biographies involve the history <strong>of</strong> institutions, as histories
158 L&C/Historical Bibliography<br />
<strong>of</strong> institutions study evolving practices, as studies <strong>of</strong> evolving practices<br />
reflect historical ideologies, as ideologies come into focus in the work <strong>of</strong><br />
their main advocates. If library history is enriched by its centrifugal<br />
forces, historical bibliography has honored its specialties by directing<br />
them inward to make them even more specialized. Bibliography still<br />
addresses broad historical questions, and not only in matters <strong>of</strong> the postnatal<br />
importance <strong>of</strong> books. Its scholarship usually suggests social, artistic,<br />
and technological perspectives, although the particulars <strong>of</strong>ten need<br />
to be coaxed out <strong>of</strong> its citations and prose accounts.<br />
Journal editors in both fields, in any event, are much to be envied: the<br />
paradigm shifts, trauma, fun, nonsense, and posturing make for interesting<br />
times. Both fields might be happier if their arguments were less<br />
shrill, although the politics <strong>of</strong> academic turf may never allow this.<br />
Simplistic ideas, however, in the spirit <strong>of</strong> Gresham’s law, do tend to drive<br />
out large ones. Both fields keep a wary eye on those <strong>of</strong> our intellectually<br />
impoverished administrators and colleagues who wonder why either field<br />
should be <strong>of</strong> interest to anybody (especially since neither one usually<br />
makes any money). And even historians have been known to enjoy playing<br />
lifeboat games (which one should survive, library history or bibliography?),<br />
ignoring the need for the two to enrich each other.<br />
Latent tensions <strong>of</strong> greater substance between library history and bibliography<br />
come to the surface when the two are juxtaposed. Historical bibliography<br />
is right to reach beyond the worlds <strong>of</strong> book production into the<br />
worlds <strong>of</strong> dissemination and use. <strong>The</strong> evidence has long been clear, however:<br />
only a small proportion <strong>of</strong> the press output was ever meant to, or<br />
did, or ever will find its way into libraries. Personal copies are almost<br />
always cherished more than library copies.<br />
Are libraries then not less central to learning than librarians care to<br />
admit? What we think libraries were and might have been is not the<br />
same as what they ought to be. As repositories <strong>of</strong> sources, they are a<br />
place for transactions. But they are also organic processes that redefine<br />
themselves as they help redefine scholarship and society. <strong>The</strong>ir preservation<br />
role becomes all the more important. And thus the classic maxim<br />
that “libraries are for use” may no longer be our useful cornerstone for<br />
financial support. Preservation and access may belong together, but it is<br />
one <strong>of</strong> the purposes <strong>of</strong> libraries to redefine the meanings <strong>of</strong> this Article<br />
<strong>of</strong> Faith.<br />
Nor will history ever be all that kind to library classification systems. If<br />
(to paraphrase Heisenberg) we can measure position or momentum but<br />
not both, then assuming any position in the totality <strong>of</strong> knowledge is permanent<br />
is an invitation to obsolescence. To some, <strong>of</strong> course, the battles<br />
are over: the electronic media have wiped out history, along with both<br />
books and libraries and including all their battlefields, making the notion<br />
<strong>of</strong> an electronic library an oxymoron.
Far happier, and more responsible, would we be to live with, try to<br />
understand, and work around all the uncertainties, embarrassments, and<br />
anomalies that result when library history and historical bibliography are<br />
juxtaposed. Here are a few <strong>of</strong> our predicaments:<br />
• Those who enjoy hating rare books, and those who do battle with<br />
them, need also to explain why libraries and museums are attracted to<br />
each other but frightened by each other at the same time.<br />
• <strong>The</strong> slogan “All politics is local” is crucial to the survival <strong>of</strong> libraries<br />
but all the harder to appreciate when librarians find global thinking less<br />
painful and dangerous than local action.<br />
• Libraries must be “state <strong>of</strong> the art” and commit their limited funds to<br />
new thought as well as to new computer upgrades. Historical bibliography<br />
thus becomes all the more important in reminding us (even if it is<br />
usually in vain) that out <strong>of</strong> today’s discards tomorrow’s reference questions<br />
will be answered, tomorrow’s treasures selected, and tomorrow’s<br />
insights developed.<br />
Perhaps the hardest questions <strong>of</strong> all are ones that neither bibliography<br />
nor library history can address. Books and libraries, as objects, institutions,<br />
and ideas, are tied down to the heritages <strong>of</strong> Western missionary<br />
printers and modern proponents <strong>of</strong> national library development. Such<br />
memories make it all the harder to grasp how the bridges we have built<br />
to other civilizations are also barriers to understanding as well. <strong>The</strong><br />
quest for power denies the perspectives that may ever understand the<br />
workings <strong>of</strong> hubris. <strong>The</strong> value <strong>of</strong> studying history, <strong>of</strong> both books and<br />
libraries, lies in its insights; even if, in both fields, the need for theory to<br />
grow out <strong>of</strong> practice must remain a mystery to those who do not understand<br />
the practice.<br />
A Note on Sources<br />
159<br />
Since this brief text can do little more than touch on underlying relationships,<br />
I must do what all good librarians and bibliographers are expected to do: cite and<br />
recommend sources. One <strong>of</strong> the nicest is surely Paul Raabe’s “Library History<br />
and the History <strong>of</strong> Books: Two Fields <strong>of</strong> Research for Librarians,” which appeared<br />
in Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, no. 2 (Spring 1984): 282–97, the editor having spotted<br />
it in the Essays in Honor <strong>of</strong> James Edward Walsh (Cambridge, Mass.: Goethe<br />
Institute, 1983), 7–22. For another provocative overview, see A Potencie <strong>of</strong> Life:<br />
Books in Society, the Clark Lectures, 1986–87 (London: British Library, 1993),<br />
notably “A New Model for the Study <strong>of</strong> the Book” by Thomas R. Adams and<br />
Nicolas Barker, with valuable references at the end. And librarians who have not<br />
read the late D. F. McKenzie’s inaugural Panizzi Lectures, Bibliography and the<br />
Sociology <strong>of</strong> Texts (London: British Library, 1986), ought to be ashamed <strong>of</strong> themselves.<br />
Much to be awaited are the collected essays that Ian R. Willison has long<br />
promised: among them should be Toward a General <strong>The</strong>ory <strong>of</strong> Historical Bibliography<br />
(<strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Librarianship, North-Western Polytechnic, Occasional Papers 11, 1958),
160 L&C/Historical Bibliography<br />
and On the History <strong>of</strong> Libraries and Scholarship, his lecture for the Library History<br />
Round Table on 26 June 1979, which was published by the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress in<br />
1980. This and other Center for the Book lectures, and indeed the very mission<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Center itself, are salutary both in their own right and as efforts to merge<br />
the best <strong>of</strong> library history and bibliography. Another argument in defense <strong>of</strong> the<br />
interrelationship between the fields must, <strong>of</strong> course, be Jorge Luis Borges’s essay<br />
on “<strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> Babel,” perhaps for no other reason than that it is so hard to<br />
say why. Nor should the ratiocinations <strong>of</strong> the late Isaiah Berlin be forgotten: his<br />
notions <strong>of</strong> positive and negative liberty are a valuable explanation, all too easily<br />
overlooked, <strong>of</strong> why the rationale <strong>of</strong> libraries is so central to the cause <strong>of</strong> intellectual<br />
freedom.<br />
Among current literature guides, two works—the Annual Bibliography <strong>of</strong> the<br />
History <strong>of</strong> Printed Books and Libraries (<strong>The</strong> Hague: Nijh<strong>of</strong>f, 1<strong>973</strong>–) and the<br />
Bibliographie der Buch- und Bibliotheksgeschichte (“BBB”; Bad Iburg: Horst Meyer,<br />
1982–)—seek to cover both fields (although, <strong>of</strong> course, many <strong>of</strong> the most interesting<br />
sources will, as usual, fall outside the intended scope). G. Thomas<br />
Tanselle’s annual Studies in Bibliography essays include two in particular that<br />
library historians need to know: “Bibliographical History as a Field <strong>of</strong> Study,” 41<br />
(1988): 33–63, and “Printing History and Other History,” 48 (1995): 269–89.
<strong>The</strong> Library Historian’s Field <strong>of</strong> Dreams:<br />
A Pro<strong>file</strong> <strong>of</strong> the First Nine Seminars<br />
Edward A. Goedeken<br />
History haunts me with a sense <strong>of</strong> lost opportunities.<br />
Louis Shores 1<br />
<strong>The</strong> Library History Seminars, founded by Louis Shores in 1961, have<br />
met about every five years ever since. Through a series <strong>of</strong> tables and<br />
charts, this essay examines various characteristics <strong>of</strong> the seminar participants,<br />
including their gender, institutional affiliation, and the topic and era<br />
<strong>of</strong> their presentations. <strong>The</strong> data are analyzed to provide a picture <strong>of</strong> who<br />
does library history and how the discipline’s research interests have<br />
evolved over the past thirty years.<br />
Like the farmer in the movie Field <strong>of</strong> Dreams, Louis Shores always<br />
believed that if he could build it, they would come—and they did. In<br />
1961, little more than a decade after Shores, Wayne Shirley, and Carl<br />
Milam founded the American Library History Round Table (ALHRT) in<br />
1947, the indefatigable Shores was ready to host the first Library History<br />
Seminar at Florida State <strong>University</strong>. 2 From that humble beginning (only<br />
sixteen library historians attended the 1961 meeting), the seminars have<br />
flourished. Over the years the number <strong>of</strong> attendees has steadily<br />
increased, with recent seminars attracting scholars from all corners <strong>of</strong><br />
the globe to share their affection for library history.<br />
Fortunately, the seminars’ proceedings have all been published, and as<br />
a group they represent a collection <strong>of</strong> individual snapshots <strong>of</strong> the state <strong>of</strong><br />
the art <strong>of</strong> library history over the past thirty-five years. 3 This essay analyzes<br />
the first nine seminars in order to arrive at generalizations about<br />
the nature <strong>of</strong> the craft <strong>of</strong> American library history. Emphasis is on the<br />
characteristics <strong>of</strong> these historians who laid the groundwork for our contemporary<br />
discipline.<br />
Specific information about each seminar and its participants was<br />
entered into a spreadsheet and then arranged to reveal information not<br />
readily accessible otherwise. Long-time members <strong>of</strong> the LHRT likely<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
162 L&C/<strong>The</strong> First Nine Seminars<br />
have an intuitive sense <strong>of</strong> the patterns that emerge from this approach;<br />
nevertheless, these findings should interest all members <strong>of</strong> the LHRT<br />
regardless <strong>of</strong> their length <strong>of</strong> association with our subspecialty. <strong>The</strong> tabular<br />
information that follows provides the framework for the narrative.<br />
Table 1 shows attendance by conference with data given for gender, followed<br />
by a column indicating the total number <strong>of</strong> participants, and<br />
finally by a column (LIS) that represents the percentage <strong>of</strong> presenters<br />
that are either practicing librarians or members <strong>of</strong> library science teaching<br />
faculty. It is common knowledge that women outnumber men in the<br />
library pr<strong>of</strong>ession as a whole and have for a long time. 4 Indeed, this belief<br />
was affirmed in 1994 when the American Library Association conducted<br />
a survey <strong>of</strong> its members that showed 78 percent as female. 5 This figure<br />
approximates the U.S. government census data for the decades since the<br />
Library History Seminars began in 1961: for the years 1960, 1970, 1980,<br />
and 1990, women comprised 86, 82, 84, and 83 percent, respectively. 6<br />
When we move, however, from the library pr<strong>of</strong>ession in general to its<br />
subdiscipline <strong>of</strong> library history, the demographics begin to shift from<br />
those that traditionally govern librarianship to those that describe the<br />
historical pr<strong>of</strong>ession in the United States since World War II. 7 For example,<br />
membership data from the LHRT indicates that the percentages are<br />
moving in the direction <strong>of</strong> equality in gender representation, with the<br />
1998 LHRT membership split at 42 percent male and 58 percent<br />
female. 8 Compared with percentages <strong>of</strong> seminar presenters as revealed<br />
in Table 1, it becomes even clearer that men dominated, at least in the<br />
early years. While the numbers <strong>of</strong> attendees fluctuated, gender percent-<br />
TABLE 1<br />
ATTENDANCE CHARACTERISTICS<br />
%<br />
Conference Male | Female Total # LIS%<br />
1961 100% | 0% 7 17<br />
1965 70 | 30 13 38<br />
1968 100 | 0 11 45<br />
1971 84 | 16 25 44<br />
1976 73 | 27 15 66<br />
1980 68 | 32 34 47<br />
1985 75 | 25 28 36<br />
1990 72 | 28 29 45<br />
1995 43 | 57 28 50<br />
Average 76 | 24 21 43
TABLE 2<br />
ALISE MEMBERSHIP BY GENDER<br />
ALISE Male Female<br />
1976 59% 41%<br />
1980 58 42<br />
1985 57 43<br />
1990 53 47<br />
1995 51 49<br />
ages show a relatively steady increase in women as presenters after 1971<br />
until a substantial jump in 1995, when women become a clear majority.<br />
Whether the 1995 figure is an aberration or indicative <strong>of</strong> an emerging<br />
trend will become clearer in the future.<br />
Another way to understand the impact <strong>of</strong> gender is with a longitudinal<br />
view <strong>of</strong> the percentage <strong>of</strong> women faculty members in library and information<br />
science programs. Data from the Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science<br />
Education Statistical Report, for years in common with the Library History<br />
Seminars, appear in Table 2. 9 It is readily apparent that women have<br />
steadily increased their presence among LIS faculties to the point <strong>of</strong> near<br />
equality by 1995. <strong>The</strong> growth <strong>of</strong> women as a percentage <strong>of</strong> the total is<br />
further evidenced by data that represent the number <strong>of</strong> women and men<br />
earning Ph.D.’s in history during the same time period. <strong>The</strong>se percentages<br />
are shown in Table 3 and again indicate a steady increase in the<br />
numbers <strong>of</strong> women who, especially beginning in the 1980s, earned doctorates<br />
in history. <strong>The</strong> inexorable increase <strong>of</strong> women as pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
TABLE 3<br />
PH.D.’S GRANTED IN HISTORY<br />
Year Male Female<br />
1960–61 93% 7%<br />
1964–65 91 9<br />
1968–69 87 13<br />
1970–71 88 12<br />
1975–76 78 22<br />
1980–81 69 31<br />
1985–86 67 33<br />
1990–91 64 36<br />
1993–94 63 37<br />
Ave. 74% 26%<br />
163
164 L&C/<strong>The</strong> First Nine Seminars<br />
historians and as members <strong>of</strong> LIS faculty over the past thirty years is<br />
mirrored in their involvement in Library History Seminars. Although<br />
women have long dominated librarianship, the opposite holds for the historical<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ession until recently. That women are enjoying a stronger<br />
presence among those presenting papers at the seminars should not be<br />
surprising given overall trends in the numbers <strong>of</strong> women earning doctorates<br />
in history or joining LIS faculties since 1960. 10<br />
Tables 4 and 5 <strong>of</strong>fer more detailed information concerning the LIS presenters<br />
at the seminars. Table 4 identifies individuals who participated in<br />
at least two seminars. Robert V. Williams is the most active presenter,<br />
but Wayne Wiegand is a close second. Institutional affiliation fascinates<br />
investigators, and Table 5 shows this for the seminars’ LIS participants.<br />
Neither Mississippi State College for Women (now Mississippi <strong>University</strong><br />
for Women) nor Purdue <strong>University</strong> has ever had LIS programs.<br />
Loughborough <strong>University</strong> is a British LIS school. <strong>The</strong> rest now have (or<br />
had at one time) LIS programs during the period under review. <strong>The</strong> preponderance<br />
<strong>of</strong> these institutions in Table 5 should not be surprising,<br />
since library school faculty are under greater pressure to engage in<br />
scholarly activity than librarians with nonteaching appointments.<br />
Although not supporting a library school, the library faculty at Purdue<br />
<strong>University</strong>, led by Mark Tucker, have for many years maintained an avid<br />
interest in library history.<br />
TABLE 4<br />
FREQUENT PAPER PRESENTERS BY NAME<br />
AND NUMBER OF TIMES PRESENTING<br />
Two Three Four Six<br />
Choldin Dain Wiegand Williams, R. V.<br />
Colson Gambee<br />
Harris, M. Jackson, E.<br />
Harris, N. Kaser<br />
Holley, E. Maack<br />
Johnson, D. McMullen<br />
Marcum Richards, P.<br />
Martin, R. Stieg (Darnton)<br />
Mish<strong>of</strong>f<br />
Rosenberg<br />
Rush<br />
Slavens<br />
Sturges<br />
Tucker
TABLE 5<br />
INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION FOR LIS OR LIBRARIANSHIP<br />
AND NUMBER OF TIMES AN INSTITUTION IS REPRESENTED<br />
Two Three Four Six Eight<br />
Catholic U. Case Western Res. Columbia Indiana U. U. <strong>of</strong> Illinois–<br />
MSt. for W. Kent State U. <strong>of</strong> Alabama U. <strong>of</strong> Chicago Chicago<br />
Rutgers U. Loughborough U. U. <strong>of</strong> Kentucky UNC–Chapel Hill<br />
UC-Berkeley Louisiana State U.<br />
UCLA Purdue<br />
Wayne St. Florida State<br />
U. <strong>of</strong> Michigan<br />
U. <strong>of</strong> Minnesota<br />
U. <strong>of</strong> South Carolina<br />
U. <strong>of</strong> Texas–Austin<br />
U. <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin–Madison<br />
A number <strong>of</strong> studies <strong>of</strong> library and information science scholars have<br />
considered institutional affiliation. 11 In library history, an examination <strong>of</strong><br />
institutional affiliation for Libraries & Culture and its predecessor, the<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, by Jean-Pierre Hérubel revealed that faculty at<br />
the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas, the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina at Chapel Hill,<br />
and the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Kentucky were prominently featured as authors. 12<br />
Although it is obvious that participation in the seminars represents a different<br />
type <strong>of</strong> scholarly involvement with the requirement <strong>of</strong> travel to a<br />
specific site, it is nevertheless useful to compare attendance at the seminars<br />
with the results <strong>of</strong> a recent study <strong>of</strong> those who attended the ACRL<br />
triennial conferences between 1978 and 1992. In the ACRL study, the top<br />
five institutions were the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois–Chicago, Purdue<br />
<strong>University</strong>, Indiana <strong>University</strong>, Ohio State <strong>University</strong>, and Penn State<br />
<strong>University</strong>. 13 Table 5 shows that Purdue <strong>University</strong>, Indiana <strong>University</strong>,<br />
and the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois–Chicago appear on both lists. Ironically, all<br />
three universities are located within a radius <strong>of</strong> 200 miles. What is it<br />
about these three institutions that has led them to support conference<br />
attendance more than others? Since only Indiana <strong>University</strong> hosts a<br />
library school, it is difficult to compare the three, but the fact remains<br />
that these schools demonstrate high involvement in conference activity.<br />
Indeed, the question <strong>of</strong> geographic representation is the subject <strong>of</strong> the<br />
next group <strong>of</strong> tables.<br />
Table 6 distributes the nine seminar participants by state and by pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
affiliation, either as teaching faculty or a library practitioner. It<br />
does not distinguish between library school faculty and non–library school<br />
faculty. <strong>The</strong> right-hand column indicates the percentage <strong>of</strong> participants<br />
from a state that are associated with librarianship. Table 7 further refines<br />
the data from the right-hand column <strong>of</strong> Table 6. Finally, Table 8 uses the<br />
165
166 L&C/<strong>The</strong> First Nine Seminars<br />
United States Census regional categories (arranged by number, not percentage)<br />
<strong>of</strong> Seminar participants who were LIS faculty to provide more<br />
detailed information about the regional characteristics <strong>of</strong> seminar participants.<br />
We can see that over the years the eastern portion <strong>of</strong> the Midwest<br />
and the southeastern part <strong>of</strong> the United States supplied most <strong>of</strong> the participants.<br />
Since these are aggregate figures, it is important to mention<br />
that the early seminars were held in Florida, giving that region a preponderance<br />
<strong>of</strong> attendees that it did not enjoy in subsequent seminars.<br />
Examination <strong>of</strong> individual seminars more clearly reveals this shift. Tables<br />
6, 7, and 8 provide a somewhat different picture <strong>of</strong> the seminars, but the<br />
TABLE 6<br />
PARTICIPANTS BY STATE AND OCCUPATION<br />
State Total LIS Non-LIS % LIS<br />
Alabama 4 4 0 100<br />
Arizona 2 1 1 50<br />
California 10 7 3 70<br />
Florida 13 6 7 46<br />
Georgia 4 3 1 75<br />
Illinois 23 18 5 72<br />
Indiana 10 9 1 90<br />
Kentucky 6 6 0 100<br />
Louisiana 3 3 0 100<br />
Maryland 3 0 3 0<br />
Massachusetts 7 3 4 42<br />
Michigan 6 6 0 100<br />
Minnesota 3 2 1 66<br />
Mississippi 2 2 0 100<br />
New Jersey 2 2 0 100<br />
New York 18 10 8 55<br />
North Carolina 10 9 1 90<br />
Ohio 8 8 0 100<br />
Pennsylvania 2 2 0 100<br />
South Carolina 4 4 0 100<br />
Tennessee 2 1 1 50<br />
Texas 12 4 8 33<br />
Virginia 2 2 0 100<br />
Washington, D.C. 8 6 2 75<br />
Washington 1 1 0 100<br />
Wisconsin 3 3 0 100<br />
Total 168 122 (73%) 46 (27%)
TABLE 7<br />
GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION OF LIS PARTICIPANTS AS<br />
PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL PARTICIPANTS<br />
0–25% 26–50% 51–75% 76–100%<br />
Maryland Arizona California Alabama<br />
Florida Georgia Indiana<br />
Massachusetts Illinois Kentucky<br />
Tennessee Minnesota Louisiana<br />
Texas New York Michigan<br />
Washington, D.C. Mississippi<br />
New Jersey<br />
North Carolina<br />
Ohio<br />
Pennsylvania<br />
South Carolina<br />
Virginia<br />
Washington<br />
Wisconsin<br />
dominance <strong>of</strong> the Midwest reflected in Table 5 is confirmed by these data<br />
as well. Moreover, when all nine seminars are examined, the West is<br />
poorly represented, with only California making much <strong>of</strong> a showing.<br />
Table 9 takes the subject matter <strong>of</strong> the presentations and categorizes<br />
them roughly into a matrix defined by chronology and topic. 14 <strong>The</strong> table<br />
reflects the primary historical periods <strong>of</strong> the presentations. By way <strong>of</strong><br />
TABLE 8<br />
DETAILED CENSUS<br />
REGIONAL BREAKDOWN<br />
West/Pacific 11<br />
West/Mountain 2<br />
Midwest/West North Central 3<br />
Midwest/East North Central 50<br />
Northeast/Middle Atlantic 22<br />
Northeast/New England 7<br />
South/West South Central 15<br />
South/East South Central 14<br />
South/Atlantic 44<br />
Total 168<br />
167
168 L&C/<strong>The</strong> First Nine Seminars<br />
TABLE 9<br />
PRESENTATIONS BY SUBJECT AND ERA<br />
SUB Gen Pre-16 16 17 18/1 18/2 19 19/1 19/2 20 20/1 20/2 Ttl<br />
Aca 3 3<br />
Ass 3 1 2 4 10<br />
Bio 1 1 1 2 4 1 8 18<br />
Bk 5 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 1 16<br />
Gen 12 1 2 1 16<br />
His 13 1 3 17<br />
LC 1 1 1 3<br />
LIS 1 3 4<br />
Pr 1 1 2 1 2 2 9<br />
Pu 7 1 1 8 2 1 20<br />
Sp 1 1 1 3 1 2 1 10<br />
Wo 1 2 3<br />
Ttl 44 1 2 2 5 1 4 12 25 9 19 5<br />
AcaAcademic; AssAssociations; BioBiography; BkBooks and Reading;<br />
GenGeneral; HisHistoriography; LCLibrary <strong>of</strong> Congress; LISLibrary and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science Education; PrPrivate Libraries; PuPublic Libraries;<br />
SpSpecial Libraries; WoWomen in Librarianship; TtlTotal<br />
further explanation, 19/1 means the period from 1800 to 1850, and 19/2<br />
covers the period from 1851 to 1899. It was not necessary to divide the<br />
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries since discussants treated them<br />
broadly. <strong>The</strong> nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which generated more<br />
detailed interest, required an entire column for papers whose subjectmatter<br />
treated those entire centuries. <strong>The</strong> subject areas to the left are<br />
derived from the arrangements used in the biennial Libraries & Culture<br />
literature reviews. Table 9 reveals that many <strong>of</strong> the papers were either on<br />
very broad topics that defied categorization or were devoted to large<br />
spans <strong>of</strong> time and thus fell into the General category; and the recent<br />
period garnered the most attention, which is not surprising since U.S.<br />
topics dominated the seminar papers, and our history is relatively short<br />
in duration. Nor should this be surprising since the latter part <strong>of</strong> the<br />
nineteenth and early part <strong>of</strong> the twentieth centuries comprise the bulk <strong>of</strong><br />
the reported research. Most <strong>of</strong> our subdiscipline’s historiography has been<br />
focused on this formative era from around 1870 through World War II.<br />
Although the table does not show it, the five papers devoted to the last<br />
half <strong>of</strong> the twentieth century were all given at the 1995 seminar. As time<br />
progresses, the period after 1950 will increasingly become eligible for<br />
vigorous scholarly investigation. Table 9 also shows that presentations
devoted to public libraries and biographical topics have been plentiful<br />
over the years, with historiography and books and reading close behind.<br />
Indeed, Table 9 indicates that research into books and reading spans<br />
almost the entire chronology. Moreover, interest in this topic has grown<br />
steadily in the past ten years, with several presentations devoted to books<br />
and reading at both the 1985 and the 1990 seminars. 15 On the other<br />
hand, academic libraries, the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, and women as librarians<br />
have been the least explored topics. It should be mentioned here,<br />
however, that the two papers on women in librarianship appeared at the<br />
1995 seminar. Increased interest in that topic will likely occur in future<br />
seminars.<br />
Analyzing the seminars by subject and historically significant time periods<br />
is difficult, and certainly more perspectives are possible. For example,<br />
the arrangement <strong>of</strong> Table 9 could be applied to each seminar, charting in<br />
more detail the shifting landscape <strong>of</strong> topics that intrigued library historians<br />
at each stop along the way. I will leave this task for future investigators.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Library History Seminars, launched in 1961 by the energetic<br />
Shores and his colleagues, are still alive and well as the century ends. <strong>The</strong><br />
dozens and dozens <strong>of</strong> scholars who have shared their research at the nine<br />
seminars over the past four decades testify to the intellectual vigor that<br />
Shores, Shirley, and Milam believed possible for the fledgling American<br />
Library History Round Table. Building on a tradition <strong>of</strong> hearing learned<br />
presentations started in the middle <strong>of</strong> the seventeenth century by members<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Royal Society <strong>of</strong> London, the seminars have built a solid foundation<br />
<strong>of</strong> enduring scholarship. <strong>The</strong> diverse nature <strong>of</strong> the topics pursued<br />
over the years and the range <strong>of</strong> institutions represented reflect the<br />
expanding appeal <strong>of</strong> library history as a worthwhile intellectual endeavor<br />
for library scholars throughout not only the United States but other<br />
nations as well. This pro<strong>file</strong> has sought to show who we were and where we<br />
came from between 1961 and 1995; future seminars should chart where<br />
our discipline will go in the next century.<br />
Notes<br />
169<br />
1. Louis Shores, Quiet World: A Librarian’s Crusade for Destiny (Hamden, Conn.:<br />
Linnet Books, 1975), 231. A good source for Shores’s views on the value <strong>of</strong> library<br />
history can be found in his “<strong>The</strong> Importance <strong>of</strong> Library History,” in John David<br />
Marshall, ed., An American Library History Reader: Contributions to Library Literature<br />
(Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961), 3–7.<br />
2. Shores, Quiet World, 231–34; Lee Shiflett, Louis Shores: Defining Educational<br />
Librarianship (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996), 213. Shores also reflected on<br />
Wayne Shirley’s influence in “Wayne Shirley: In Memoriam,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
History 9 (October 1974): 291–92.<br />
3. <strong>The</strong> proceedings <strong>of</strong> the Library History Seminars have been published in<br />
the following: John D. Marshall, ed., In Pursuit <strong>of</strong> Library History, Library History
170 L&C/<strong>The</strong> First Nine Seminars<br />
Seminar 1, Proceedings, 1961 (Tallahassee: Florida State <strong>University</strong> Library<br />
<strong>School</strong>, 1961); John D. Marshall, ed., Approaches to Library History, Library History<br />
Seminar 2, Proceedings, 1965 (Tallahassee: Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, 1966);<br />
Martha Jane K. Zachert, ed., Library History Seminar, No. 3, Proceedings, 1968<br />
(Tallahassee: Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, 1968); Harold Goldstein and John<br />
Goudeau, eds., Library History Seminar, No. 4, Proceedings, 1971 (Tallahassee: Florida<br />
State <strong>University</strong> <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Science, 1972); Harold Goldstein, ed.,<br />
Milestones to the Present: Papers from Library History Seminar V (Syracuse, N.Y.: Gaylord<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Publications, 1978); Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Libraries & Culture:<br />
Proceedings <strong>of</strong> Library History Seminar VI, 19–22 March 1980, Austin, Texas (Austin:<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, 1981); Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Libraries, Books &<br />
Culture: Proceedings <strong>of</strong> the Library History Seminar VII, 6–8 March 1985, Chapel Hill,<br />
North Carolina (Austin: Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin, 1986); Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Reading & Libraries:<br />
Proceedings <strong>of</strong> the Library History Seminar VIII, 9–11 May 1990, Bloomington, Indiana<br />
(Austin: Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Texas at Austin, 1991); and Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Libraries & Philanthropy:<br />
Proceedings <strong>of</strong> Library History Seminar IX, 30 March–1 April, 1995, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Alabama, Tuscaloosa (Austin: Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin, 1996).<br />
Reviews <strong>of</strong> several <strong>of</strong> the seminars are available: Elmer D. Johnson, review<br />
<strong>of</strong> Library History Seminar, No. 3, Proceedings, 1968, in Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 6<br />
(October 1971): 376–79; Betsy Vantine, “Special Report: Library History Seminar<br />
Eyes Libraries & Culture [Library History Seminar, No. 6, 1980],” Library Journal 105<br />
(June 1980): 1254–58 (it should be noted that Vantine errs in saying this is the<br />
fourth seminar); Millicent Huff, “Libraries and Culture: A Brief Report <strong>of</strong><br />
Library History Seminar VI,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 15 (Summer 1980): 309–19;<br />
Mary Pound, “Libraries, Books & Culture: A Brief Report <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
Seminar VII,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 20 (Fall 1985): 434–38; Ralph Lee Scott,<br />
“Libraries, Books, and Culture,” North Carolina Libraries 43 (Summer 1985): 108–9;<br />
James V. Carmichael, Jr., “Reading & Libraries: A Brief Report <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
Seminar VIII,” Libraries & Culture 26 (Summer 1991): 540–46; P. Toby Graham,<br />
“Libraries & Philanthropy: <strong>The</strong> Proceedings <strong>of</strong> Library History Seminar IX,<br />
Spring 1995, the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Alabama, Tuscaloosa,” Libraries & Culture 32 (Fall<br />
1997): 470–73; and John Feather, “Libraries & Philanthropy: <strong>The</strong> Proceedings <strong>of</strong><br />
Library History Seminar IX,” Library Quarterly 68 (April 1998): 231–32.<br />
4. For general data, see Anita R. Schiller, “Women in Librarianship,” in<br />
Kathleen Weibel and Kathleen M. Heim, eds., <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> Women in Librarianship<br />
1876–1976: <strong>The</strong> Entry, Advancement, and Struggle for Equalization in One Pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />
(Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1979), 222–56. Another good historical source is the<br />
collection <strong>of</strong> essays edited by Heim, <strong>The</strong> Status <strong>of</strong> Women in Librarianship: Historical,<br />
Sociological, and Economic Issues (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1983).<br />
5. Mary Jo Lynch and Gerald Hodges, “1993 ALA Member Opinion Survey<br />
Reveals One New Major Player,” American Libraries 25 (June 1994): 598.<br />
6. Census data for the period from 1870 to 1970 are summarized by Schiller,<br />
“Women in Librarianship,” 238, Table VII. Data for 1980 came from 1980 Census <strong>of</strong><br />
Population. Detailed Occupation <strong>of</strong> the Experienced Civilian Labor Force by Sex for the United<br />
States Regions: 1980 and 1970. Supplemental Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S.<br />
Department <strong>of</strong> Commerce, Bureau <strong>of</strong> the Census, 1984), 26. <strong>The</strong> 1990 figure<br />
comes from “Census 90: Detailed Occupation by Race, Hispanic Origin and Sex,”<br />
Censtats: An Electronic Subscription Service http://tier2.gov/cgi-win/eeo/eeodata.exe.
171<br />
7. <strong>The</strong> best overall view <strong>of</strong> the historical pr<strong>of</strong>ession, especially for the period<br />
after World War II, is by Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: <strong>The</strong> Objectivity Question and<br />
the American Historical Pr<strong>of</strong>ession (New York: Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1988).<br />
Also useful is John Higham’s magisterial survey, History: Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Scholarship in<br />
America, updated paperback ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins <strong>University</strong> Press,<br />
1989). For women as historians from a broad perspective, see Joan Scott, Gender<br />
and the Politics <strong>of</strong> History (New York: Columbia <strong>University</strong> Press, 1988) and Bonnie<br />
G. Smith, <strong>The</strong> Gender <strong>of</strong> History: Men, Women, and Historical Practice (Cambridge,<br />
Mass.: Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1998). In her book, Scott has an excellent chapter<br />
devoted to women historians from 1884 to 1994. Two older works that are still<br />
valuable are Jessie Bernard, Academic Women (<strong>University</strong> Park: Pennsylvania State<br />
<strong>University</strong> Press, 1964), and Lucille Addison Pollard, Women on College and<br />
<strong>University</strong> Faculties: A Historical Survey and a Study <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong>ir Present Academic Status<br />
(New York: Arno Press, 1977). For more on the background to the development<br />
<strong>of</strong> modern women historians, see Jacqueline Goggin, “Challenging Sexual<br />
Discrimination in the Historical Pr<strong>of</strong>ession: Women Historians and the American<br />
Historical Association, 1890–1940,” American Historical Review 97 (June 1992):<br />
769–802.<br />
8. Personal e-mail correspondence to the author from Catherine Sias,<br />
American Library Association, 13 July 1998.<br />
9. Timothy W. Sineath, ed., Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science Education Statistical<br />
Report 1995 (Raleigh, N.C.: Association for Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science<br />
Education, 1995), 5.<br />
10. In Table 3, the source for the years 1960–61 is Wayne E. Tolliver, Earned<br />
Degrees Conferred, 1960–1961: Bachelor’s and Higher Degrees (Washington, D.C.: U.S.<br />
Department <strong>of</strong> Health, Education and Welfare, 1963), 223. Data for the rest <strong>of</strong><br />
the years in Table 3 were found in the appropriate volumes <strong>of</strong> Digest <strong>of</strong> Education<br />
Statistics (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department <strong>of</strong> Health, Education and<br />
Welfare), with the publication date in parentheses: for 1964–65, p. 81 (1966); for<br />
1970–71, p. 102 (1972); for 1975–76, p. 113 (1977–78). For 1980 on, the sponsoring<br />
agency for this statistical series changed to the Department <strong>of</strong> Education: for<br />
1980–81, p. 117 (1983–84); for 1985–86, p. 201 (1988); for 1990–91, p. 254 (1993);<br />
for 1993–94, p. 284 (1997).<br />
11. Some recent studies that examine institutional affiliation include Paula D.<br />
Watson, “Production <strong>of</strong> Scholarly Articles by Academic Librarians and Library<br />
<strong>School</strong> Faculty,” College & Research Libraries 46 (July 1985): 334–42; John M. Budd<br />
and Charles A. Seavey, “Characteristics <strong>of</strong> Journal Authorship by Academic<br />
Librarians,” College & Research Libraries 51 (September 1990): 463–70; John M.<br />
Budd and Charles A. Seavey, “Productivity <strong>of</strong> U.S. Library and <strong>Information</strong><br />
Science Faculty: <strong>The</strong> Hayes Study Revisited,” Library Quarterly 66 (January 1996):<br />
1–20; A. Neil Yerkey, “Publishing in Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science: Audience,<br />
Subjects, Affiliation, Source, and Format,” Library & <strong>Information</strong> Science Research 15<br />
(Spring 1993): 165–83; James L. Terry, “Authorship in College & Research<br />
Libraries Revisited: Gender, Institutional Affiliation, Collaboration,” College &<br />
Research Libraries 57 (July 1996): 377–83; and a comparison with all faculty can be<br />
found in John M. Budd, “Faculty Publishing Productivity: An Institutional<br />
Analysis and Comparison with Library and Other Measures,” College & Research<br />
Libraries 56 (November 1995): 547–54.<br />
12. Jean-Pierre V. M. Hérubel, “Authorship, Gender, and Institutional<br />
Affiliation in Library History: <strong>The</strong> Case <strong>of</strong> Libraries & Culture,” Behavioral & Social<br />
Sciences Librarian 11, no. 1 (1991): 53.
172 L&C/<strong>The</strong> First Nine Seminars<br />
13. Anne L. Buchanan, Edward A. Goedeken, and Jean-Pierre V. M. Hérubel,<br />
“Scholarly Communication among Academic Librarians: An Analysis <strong>of</strong> Six<br />
ACRL Proceedings,” Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian 14, no. 2 (1996): 9.<br />
14. This table was created using a simplistic form <strong>of</strong> content analysis to assign<br />
categories for the presentations. <strong>The</strong> basic text for this methodology is Klaus<br />
Kripendorff, Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (Beverly Hills, Calif.:<br />
Sage Publications, 1980). Also quite useful is Robert Philip Weber, Basic Content<br />
Analysis, 2nd ed. (Newberry Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1990). A fine current<br />
literature review can be found in Daniel Riffe and Alan Freitag, “A Content<br />
Analysis <strong>of</strong> Content Analyses: Twenty-five Years <strong>of</strong> Journalism Quarterly,”<br />
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 74 (Winter 1997): 873–82.<br />
15. Wayne Wiegand provides an informative overview <strong>of</strong> the burgeoning literature<br />
devoted to the study <strong>of</strong> print culture in “Introduction: <strong>The</strong>oretical<br />
Foundations for Analyzing Print Culture as Agency and Practice in a Diverse<br />
Modern America,” in James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Print Culture<br />
in a Diverse America (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1998), 1–13.
Advancing the Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History and<br />
Libraries & Culture<br />
Jon Arvid Aho and Donald G. Davis, Jr.<br />
Founded in 1966 at Florida State <strong>University</strong> by Louis Shores, the quarterly<br />
Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History moved to the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin in<br />
1976 and continues to be published by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press. It was<br />
renamed Libraries & Culture in 1988. While there has been some continuity<br />
in the Florida and Texas years, during the former period the journal<br />
seemed linked more to the library pr<strong>of</strong>ession, whereas during the Texas<br />
years it has been linked more to the literary humanities and the history<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ession. A catalyst for promotion <strong>of</strong> its focus, it presently strives to be<br />
“an interdisciplinary journal that explores the significance <strong>of</strong> collections <strong>of</strong><br />
recorded knowledge—their creation, organization, preservation, and utilization—in<br />
the context <strong>of</strong> cultural and social history, unlimited as to time<br />
or place.” <strong>The</strong> history <strong>of</strong> this unique journal is intertwined with the evolution<br />
<strong>of</strong> library history in the last third <strong>of</strong> the twentieth century.<br />
<strong>The</strong> idea for a journal devoted to library history came in a meeting <strong>of</strong><br />
the American Library History Round Table. That is the way Louis Shores<br />
remembered it. In a 1974 memorial for his friend and colleague Wayne<br />
Shirley, Shores recalled events from decades before—events that would<br />
lead to the formation <strong>of</strong> three pivotal institutions for the study <strong>of</strong> library<br />
history in this country. 1<br />
First, Shores remembered how at the 1946 ALA Convention he had<br />
joined with Shirley in discussing with President Carl Milan the possibility<br />
<strong>of</strong> a greater role for library history in the ALA. <strong>The</strong> result <strong>of</strong> the conversations<br />
held by the trio <strong>of</strong> library leaders was the formation <strong>of</strong> a round<br />
table for all those interested in discussing and supporting library history.<br />
At the 1947 annual meeting <strong>of</strong> the ALA, the American Library History<br />
Round Table (ALHRT) gained <strong>of</strong>ficial recognition. 2 Both Shirley and<br />
Shores continued to support the fledgling ALHRT for two decades, the<br />
former as chairman, the latter as secretary. For fifty years the Round<br />
Table has provided an institutional home in which those interested in the<br />
field <strong>of</strong> library history can gather together once or twice a year to read<br />
papers and, in general, to assess the state <strong>of</strong> the field.<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
174 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
Later, the ALHRT played a significant role in the founding <strong>of</strong> another<br />
institution <strong>of</strong> library history in this country, one that provided an ongoing<br />
opportunity for the exchange <strong>of</strong> scholarly communication. For as Shores<br />
also recalled in the same memorial to Shirley, “It was at ALHRT meetings<br />
that the idea for the first library history journal was born and<br />
nursed. Out <strong>of</strong> repeated urgings, and encouragement from Wayne, I, as<br />
his ALHRT secretary, undertook to launch the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History,<br />
Philosophy and Comparative Librarianship (JLH) at Florida State <strong>University</strong><br />
in 1965.” 3 Throughout its thirty-four years <strong>of</strong> existence, the Journal has<br />
provided about 600 articles, 1,470 book reviews, and a continuous flow <strong>of</strong><br />
current information in the field <strong>of</strong> library history. 4<br />
Shores also mentioned a third influential institution <strong>of</strong> library history,<br />
the Library History Seminars. That institution, too, emerged from meetings<br />
<strong>of</strong> the ALHRT and, in particular, from the personal urgings <strong>of</strong><br />
Wayne Shirley. 5 Taking this cue, Shores collaborated with John David<br />
Marshall, and together they instituted the first seminar in 1961. 6 A total<br />
<strong>of</strong> nine seminars have been held between 1961 and 1995, with the tenth<br />
scheduled for the year 2000. <strong>The</strong>y have provided periodic opportunities<br />
to read and discuss important papers and <strong>issue</strong>s in the field.<br />
<strong>The</strong> original idea <strong>of</strong> Shores and Shirley to seek a larger role for library<br />
history bore enduring institutional fruit. <strong>The</strong> Round Table (1947–) provided<br />
the institutional framework and inspiration for the formation <strong>of</strong><br />
the Library History Seminars (1961–) and, a few years later, for the foundation<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History (1966–). All three institutions<br />
remain important for the field <strong>of</strong> library history and, as their interrelated<br />
origins imply, continue to derive strength from one another.<br />
Of the three institutions, the Journal, because <strong>of</strong> its ongoing interaction<br />
with a relatively large number <strong>of</strong> individuals, has had the greatest<br />
opportunity to solidify and extend the efforts <strong>of</strong> the other two. <strong>The</strong>refore,<br />
focusing this essay on the origin and subsequent history <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Library History may provide us with some insight into what role that scholarly<br />
journal has played in the development <strong>of</strong> the field. Over the last<br />
thirty years, the Journal has manifested itself as an institutional presence<br />
at two schools <strong>of</strong> library science, Florida State <strong>University</strong> (FSU) for the<br />
first ten years, followed by more than twenty years at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Texas at Austin (UT-Austin). That same geographical and chronological<br />
sequence—FSU (1966–76) and UT-Austin (1976–)—will be the framework<br />
<strong>of</strong> this paper. 7<br />
<strong>The</strong> Journal at Florida State <strong>University</strong>, 1966–1976<br />
Louis Shores, the individual so influential in the formation <strong>of</strong> a journal<br />
<strong>of</strong> library history, was a person <strong>of</strong> wide-ranging interests and talents.<br />
Ideas on reference works and service, the educational role <strong>of</strong> encyclope-
175<br />
dias, the library-college concept, media, and library history all jostled for<br />
preeminence in his fertile and protean thought. It was history, however—<br />
a philosophy <strong>of</strong> history essentially Hegelian and mystical—that formed<br />
the core <strong>of</strong> his deepest thought and sustained him throughout a pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
career in librarianship that spanned more than fifty years.<br />
Shores, however, had not started out to become a librarian; his earliest<br />
efforts were devoted to the field <strong>of</strong> education. He began his graduate<br />
work by gaining a master’s degree at City College <strong>of</strong> New York in education<br />
following undergraduate work at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Toledo. It was<br />
only the lack <strong>of</strong> opportunities for him in education that turned him in the<br />
direction <strong>of</strong> librarianship, whereupon he decided to enter the new <strong>School</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong> Library Service at Columbia <strong>University</strong>. He received the B.A. degree<br />
from that institution in 1928. A few years afterward, at George Peabody<br />
College for Teachers, Shores wrote a doctoral dissertation on the history<br />
<strong>of</strong> American Colonial college libraries. 8 It was an excellent work, one<br />
that some have cited “as the beginning <strong>of</strong> the current library history<br />
movement.” 9 Shores always believed that the historical research connected<br />
with his doctor’s degree molded his entire historiographical<br />
approach. 10 It is also reasonable that the research played a part in giving<br />
birth to what he called the “tangibles” <strong>of</strong> his Library History Crusade:<br />
the ALHRT in 1947, the Library History Seminars in 1961, and, finally,<br />
the formation <strong>of</strong> a journal for library history. 11<br />
After succeeding in founding the first two tangibles earlier in his<br />
career at FSU, Shores began to make plans for the journal in the mid-<br />
1960s. Despite his avowed love <strong>of</strong> library history, there is no indication<br />
that he harbored any grandiose conceptions <strong>of</strong> its academic status. In his<br />
estimation, the subfield <strong>of</strong> library history, though rarely exposed to open<br />
derision, was in reality the neglected child <strong>of</strong> the library science family.<br />
After the founding <strong>of</strong> the journal, Shores referred to this benign neglect<br />
when recalling “the previously neglected areas <strong>of</strong> library history, philosophy,<br />
and comparative librarianship.” 12 That neglect, he implied, was<br />
longstanding but in its current manifestation was traceable to a quixotic<br />
quest for novelty and change begun in the 1950s and 1960s by many<br />
American library leaders. In that trendy cultural milieu, the stolid writings<br />
<strong>of</strong> the historians “have found no outlet in pr<strong>of</strong>essional journals that<br />
for the most part are committed to the current scene.” 13 In all likelihood,<br />
Shores believed that the broader and longer perspective engendered by a<br />
journal <strong>of</strong> library history would act as a voice <strong>of</strong> reason in the midst <strong>of</strong><br />
the cacophony <strong>of</strong> the change agents. 14 Furthermore, the journal would<br />
assume a practical role by providing a convenient place for publishing<br />
some <strong>of</strong> the better papers originally read at the Round Table meetings.<br />
Based upon his extensive previous experience in journal publication,<br />
Shores estimated that three hundred subscribers were needed in order to<br />
sustain the new journal. When a comprehensive campaign for subscribers
176 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
finally raised the required number, he gave the approval to proceed. 15<br />
<strong>The</strong> inaugural <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, Philosophy and<br />
Comparative Librarianship was published by the library school in January<br />
1966. Links with the past were maintained when Wayne Shirley, Shores’s<br />
friend and colleague, sent congratulations from the American Library<br />
History Roundtable <strong>of</strong> the ALA. 16 A new journal had been born.<br />
<strong>The</strong> editorial and advisory boards for the new journal were impressive.<br />
Shores had gathered a cadre <strong>of</strong> local volunteers around him, people like<br />
N. Orwin Rush, Richard A. Bartlett, Martha Jane K. Zachert, and, a few<br />
years later, Barbara McCrimmon. 17 All <strong>of</strong> these individuals were listed<br />
on the masthead <strong>of</strong> the first <strong>issue</strong>. Shores, <strong>of</strong> course, was listed as the<br />
editor, but six other editors were provided in the categories <strong>of</strong> associate,<br />
department, and consulting. In addition, an administrative assistant,<br />
Marguerite Sellars, was listed. As Shores’s secretary, she artfully handled<br />
a multitude <strong>of</strong> duties, including “bookkeeping and subscription services,<br />
the shuffling <strong>of</strong> manuscripts, and the organizational structure <strong>of</strong> the journal.”<br />
18 In addition to the editorial assistance, a second category, the faculty<br />
publications board, listed three chairmen. <strong>The</strong>se individuals acted as<br />
referees for the articles submitted to the journal. A third category was<br />
the international advisory board, which listed eighteen advisors from five<br />
continents and the United Nations.<br />
<strong>The</strong> new journal published by the FSU team came <strong>of</strong>f the press in an<br />
eighty-eight-page, saddle-stitched binding format, sporting a light green<br />
cover with the stylized logo “JLH” on it. 19 <strong>The</strong> cover <strong>of</strong> the first <strong>issue</strong><br />
gave the name, the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History. <strong>The</strong> title page, however, provided<br />
a fuller title: the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, Philosophy and Comparative<br />
Librarianship, but with the additional words <strong>of</strong> the expanded version in a<br />
smaller size type. When the title <strong>of</strong> the journal was given in the text,<br />
most writers used the short title, but others used the expanded version. 20<br />
Much to the consternation <strong>of</strong> catalogers, there was always some degree<br />
<strong>of</strong> ambiguity about the exact name <strong>of</strong> the Journal.<br />
<strong>The</strong> overall arrangement <strong>of</strong> the journal was a composite or mixed format,<br />
being comprised <strong>of</strong> both scholarly articles and editorial columns or<br />
departments. <strong>The</strong> six editorial departments were “Epitome,” “Of<br />
Librarians and Historians,” “Vignettes <strong>of</strong> Library History,” “Libraries<br />
Abroad,” “JLH Bookshelf,” and “Sources.” <strong>The</strong> editorial approach <strong>of</strong> the<br />
departments (except for the last two) was to present a personal view <strong>of</strong><br />
the library world, stressing current events and conditions.<br />
<strong>The</strong> “Articles” section, though, was the centerpiece <strong>of</strong> the quarterly<br />
journal. Over the 11 volumes (44 <strong>issue</strong>s) at FSU, there were a total <strong>of</strong><br />
about 165 articles, though admittedly a few <strong>of</strong> the articles were simply<br />
brief informational pieces. <strong>The</strong> articles dealt with all <strong>of</strong> the varied<br />
aspects <strong>of</strong> the field, including books, libraries, librarianship, printing,
177<br />
library education, and a number <strong>of</strong> other areas. All periods <strong>of</strong> history<br />
were dealt with, including ancient and medieval. A striking number <strong>of</strong><br />
overview articles on libraries and librarianship in an international context<br />
(Colombia, Thailand, Pakistan, West Germany, India-Pakistan,<br />
Johannesburg, Jamaica, Pretoria, National Diet Library <strong>of</strong> Japan, etc.)<br />
were included.<br />
<strong>The</strong> authors <strong>of</strong> the articles expressed an appreciation for viewing<br />
libraries within their surrounding cultures. Even with this view, however,<br />
the stress was strongly on the library as an institution <strong>of</strong> society, and<br />
decidedly less stress was placed upon the connections or nexus between<br />
the culture and the library. For instance, in the premier <strong>issue</strong>, Frank<br />
Woodford made the astute observation that “a history <strong>of</strong> a library reflects<br />
clearly the history <strong>of</strong> the community it serves, and it does it better than<br />
can the history <strong>of</strong> almost any other local institution.” 21 Despite this<br />
understanding, Woodford retreated to the tried-and-true approach <strong>of</strong><br />
writing library history, focusing narrowly on the institutional histories <strong>of</strong><br />
individual libraries. Woodford envisioned the task <strong>of</strong> library historians as<br />
being the compiling <strong>of</strong> more and more histories <strong>of</strong> libraries. It may not<br />
be too much to say that the understanding <strong>of</strong> “library history” during the<br />
FSU years placed a heavy stress upon the word “library” and less upon<br />
“history.”<br />
As for the departments themselves, oversight <strong>of</strong> the premier one,<br />
“Epitome,” was the responsibility <strong>of</strong> Louis Shores. Featured at the beginning<br />
<strong>of</strong> each <strong>issue</strong>, it was laid out in sequentially numbered paragraphs<br />
in which Shores commented and exhorted on matters relating to library<br />
history, comparative librarianship, philosophy, and other aspects <strong>of</strong> the<br />
field.<br />
In the back <strong>of</strong> each <strong>issue</strong> was “Of Librarians and Historians” under the<br />
editorship <strong>of</strong> Richard A. Bartlett <strong>of</strong> the Department <strong>of</strong> History at FSU.<br />
Bartlett commonly featured librarians or aspects <strong>of</strong> bibliophilic lore.<br />
Some <strong>of</strong> the beginning topics were “Ask about Values,” “Historians at the<br />
Huntington,” “How Strange about Books!” and “Treasures in the Attic.”<br />
“Vignettes <strong>of</strong> Library History” was under the editorial responsibility <strong>of</strong><br />
John E. Clemons. This department was similar to Bartlett’s department,<br />
providing brief stories or anecdotes about libraries or librarians.<br />
Beginning with “<strong>The</strong> Library That Saved a <strong>University</strong>” and “Dewey in<br />
Florida,” the column produced the much-discussed “Casanova, Lover <strong>of</strong><br />
Books and Libraries” and, later, “A Regimental Library in the<br />
Confederate Army.”<br />
“Libraries Abroad” was a department featuring comparative librarianship.<br />
Under the editorship <strong>of</strong> Miles Jackson, the department would<br />
describe newsworthy happenings in libraries around the world, including<br />
building projects and the like. <strong>The</strong>re were <strong>of</strong>ten several pages devoted to
178 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
the department, in most cases categorized under the geographical headings<br />
<strong>of</strong> America, Europe, Asia, Australasia, and Africa. Sometimes,<br />
though, the entire column would concentrate on the building or renovation<br />
<strong>of</strong> a single library. Robert V. Williams, who assumed responsibility<br />
for this topic, discussed the <strong>issue</strong>s in a 1<strong>973</strong> editorial. 22<br />
John David Marshall was the editor <strong>of</strong> “JLH Bookshelf,” which<br />
reviewed about two hundred books during the eleven years <strong>of</strong> the Journal<br />
at FSU. Each <strong>issue</strong> featured some four or five current works in the field<br />
<strong>of</strong> library history that were selected for review. Some <strong>of</strong> the reviews were<br />
two pages or more in length, though a few were cited with only a brief<br />
descriptive paragraph provided.<br />
A new department, “Sources,” was introduced several years later.<br />
Under the direction <strong>of</strong> Martha Jane Zachert, it was a valuable column<br />
that pointed library historians to the historical sources necessary for<br />
undertaking their work. “It will,” the editor indicated, “from time to<br />
time, publish source material as examples <strong>of</strong> types or as specific items <strong>of</strong><br />
interest to the community <strong>of</strong> library historians.” It even began the innovative<br />
approach <strong>of</strong> making comments on the sources actually utilized by<br />
library historians in their published work, whether in the Journal or published<br />
elsewhere. 23<br />
As so <strong>of</strong>ten happens with a new journal, there were the inevitable personnel<br />
and format changes. Shores, for instance, held his editorship in<br />
“Epitome” through volume 4 (1966–69) and <strong>of</strong>fered sporadic guest editorials<br />
thereafter. <strong>The</strong> department “Of Librarians and Historians,”<br />
under the direction <strong>of</strong> Richard A. Bartlett, was active only through the<br />
first six volumes. “Vignettes <strong>of</strong> Library History” (edited by John E.<br />
Clemons) was a part <strong>of</strong> the first four volumes but appeared only occasionally<br />
thereafter. <strong>The</strong> situation was very similar with “Libraries<br />
Abroad” under the guidance <strong>of</strong> Miles Jackson.<br />
<strong>The</strong> physical format <strong>of</strong> volumes 1 through 7 remained unchanged in<br />
typography and layout. However, the Journal was forced by financial pressures<br />
to experiment with a larger physical format with volume 8 (1<strong>973</strong>).<br />
<strong>The</strong> Journal’s editorial board and subscribers were embarrassed by the<br />
resulting quality. Volume 9 reverted to the original specifications.<br />
Each <strong>of</strong> the departmental editors used his column to make personal<br />
editorial comments in an open and forthright manner. <strong>The</strong> result was<br />
both a bane and a blessing. On the one hand, the columns could manifest<br />
a personal, direct, and human quality, useful in drawing together<br />
supporters <strong>of</strong> the field; on the other hand, the columns could be used by<br />
some to perpetuate the stereotype that library history was insufficiently<br />
scholarly. In addition, the juxtaposition <strong>of</strong> editorial departments and<br />
scholarly articles in such close proximity gave the Journal a mixed quality<br />
that was sometimes jarring. Given the status <strong>of</strong> library history in the pro-
179<br />
fession during the mid-1960s, the editorial board saw this approach as<br />
the best possible way to reach the broadest constituency.<br />
<strong>The</strong> initial subscription statistics for the new journal were encouraging.<br />
Editor Shores noted that 650 subscriptions had been received as <strong>of</strong><br />
the first <strong>issue</strong>. This gave promise <strong>of</strong> bright days ahead. One year later, in<br />
1967, Shore announced the even more impressive fact that “over 1,000<br />
subscribers have confirmed their interest in the previously neglected<br />
areas <strong>of</strong> library history, philosophy, and comparative librarianship.” 24 <strong>The</strong><br />
1967 subscription level has probably never been exceeded.<br />
By that same year, Louis Shores was in his early sixties and had been<br />
dean <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>School</strong> at FSU for more than twenty years. He had<br />
been general editor <strong>of</strong> the Journal for its first two years, setting it on a<br />
course it would retain for the remainder <strong>of</strong> its years in Tallahassee.<br />
Shores retired in September 1967. After his retirement, though, he still<br />
retained a departmental editorship for two additional years and wrote<br />
sporadic guest editorials after that. He was in the background more or<br />
less through 1974. 25 It seems fair to say that Shores was the primary personality<br />
behind the new journal during its tenure at FSU. As a pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
courtesy after his retirement, the masthead <strong>of</strong> the Journal<br />
continued to list him as the editor emeritus for the next nine years. 26<br />
Shores’s successor as dean <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>School</strong> was Harold Goldstein,<br />
who had come from a pr<strong>of</strong>essorship at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois. He held<br />
the position <strong>of</strong> editor <strong>of</strong> the Journal throughout the remainder <strong>of</strong> its days<br />
at FSU. By all accounts, Goldstein carried out his duties with pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
skill and knowledge, with “a management style that got things<br />
done with dispatch.” 27 In its tone and format, the Journal under Goldstein<br />
continued in the path laid out by Shores.<br />
In many respects, that path more <strong>of</strong>ten than not led out into an academic<br />
wilderness, giving the Journal the opportunity to make a lonely witness<br />
to a scholarly world that seemed more preoccupied with other<br />
matters. To the Journal, library history, philosophic librarianship, and<br />
comparative librarianship mattered, and librarians who neglected the<br />
study <strong>of</strong> these areas maintained a truncated view <strong>of</strong> their own field. In a<br />
technological world that less and less saw the need for these types <strong>of</strong> nostrums,<br />
the Journal was determined to continue its lonely witness. Along<br />
with these concerns, it even had to contend with disputes from within the<br />
ranks <strong>of</strong> library historians. 28 Considering these difficult circumstances,<br />
the Journal’s efforts take on an almost heroic quality. Dispensing library<br />
anecdotes from here and abroad, good solid, informative articles, and<br />
exhortations, it took its stand and made its case. Though there were no<br />
doubt detractors, the Journal persevered in its mission.<br />
By any fair appraisal, then, the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History was a success<br />
in what it tried to do. A scholarly journal had begun and continued for
180 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
over a decade. <strong>The</strong> writing <strong>of</strong> library history was being supported.<br />
Moreover, individuals interested in the field had a rallying point from<br />
which they could gain strength and encouragement. Those from outside<br />
the field could gain a clearer understanding <strong>of</strong> what it was that library<br />
history could say to the larger field <strong>of</strong> librarianship. One particularly<br />
interesting effort was beginning a program to publish bibliographies <strong>of</strong><br />
library history for all fifty states; only fourteen actually appeared, some<br />
within journal <strong>issue</strong>s, others as separate publications. 29 A glance at the<br />
Journal demonstrates that it promoted extensively the Round Table and<br />
the Library History Seminars. All <strong>of</strong> these facts are indicative that the<br />
Journal had made a good beginning, one that would provide the foundation<br />
for further growth in the future.<br />
A similar assessment <strong>of</strong> the beginning <strong>of</strong> the Journal has been provided<br />
by library historian Lee Shiflett. “By any standard except financial,”<br />
Shiflett proposes, “<strong>The</strong> Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History was successful. It was well<br />
received and immediately became a reputable scholarly journal attracting<br />
contributions from a wide variety <strong>of</strong> authors.” 30 As Shiflett avers, it<br />
was in the area <strong>of</strong> finances that trouble arose. From the very beginning,<br />
the Journal had made a conscious decision to undertake its mission without<br />
pressuring FSU for financial assistance. <strong>The</strong> school provided space<br />
and some minimal level <strong>of</strong> financial assistance, but certainly not enough<br />
to support completely the scholarly effort. Without that level <strong>of</strong> complete<br />
institutional support, Shores was placed in the position <strong>of</strong> securing his<br />
own financial backing through a combination <strong>of</strong> subscriptions and advertisements.<br />
He later described it as starting a journal “on a shoestring<br />
with no subsidy.” 31 <strong>The</strong> difficulties involved in undertaking such a project<br />
became more apparent over time.<br />
Shores began the first <strong>issue</strong> with the relatively expensive subscription<br />
rate <strong>of</strong> $10 per year (1966–72). 32 This figure was increased to $12.50,<br />
beginning with volume 8 in 1<strong>973</strong>, after a notice <strong>of</strong> the price increase was<br />
given in the last <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> the preceding volume. Even this increase was not<br />
enough; just two years later the subscription price was raised to $15, but<br />
this time no advance notice or reason was given. 33 In seeking to place the<br />
Journal on a solid financial footing, Shores sought more than just subscription<br />
funds. He also solicited backing from advertisers, and his initial<br />
efforts gave some opportunity for hope. For the initial <strong>issue</strong>, Shores filled<br />
the last six pages with advertising and the back cover as well. Regrettably,<br />
though, some <strong>of</strong> the advertisers later dropped their support. 34<br />
Despite all these efforts, the financial position <strong>of</strong> the Journal declined<br />
steadily, becoming critical by the mid-1970s. With regret, the decision<br />
was made to find a new home for the Journal. During the early part <strong>of</strong><br />
1976, letters were written to other departments <strong>of</strong> library science.<br />
Included in these potential sites were the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin,
the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and, in all likelihood,<br />
the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois. It is also persistently rumored that a prominent<br />
commercial journal publisher was ready to take over the new responsibilities.<br />
Out <strong>of</strong> this flurry <strong>of</strong> activity, a new candidate for sponsorship <strong>of</strong><br />
the Journal emerged as a likely successor. It was the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas<br />
at Austin.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Journal at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin, 1976–<br />
181<br />
<strong>The</strong> initial letter to the Graduate Library <strong>School</strong> at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Texas at Austin could not have come at a more propitious time. A confluence<br />
<strong>of</strong> three critical individuals came together to bring the Journal to<br />
UT-Austin.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first was a potential new editor in the person <strong>of</strong> Donald G. Davis,<br />
Jr., who assumed his teaching duties at the UT-Austin Library <strong>School</strong><br />
beginning in 1971. <strong>The</strong> new pr<strong>of</strong>essor arrived with an appreciation <strong>of</strong> history<br />
and a solid background in its study. He first earned an undergraduate<br />
degree at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Los Angeles, following that<br />
with master’s degrees in history and library science at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
California at Berkeley. After working in a college library for a few years,<br />
Davis was ready for advanced study in the doctoral program at the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois. His dissertation was a historical study <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Association <strong>of</strong> American Library <strong>School</strong>s. 35 When, some five years later,<br />
the possibility <strong>of</strong> moving the Journal to UT-Austin surfaced, the young<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essor leaped at the new opportunity.<br />
<strong>The</strong> second critical figure was the dean <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>School</strong>, C. Glenn<br />
Sparks. Initially, the dean was not overly enthusiastic about the opportunity<br />
to be involved with the Journal. He read the letter from FSU in a faculty<br />
meeting <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>School</strong> with a degree <strong>of</strong> cool detachment.<br />
Even after hearing <strong>of</strong> Davis’s interest in the proposal, the dean expressed<br />
reservations about whether the young pr<strong>of</strong>essor could handle the myriad<br />
details <strong>of</strong> editing a scholarly journal. After some discussion, however,<br />
Sparks became convinced that Davis was the right person for the job.<br />
<strong>The</strong> dean became an enthusiastic partner in the project, joining the<br />
Journal’s editorial board as well as juggling academic schedules to free up<br />
time for the editor.<br />
<strong>The</strong> third critical individual was Philip D. Jones, who had recently<br />
assumed the position <strong>of</strong> director <strong>of</strong> the UT Press. Having recently arrived<br />
from the lush journal-publishing fields at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago,<br />
Jones was in an expansive mode <strong>of</strong> operation as he entered upon his new<br />
duties at UT-Austin. <strong>The</strong> sponsorship <strong>of</strong> new scholarly journals would<br />
add a measure <strong>of</strong> scholarly prestige to his new university. Thus, Jones,<br />
along with Ann Reinke, manager <strong>of</strong> the journals department, maintained
182 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
a consistently supportive attitude about bringing the Journal to UT-<br />
Austin. <strong>The</strong>refore, when the proposition for a new journal was broached,<br />
the press director accepted the opportunity with some degree <strong>of</strong> alacrity.<br />
<strong>The</strong> importance <strong>of</strong> this ownership and support on the part <strong>of</strong> the UT<br />
Press can scarcely be overestimated. As the owner <strong>of</strong> the journal, the<br />
press was responsible for all financial obligations, copyediting, design,<br />
marketing, and bookkeeping. Editing responsibilities would be undertaken<br />
by Davis, with space requirements and part-time assistance provided<br />
by the Library <strong>School</strong>. This publishing arrangement, much more<br />
supportive than at FSU, proved <strong>of</strong> inestimable value to the Journal.<br />
<strong>The</strong> confluence <strong>of</strong> these three critical individuals proved decisive.<br />
Within a matter <strong>of</strong> months <strong>of</strong> the first inquiries by FSU, a decision was<br />
made to move the Journal to UT-Austin. Once the decision had been<br />
made, the transition took place with minimal problems, despite occasional<br />
awkward moments. FSU agreed to send all typescript submissions<br />
to UT-Austin beginning in June. While Davis, the new editor, was hard at<br />
work for the journal edition <strong>of</strong> early 1977 (vol. 12, no. 1, winter 1977), the<br />
old editor was working on his final <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> late 1976 (vol. 11, no. 4,<br />
October 1976). In addition, FSU still retained responsibility for coordinating<br />
activities at Library History Seminar V, held in Philadelphia in<br />
October.<br />
It was during the transition period that Davis began thinking about<br />
possible changes for the Journal. Taking for his example the redoubtable<br />
Library Quarterly and its editor, Boyd Rayward, the new editor envisioned<br />
a thoroughly objective and scholarly periodical—one that would place it<br />
within a broader conceptualization <strong>of</strong> the role <strong>of</strong> libraries within history.<br />
He was seeking a wider focus for the field <strong>of</strong> library history, in which the<br />
interpenetration <strong>of</strong> social, cultural, and intellectual history with libraries<br />
would be stressed. Once his thoughts had solidified and actually were<br />
implemented, they would result in the appearance <strong>of</strong> a number <strong>of</strong><br />
changes in the Journal.<br />
<strong>The</strong> most obvious change was cosmetic. <strong>The</strong> Journal’s leadership<br />
changed the cover <strong>of</strong> the perfect-bound journal to a dark blue. Also, the<br />
Journal dropped the stylized JLH on the cover and instead depicted a<br />
bookplate. Each <strong>issue</strong> provided an explanatory essay on the bookplate.<br />
Each succeeding <strong>issue</strong> has featured a different bookplate, in the process<br />
representing many areas <strong>of</strong> the world.<br />
Other changes were more substantial. Davis jettisoned the departmental<br />
format in an attempt to attain the academic tone he was seeking. <strong>The</strong><br />
role <strong>of</strong> the editor was placed more in the background than it had been previously,<br />
yet at the same time Davis was thoroughly involved in every phase<br />
<strong>of</strong> decision making and production. Davis’s plan was to structure the journal<br />
in three sections: “Articles,” “Notes and Essays,” and “Book Reviews.”
With the first and last sections self-evident, the “Notes and Essays” section<br />
would provide brief essays that did not meet the length standards for<br />
articles. Second, he enlarged the book review section, both in quantity and<br />
in scope <strong>of</strong> coverage. Thus, 1,270 book reviews have been published in the<br />
Journal while at UT-Austin, an average <strong>of</strong> 13.8 reviews per <strong>issue</strong>, compared<br />
to the earlier 4.5 reviews per <strong>issue</strong> at FSU. Third, Davis instituted a policy<br />
<strong>of</strong> publishing periodic thematic <strong>issue</strong>s, in which all or most articles were<br />
devoted to a particular topic. 36 All <strong>of</strong> these changes developed out <strong>of</strong> the<br />
conceptual approach taken by the new editor.<br />
A change in the name <strong>of</strong> the Journal, adopted somewhat later in 1988,<br />
was more apparent than real. 37 Beginning with volume 23, the new title<br />
became Libraries & Culture with the descriptive subtitle, “a journal <strong>of</strong><br />
library history.” This change did not indicate a shift from the original<br />
purpose <strong>of</strong> the Journal but rather a “broadening recognition” <strong>of</strong> the role<br />
<strong>of</strong> libraries within culture. Thus Libraries & Culture began describing itself<br />
as “an interdisciplinary journal that explores the significance <strong>of</strong> collections<br />
<strong>of</strong> recorded knowledge—their creation, organization, preservation,<br />
and utilization—in the context <strong>of</strong> cultural and social history, unlimited<br />
as to time or place” (vol. 23, no. 1 [1988]).<br />
<strong>The</strong> broader conception envisioned by Davis is clearly demonstrated in<br />
the approximately 430 articles published in the Journal. <strong>The</strong> international<br />
perspective <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History is confirmed and<br />
expanded with numerous articles on international topics with an emphasis<br />
on their history and not current events. 38 In addition, all types <strong>of</strong> cultural<br />
and intellectual history related to libraries and their influence are<br />
regularly present. 39 A recent review <strong>of</strong> the Journal provides us with a good<br />
overview <strong>of</strong> its articles through an analysis <strong>of</strong> an index <strong>of</strong> its contents:<br />
culture has twenty-one subheadings; history, ten; and intellectual<br />
history, nine. . . . By type <strong>of</strong> library, the public library (215 entries)<br />
has been written about most <strong>of</strong>ten, followed by academic libraries<br />
(117) and, finally, special libraries (forty-seven), not counting law,<br />
medical, or presidential libraries. Other frequently written about<br />
subjects include library education (seventy-eight entries), printing<br />
(fifty-seven), publishing industry (fifty-three), oral history (thirtysix),<br />
and archives (thirty-two). Furthermore, one can find extensive<br />
entries for bibliographies and literature reviews. 40<br />
183<br />
One <strong>of</strong> the strengths <strong>of</strong> the Journal at UT-Austin has been the degree<br />
<strong>of</strong> stability and continuity in editorial practice and collegial relationships<br />
within the university. This is clearly evident in the day-to-day editorial<br />
assistance required to produce a scholarly journal. For most <strong>of</strong> the last<br />
fifteen years, Bette W. Oliver has served as assistant editor. She has
184 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
provided pr<strong>of</strong>essional expertise, scholarly discernment, and editorial<br />
skill, all essential to the success <strong>of</strong> the Journal. During this period she also<br />
earned a Ph.D. in European history, thus strengthening her abilities and<br />
enhancing the Journal’s academic and collegial relationships.<br />
<strong>The</strong> same stability and continuity seen in the day-to-day editorial work<br />
is evident as well in the editorial board <strong>of</strong> the Journal at UT-Austin. Even<br />
with the inevitable changes in the board during the last two decades,<br />
continuity has been maintained, providing a secure foundation for the<br />
entire enterprise. Moreover, the board has become increasingly interdisciplinary,<br />
mirroring the interests <strong>of</strong> the Journal. Currently, the board is<br />
comprised <strong>of</strong> nine members, all but one <strong>of</strong> whom are at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Texas at Austin. Four <strong>of</strong> the members are in library and information science<br />
education, one is a librarian, and there is one each from the<br />
Departments <strong>of</strong> Art and Art History, English, French and Italian, and<br />
History. 41<br />
<strong>The</strong> stability and continuity, however, have not proven sufficient to<br />
stem a slow slippage in the numbers <strong>of</strong> subscriptions to the Journal.<br />
When Davis assumed control in 1976, the total subscriptions were<br />
approximately 900. By the mid-1990s, this figure had dropped to about<br />
700. It is probable that this subscription decline over the last two decades<br />
follows the same declining trajectory as the status <strong>of</strong> library history<br />
among library educators. One can point to several encouraging factors in<br />
this otherwise distressing situation. First, the overall decline appears to<br />
have reached a plateau. In addition, there have been some gains in personal<br />
subscriptions, with the majority <strong>of</strong> the decreases coming from institutional<br />
subscriptions. 42<br />
From the beginning <strong>of</strong> its tenure at UT-Austin, the Journal has initiated<br />
a greater array <strong>of</strong> new pr<strong>of</strong>essional relationships, both individually<br />
and institutionally, in an attempt to solidify its academic standing. It was<br />
not long before the Journal began attracting article contributions from<br />
various scholars outside librarianship, including cultural historians and<br />
those representing various international perspectives. Inevitably, therefore,<br />
the individual readers <strong>of</strong> the Journal have become an eclectic group<br />
<strong>of</strong> scholars, including librarians, historians, classicists, art historians, and<br />
others.<br />
On the institutional level, the Journal has formed new relationships<br />
with other associations, both outside and within the field <strong>of</strong> library history.<br />
One example <strong>of</strong> this external outreach was the decision to join the<br />
Conference <strong>of</strong> Historical Journals, an association <strong>of</strong> scholarly history<br />
journals. Moreover, Libraries & Culture sought and gained recognition with<br />
other scholarly journals and is listed in the “Recent Scholarship” section<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> American History and indexed in Historical Abstracts and<br />
America: History and Life. 43
185<br />
For institutional linkages more directly related to the field <strong>of</strong> library<br />
history, there have been a number <strong>of</strong> notable developments. Beginning<br />
about 1978, the Journal appeared to become a conduit in which its<br />
broader conception <strong>of</strong> history flowed into both the ALHRT and the<br />
Library History Seminars. <strong>The</strong> first indication <strong>of</strong> this broader conception<br />
on the part <strong>of</strong> the round table became evident when the word “American”<br />
was dropped from the <strong>of</strong>ficial name. At the same time, the name change<br />
also appeared to signal a greater interest in the international aspects <strong>of</strong><br />
library history. Much <strong>of</strong> this broadening in the focus <strong>of</strong> the LHRT can be<br />
traced to Davis’s service as LHRT chair from 1978 to 1979. In much the<br />
same way, the broader conception flowed into the seminars. Concurrent<br />
with his chair at the round table, Davis was preparing for Library History<br />
Seminar VI (1980). Conspicuously, the theme <strong>of</strong> that seminar was<br />
“Libraries and Culture.” Mary Niles Maack, in preparing a chronology<br />
for the fiftieth anniversary <strong>of</strong> the LHRT, concluded that the Journal was<br />
influential in bringing about a renewed international focus for library<br />
history. 44<br />
A second institutional linkage not only connects the Journal to the field<br />
but also links its two manifestations at FSU and at UT-Austin. <strong>The</strong> biennial<br />
literature reviews <strong>of</strong> American library history, having begun at FSU<br />
by Michael Harris, have been continued and expanded at UT-Austin by<br />
Wayne Wiegand and Ed Goedeken. <strong>The</strong> literature reviews cover books,<br />
articles, and dissertations. 45<br />
A further institutional development within the field was the decision<br />
to publish material from the Library History Seminars in the Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Library History. Beginning with Library History Seminar VI (1980)—the<br />
first seminar for the UT-Austin Journal—the seminar proceedings<br />
appeared as two oversized <strong>issue</strong>s <strong>of</strong> the Journal prior to separate publication<br />
in indexed clothbound volumes. This practice indicates the rich<br />
intermixing <strong>of</strong> the round table, the Library History Seminars, and the<br />
Journal. 46 With the return to these three tangibles <strong>of</strong> library history, the<br />
story has come around full circle.<br />
Meanwhile, the Journal continues within the environmental context <strong>of</strong><br />
its pr<strong>of</strong>essional home and <strong>of</strong> the economics <strong>of</strong> scholarly publishing. For<br />
many years it has tried to emulate the scholarly leader in the field—the<br />
Library Quarterly, published quarterly by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press<br />
beginning in 1931. From its inception, this venerable publication has<br />
included some historical articles and reviews dealing with books,<br />
libraries, and librarianship, even as its editorial <strong>of</strong>fices moved from pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
schools at Chicago to Indiana and currently UCLA. However,<br />
especially in recent decades, the thrust <strong>of</strong> this research organ has been<br />
toward other interests. Though the prestige for publication is great, the<br />
audience is very diverse. Library History, published semiannually under
186 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
the aegis <strong>of</strong> the Library History Group <strong>of</strong> the Library Association (U.K.)<br />
since 1967, is more similar to the Journal because <strong>of</strong> its focus and audience.<br />
Though it was a slender publication in its early years, with some<br />
aberrations from its earlier pattern during the 1990s, in 1998 it was reorganized<br />
as a more international organ and has taken a serious new turn<br />
under its new publisher, Maney Publishing <strong>of</strong> Leeds. Its attractive new<br />
format and broader vision make it a companion <strong>of</strong> the Journal, and<br />
together they provide a richer diet for library historians everywhere.<br />
Though friendly competition among these fairly priced scholarly journals<br />
with a historical perspective prevails, they all face challenges for serial<br />
acquisitions funds as the commercially produced scientific journals<br />
demand a greater share <strong>of</strong> research library budgets and as popular<br />
treatments <strong>of</strong> historical topics seem to suffice for much <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession.<br />
<strong>The</strong> economics <strong>of</strong> scholarly publishing and the popular taste <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />
thus present their threats. Alas, the value <strong>of</strong> serious scholarship<br />
and historical perspectives in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession cannot be assumed at the<br />
turn <strong>of</strong> this century. 47<br />
Conclusion<br />
A journal for the library history community was born thirty-four years<br />
ago and assumed the name the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History. <strong>The</strong> new journal<br />
grew in stature and in strength, and its understanding matured and<br />
developed over the years. That same journal continues today in adulthood<br />
as Libraries & Culture. <strong>The</strong> adult journal looks at its earlier life and<br />
there sees evidence for everything that it has become. That life, like any<br />
life, can scarcely be summed up in a few words. Yet perhaps there are a<br />
few transcendent themes in the life <strong>of</strong> the Journal to which one can point.<br />
One can point, first <strong>of</strong> all, to the way that it has striven for continuity.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Journal—both at Tallahassee and Austin—has manifested a continuing<br />
interest in the rich and variegated history <strong>of</strong> libraries. Though other,<br />
more popular topics have arisen during that time, they have not diverted<br />
the Journal from its specific goal <strong>of</strong> enriching our understandings <strong>of</strong><br />
library history. Significantly, this enrichment has been pursued not by<br />
rejecting the research <strong>of</strong> the past but by a conscious desire to build upon<br />
it. Somewhat surprisingly, this striving for continuity has emerged with a<br />
concurrent appreciation <strong>of</strong> the need for change. To a greater degree,<br />
library historians see the need to analyze current topics in library and<br />
information science from historical perspectives and, in the process,<br />
demonstrate history’s relevance. Attempts by library historians to distance<br />
our craft from the wider world <strong>of</strong> librarianship have been counterproductive.<br />
One can point as well to the theme <strong>of</strong> a growth in<br />
contextuality—an ever-increasing appreciation <strong>of</strong> the library as a cultural
and social institution and the desire to link this study with better established<br />
areas <strong>of</strong> historical research. A final transcendent theme is the<br />
collaboration that has evolved among the institutional components established<br />
for study and research in library history. <strong>The</strong> ALA Library History<br />
Round Table, the Library History Seminars, and the Journal have each<br />
mutually strengthened the other two. Exploring ways to make this collaboration<br />
even more fruitful and perhaps devising new institutional<br />
components can only benefit the entire field. <strong>The</strong> building up <strong>of</strong> that<br />
field—the field <strong>of</strong> library history—has been the whole role <strong>of</strong> JLH/L&C.<br />
Together they have sought to advance the scholarship <strong>of</strong> library history.<br />
When one considers the striking work that has been accomplished by<br />
“historians <strong>of</strong> the book” over the past three decades, one can see similar<br />
and perhaps even greater opportunities for the “historians <strong>of</strong> the<br />
library.” <strong>The</strong> opportunity exists for library historians to provide a clearer<br />
picture <strong>of</strong> the rich and complex ways in which the library interacts with<br />
the intellectual, cultural, and social elements <strong>of</strong> its society. Libraries &<br />
Culture will continue to lead, nurture, and promote this endeavor.<br />
Notes<br />
187<br />
A draft copy <strong>of</strong> this article was sent to the following individuals: Drs. Edward<br />
A. Goedeken, O. Lee Shiflett, John Mark Tucker, Robert V. Williams, and Martha<br />
Jane K. Zachert. Andrew B. Wethheimer, doctoral student at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Wisconsin–Madison, also supplied assistance. <strong>The</strong>ir comments, provided with<br />
great insight, grace, and dispatch, are very much appreciated and have made this<br />
a better article than it would have been without them.<br />
1. Louis Shores, “Wayne Shirley: In Memoriam,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 9,<br />
no. 4 (1974): 291–92. Wayne Shirley (1900–73) was librarian and dean <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Library <strong>School</strong> at Pratt Institute from 1938 to 1955. Louis Shores (1904–81) was<br />
dean <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>School</strong> at Florida State <strong>University</strong> from 1946 to 1967.<br />
2. In 1978 the American Library History Round Table (ALHRT) removed<br />
“American” from its name, becoming simply the Library History Round Table<br />
(LHRT).<br />
3. Shores, “Wayne Shirley,” 292. According to Shores, he expressed the desire<br />
to have a journal for the field at the initial meeting <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT: “At that very<br />
first meeting, I expressed the hope that we could one day publish a journal”<br />
(Quiet World: A Librarian’s Crusade for Destiny [Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press,<br />
1975], 232).<br />
4. Thirty-four volumes <strong>of</strong> the Journal have been published between 1966 and<br />
1999. Until volume 22 (1987), it retained the title Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
(Philosophy and Comparative Librarianship). Beginning with volume 23 (1988), it has<br />
been published under the title Libraries & Culture with the descriptive subtitle “a<br />
journal <strong>of</strong> library history.” <strong>The</strong> brief title, Journal, is used throughout this paper<br />
to refer to the publication both before and after the name change.<br />
5. Shores, “Wayne Shirley,” 292.<br />
6. Lee Shiflett, s.v. “Shores, Louis,” in Supplement to the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American<br />
Library Biography, ed. Wayne A. Wiegand (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited,<br />
1990), 128.
188 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
7. Important source materials for the study <strong>of</strong> the Journal are the individual<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s <strong>of</strong> the journal, as well as the archival material located at the Center for<br />
American History, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin, and in the <strong>of</strong>fice <strong>file</strong>s <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Libraries & Culture <strong>of</strong>fice. Other material can be gleaned from a review essay by<br />
Laurel Grotzinger in Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science Annual 3 (1987): 203–5.<br />
Important overviews can be found in Hermina G. B. Anghelescu and Elizabeth A.<br />
Dupuis, eds., Libraries & Culture: Twenty-five-Year Cumulative Index, Volumes 1–25,<br />
1966–1990 (Austin: Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science, UT-<br />
Austin, 1995) and in the review <strong>of</strong> the same work by John Richardson, Jr., in<br />
Library Quarterly 67, no. 1 (January 1997): 87–88. For biographical information,<br />
see the relevant entries in Bohdan S. Wynar, ed., Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library<br />
Biography (DALB) (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1978). It contains over<br />
three hundred biographical sketches <strong>of</strong> prominent American library leaders<br />
deceased as <strong>of</strong> June 1976. Among the sketches, John David Marshall has contributed<br />
one on William Wayne Shirley (1900–1<strong>973</strong>). For material on Louis<br />
Shores, one can examine with great pr<strong>of</strong>it the biographical sketch by Lee Shiflett<br />
in Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Supplement to the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography<br />
(Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1990). <strong>The</strong> Supplement contains fifty-one<br />
biographical sketches not contained in the original DALB and extends the coverage<br />
date to June 1987. See also the full-length work by Shiflett, Louis Shores:<br />
Defining Educational Librarianship (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996). Louis<br />
Shores’s autobiography, Quiet World, is an illuminating account <strong>of</strong> his entire pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
life and contains a chapter on his views on historiography and the<br />
beginning <strong>of</strong> the Journal (224–36).<br />
8. Louis Shores, Origins <strong>of</strong> the American College Library, 1638–1800 (New York:<br />
Barnes and Noble, 1934).<br />
9. Shores, Quiet World, 224.<br />
10. Ibid., 230.<br />
11. Shores considered the Round Table, seminars, Journal, and visual-oral history<br />
as the “four tangibles <strong>of</strong> my Library History Crusade” (Shores, Quiet World,<br />
236).<br />
12. Shores, “Epitome,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 2, no. 1 (1967): 4.<br />
13. Shores, Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 1, no. 1 (1966): 5. This view is also the<br />
theme <strong>of</strong> the chapter on library history in his autobiography, Quiet World, esp. 231,<br />
236.<br />
14. In Shores’s memoriam to Wayne Shirley, Shores lauded most <strong>of</strong> all<br />
Shirley’s “courageous commitment to constants in an age <strong>of</strong> perpetual celebration<br />
<strong>of</strong> change.” Shores returned to that theme in his peroration: “Much as death<br />
seems to enforce change, the memory <strong>of</strong> Wayne Shirley reinforces faith in the<br />
constants <strong>of</strong> the eternal verities” (“Wayne Shirley,” 291–92).<br />
15. Shores, Quiet World, 234.<br />
16. Shirley, Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 1, no. 1 (1966): 33.<br />
17. <strong>The</strong> editorial assistance listed for the first <strong>issue</strong> included the following:<br />
associate editors: Richard A. Bartlett and Martha Jane K. Zachert; department<br />
editors: Miles M. Jackson and John David Marshall; consulting editors: John E.<br />
Clemons and N. Orwin Rush; administrative assistant: Marguerite Sellars.<br />
18. Shiflett, Louis Shores, 215. In personal correspondence, Shiflett relates that<br />
“she almost singlehandedly held the journal together” (correspondence with<br />
Donald G. Davis, Jr., dated 21 January 1999).<br />
19. Shores expressed disappointment over the format and printing <strong>of</strong> the first<br />
<strong>issue</strong>. “We had taken the lowest bid. It came from a small printing establishment<br />
with limited resources, and among other things, a font <strong>of</strong> type without italics.
189<br />
Volume one, number one looks amateurish. We shifted to another type style in<br />
<strong>issue</strong> two, and to another printer later” (Quiet World, 234).<br />
20. Shores used the expanded version in vol. 9, no. 4, p. 292.<br />
21. Frank Woodford, “Second Thoughts on Writing Library History,” Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Library History 1, no. 1 (1966): 41.<br />
22. Robert V. Williams, “<strong>The</strong> Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, Philosophy and . . . ;<br />
An Informal Report on an Informal Self-Study,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History,<br />
Philosophy, and Comparative Librarianship 8, nos. 3–4 (1<strong>973</strong>): 110–12.<br />
23. Martha Jane K. Zachert, “Sources,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 3, no. 3 (1968):<br />
266.<br />
24. Shores, “Epitome,” 4.<br />
25. In October <strong>of</strong> that year Shores fell and broke his hip; his mobility was<br />
impaired thereafter.<br />
26. Shiflett notes the dropping <strong>of</strong> Shores’s name as editor emeritus in the<br />
Supplement to the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography, 129. See also the correspondence<br />
from Shores to Davis dated 14 August 1977, requesting the listing <strong>of</strong><br />
his name on the masthead for the sake <strong>of</strong> “continuity with the past.” In a letter<br />
to Shores dated 12 September 1977, Davis did not allude to this request but did<br />
promise to “share your letter with the editorial board at its next meeting.” <strong>The</strong>re<br />
is no record <strong>of</strong> any action in this matter, but Shores’s request was not granted.<br />
27. Personal correspondence <strong>of</strong> Martha Jane K. Zachert to Donald G. Davis,<br />
Jr., undated [January 1999].<br />
28. See the observations <strong>of</strong> Michael Harris: “Library history remains by and<br />
large, like the Library History Round Table, a playground for amateurs” (“Two<br />
Years Work in American Library History, 1969–1970,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 7,<br />
no. 1 [1972]: 45). In an editorial, Ron Blazek also expresses strong reservations<br />
about the state <strong>of</strong> research in library history and adds what appears to be an irresolvable<br />
division over what actually constitutes a credible piece <strong>of</strong> research. Some<br />
historians advocate the use <strong>of</strong> a hypothesis while others do not. See Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Library History 8, no. 2 (1<strong>973</strong>): 50–52.<br />
29. See editor Goldstein’s comments in “From the Editor: Take Five,” Journal<br />
<strong>of</strong> Library History 5, no. 1 (1970): 3. <strong>The</strong>re he contemplates “a series <strong>of</strong> state bibliographies<br />
<strong>of</strong> library history which will encompass all fifty units <strong>of</strong> this country.”<br />
This project is discussed in the “Historiography and Sources” chapter <strong>of</strong> Donald<br />
G. Davis, Jr., and John Mark Tucker, American Library History: A Comprehensive Guide<br />
to the Literature (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1989), 5. <strong>The</strong> states include<br />
Alaska (1972), California (1976), Connecticut (1972), Florida (1970), Hawaii<br />
(1970), Illinois (1976), Minnesota (1<strong>973</strong>), Mississippi (1<strong>973</strong>), New York (1971),<br />
North Carolina (1971), Ohio (1972), South Carolina (1<strong>973</strong>), Virginia (1971), and<br />
Wisconsin (1976).<br />
30. Shiflett, Louis Shores, 215.<br />
31. Letter <strong>of</strong> Louis Shores to Donald G. Davis, Jr., dated 26 February 1978, in<br />
the administrative correspondence <strong>file</strong> located at the Libraries & Culture <strong>of</strong>fice at<br />
FSU. See also the comments <strong>of</strong> Shiflett, Louis Shores, 214.<br />
32. This subscription price <strong>of</strong> $10 per year in 1966 should be seen in the context<br />
<strong>of</strong> an average annual salary for entry-level librarians <strong>of</strong> perhaps $5,000. In<br />
January 1966 the quarterly journals Library Quarterly and Library Trends both had<br />
subscription rates <strong>of</strong> $6 per year.<br />
33. Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 10, no. 1 (1975).<br />
34. Letter <strong>of</strong> Donald G. Davis, Jr., to Louis Shores dated 15 March 1978. Davis<br />
comments: “We have begun to attract advertisers back again as you can see from<br />
the three paid full-page ads in the Fall 1977 <strong>issue</strong>.”
190 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Scholarship <strong>of</strong> Library History<br />
35. Donald G. Davis, Jr., <strong>The</strong> Association <strong>of</strong> American Library <strong>School</strong>s, 1915–1968:<br />
An Analytical History (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974).<br />
36. Library History Seminars: Library History Seminar VI, “Libraries &<br />
Culture” (Austin, Tex.), Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 16, no. 1 (1981) and 16, no. 2<br />
(1981); Library History Seminar VII, “Libraries, Books & Culture” (Chapel Hill,<br />
N.C.), Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 21, no. 1 (1986) and 21, no. 2 (1986); Library<br />
History Seminar VIII, “Reading & Libraries” (Bloomington, Ind.), Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Library History 26, no. 1 (1991) and 26, no. 2 (1991); Library History Seminar IX,<br />
“Libraries & Philanthropy” (Tuscaloosa, Ala.), Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 31, no. 1<br />
(1996) and 31, no. 2 (1996).<br />
Other special <strong>issue</strong>s: “Women in Library History: Liberating Our Past,” Journal<br />
<strong>of</strong> Library History 18, no. 4 (1983); “Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science in France: A<br />
1983 Overview,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 19, no. 1 (1984); “Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science: Historical Perspectives,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 20, no. 2<br />
(1985); “Libraries at Times <strong>of</strong> Cultural Change” (Proceedings <strong>of</strong> an International<br />
Seminar . . . Organized by the Library History Group <strong>of</strong> the [British] Library<br />
Association and the Round Table on Library History <strong>of</strong> the International<br />
Federation <strong>of</strong> Library Associations and Institutions), Libraries & Culture 24, no. 1<br />
(1989); “Library History Research in the International Context” (Proceedings <strong>of</strong><br />
an International Symposium . . . Organized by the Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis<br />
für Bibliotheksgeschichte and the Round Table on Library History <strong>of</strong> the International<br />
Federation <strong>of</strong> Library Associations and Institutions), Libraries & Culture<br />
25, no. 1 (1990); “Libraries and Librarianship in Italy,” Libraries & Culture 25, no.<br />
3 (1990); “<strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> Reading and Libraries in the Nordic Countries”<br />
(Proceedings <strong>of</strong> an International Seminar . . . Organized by the Round Table<br />
on Library History and the Round Table on Research in Reading <strong>of</strong> the<br />
International Federation <strong>of</strong> Library Associations and Institutions), Libraries &<br />
Culture 28, no. 1 (1993); “<strong>The</strong> Public Library Inquiry: Reminiscences,<br />
Reflections, and Research” (A Collection <strong>of</strong> Papers from the Library History<br />
Round Table . . . Dedicated to Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Alice I. Bryan), Libraries & Culture 29,<br />
no. 1 (1994); “<strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> Reading and Libraries in the United States and<br />
Russia” (Proceedings <strong>of</strong> an International Conference . . . Organized by the IFLA<br />
Roundtables on Library History and Research in Reading), Libraries & Culture 33,<br />
no. 1 (1998); “Orientalist Libraries and Orientalism” (Proceedings <strong>of</strong> an<br />
International Workshop . . . Organized by the Round Table on Library History<br />
<strong>of</strong> the International Federation <strong>of</strong> Library Associations and Institutions and the<br />
Department <strong>of</strong> Library Science, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Istanbul), Libraries & Culture 33,<br />
no. 3 (1998).<br />
37. Davis discusses the impending change in the final <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> the journal<br />
under the old name, Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 22, no. 4 (1987).<br />
38. John Richardson, Jr., review <strong>of</strong> Libraries & Culture: Twenty-Five-Year<br />
Cumulative Index, Volumes 1–25, 1966–1990, Library Quarterly (January 1997): 87–88.<br />
Also <strong>of</strong> importance are Jean-Pierre V. M. Hérubel and Edward A. Goedeken,<br />
“Journals Publishing American Library History: A Research Note,” Libraries &<br />
Culture 29, no. 2 (1994): 205–9, and Jean-Pierre V. M. Hérubel, “Authorship,<br />
Gender, and Institutional Affiliation in Library History: <strong>The</strong> Case <strong>of</strong> Libraries &<br />
Culture,” Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian 11, no. 1 (1991): 49–54.<br />
39. Ibid.<br />
40. Ibid.<br />
41. Associate editors: Robert L. Dawson, Department <strong>of</strong> French and Italian,<br />
UT-Austin; Alison K. Frazier, Department <strong>of</strong> History, UT-Austin; David B. Gracy
191<br />
II, GSLIS, UT-Austin; Joan A. Holladay, Department <strong>of</strong> Art and Art History, UT-<br />
Austin; David Hunter, Fine Arts Library, UT-Austin; Robert S. Martin, SLIS,<br />
Texas Women’s <strong>University</strong>; Francis L. Miksa, GSLIS, UT-Austin; Irene Owens,<br />
GSLIS, UT-Austin; Michael B. Winship, Department <strong>of</strong> English, UT-Austin. As a<br />
further indication <strong>of</strong> the interdisciplinary nature <strong>of</strong> the board, one can note that<br />
Davis himself received a courtesy appointment as pr<strong>of</strong>essor in the Department <strong>of</strong><br />
History in 1998.<br />
Advisory board: Cheryl Knott Malone, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-<br />
Campaign, representing the LHRT, ALA; John Y. Cole, Library <strong>of</strong> Congress;<br />
Phyllis Dain, Columbia <strong>University</strong>; D. W. Krummel, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at<br />
Urbana-Champaign; Mary Niles Maack, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Los Angeles;<br />
Peter F. McNally, McGill <strong>University</strong>; Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Wisconsin–Madison; Ian R. Willison, British Library.<br />
42. <strong>The</strong> subscription rate in 1999 was $30 per year for individuals and $54 per<br />
year for institutions. <strong>The</strong> student rate was $18 per year. Members <strong>of</strong> the ALA<br />
LHRT receive a 20 percent discount, paying $24 per year.<br />
43. <strong>The</strong> Journal <strong>of</strong> American History is a quarterly publication <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Organization <strong>of</strong> American Historians.<br />
44. Mary Niles Maack, “Chronology <strong>of</strong> Events and Publications Relating to the<br />
International Dimensions <strong>of</strong> Library History.” Prepared for the 50th Anniversary<br />
Celebration <strong>of</strong> the LHRT (1998).<br />
45. <strong>The</strong> following list provides the author, the year(s) covered, followed by the<br />
volume and number <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History: Harris, 1967, 3, no. 4, 1968,<br />
5, no. 2, 1969–70, 7, no. 1; Davis and Harris, 1971–73, 9, no. 4, 1974–75, 11, no.<br />
4; Davis, 1976, 13, no. 2; Wiegand, 1977–78, 14, no. 3, 1979–80, 17, no. 3,<br />
1981–82, 19, no. 3, 1983–84, 21, no. 4, 1985–86, 23, no. 3, 1987–88, 25, no. 4;<br />
Passet, 1989–90, 27, no. 4, 1991–92, 29, no. 4; Goedeken, 1993–95, 31, nos. 3–4,<br />
1995–96, 33, no. 4.<br />
46. It could also be noted that Libraries & Culture has solidified the longstanding<br />
arrangement <strong>of</strong> publishing works read at the LHRT. In addition, the journal<br />
publishes the winning essay in honor <strong>of</strong> Justin Winsor.<br />
47. Donald G. Davis, Jr., “Ebla to the Electronic Dream: <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> Historical<br />
Perspectives in Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Education,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Education for Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science 39, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 228–35. See also Margaret F. Stieg,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Origin and Development <strong>of</strong> Scholarly Historical Periodicals (<strong>University</strong>: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Alabama Press, 1986).
Clio’s Workshop: Resources for Historical<br />
Studies in American Librarianship<br />
John Mark Tucker<br />
<strong>The</strong> sources for historical research in American librarianship are the<br />
same tools that provide the foundations for American history. <strong>The</strong> formative<br />
years <strong>of</strong> American library practice (approximately 1876 through World<br />
War I) were marked by a rising pr<strong>of</strong>essional consciousness and the birth <strong>of</strong><br />
a pr<strong>of</strong>essional reference literature. <strong>The</strong> bibliographic and documentary<br />
tools compiled since that time have continued to facilitate new levels <strong>of</strong><br />
maturity in library historical scholarship. Thus scholarly communication<br />
and organizational structures are moving library history beyond earlier<br />
stages <strong>of</strong> isolation into relationships that are at once becoming more multiand<br />
interdisciplinary.<br />
<strong>The</strong> two motifs suggested by the title <strong>of</strong> this essay seem appropriate to<br />
the limitations <strong>of</strong> space and format since they provide a general direction<br />
rather than a full explication. <strong>The</strong> goddess <strong>of</strong> history from classical<br />
antiquity, Clio was among the nine Muses who presided over all intellectual<br />
activity. She subsequently appeared in numerous paintings and<br />
sculptures, generally holding a tablet and stylus, scroll, or book but also<br />
sometimes a trumpet or laurel crown and occasionally accompanied by a<br />
swan. She symbolizes the work <strong>of</strong> those devoted to history, the discovery<br />
and reclamation <strong>of</strong> old tales, the interpretation <strong>of</strong> them in fresh ways, or<br />
the shaping <strong>of</strong> them into new narratives. A recent online search <strong>of</strong> twelve<br />
years <strong>of</strong> the Arts & Humanities Citation Index and the Social Sciences Citation<br />
Index under the term “clio” resulted in 149 hits, the vast majority <strong>of</strong><br />
which indicate historical allusions.<br />
<strong>The</strong> workshop, perhaps less engaging to many than the Muse herself,<br />
must also claim our time and attention. Its tools include essentials for<br />
the craft: manuscripts and memoranda, letters and reports, artifacts,<br />
photographs, oral history transcripts, financial transactions, logs <strong>of</strong> telephone<br />
calls, journal articles, monographs, dictionaries, encyclopedias,<br />
bibliographies, and much more. Records and documents such as these<br />
that describe human activity have become constants in the hands <strong>of</strong> the<br />
surest historian even as many <strong>of</strong> them undergo transformation from fragile<br />
paper into fluid, digitized formats instantly accessible throughout the<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
world. Yet the limited scope <strong>of</strong> this essay requires a reference to a small<br />
number <strong>of</strong> carefully selected tools—a workshop only—rather than to the<br />
entire universe <strong>of</strong> resources potentially at the historian’s disposal. This<br />
article represents my attempt to identify those tools most useful in the<br />
library historian’s workshop, particularly those <strong>of</strong> a bibliographic, reference,<br />
or documentary nature.<br />
Bibliographic Tools and the Formative Years <strong>of</strong> Librarianship<br />
193<br />
<strong>The</strong> foundational sources have been disseminated widely due to<br />
advances in the micr<strong>of</strong>ormatting <strong>of</strong> materials in the mid–twentieth century.<br />
Retrospective bibliographies such as Joseph Sabin’s Dictionary <strong>of</strong><br />
Books Relating to America and Charles Evans’s American Bibliography function<br />
as cornerstones for the history <strong>of</strong> American librarianship as they<br />
functioned similarly for American history in general. 1 And the full-text<br />
micr<strong>of</strong>orm collections based on Sabin, Evans, and related compilations<br />
have allowed scholars in remote regions to continue their work begun in<br />
graduate school even without direct access to the rich Americana in<br />
Boston, Chicago, New York, or Philadelphia. Whether or not one makes<br />
first-hand use <strong>of</strong> these resources, the library historian is nonetheless<br />
dependent on their function as building blocks in the structures <strong>of</strong> historical<br />
and bibliographical scholarship.<br />
Reprographic advances further facilitated the technical aspects <strong>of</strong><br />
gathering notes and documentary materials. Historians were no longer<br />
relegated to handwritten notes but could make photocopies <strong>of</strong> publications<br />
and manuscripts from both paper and micr<strong>of</strong>ormats, greatly<br />
expanding the capacity to develop personal <strong>file</strong>s <strong>of</strong> important materials.<br />
Another version <strong>of</strong> photographic processing, <strong>of</strong>fset lithography, facilitated<br />
the creation <strong>of</strong> book catalogs <strong>issue</strong>d by G. K. Hall and other publishers.<br />
Subsequently, in the 1960s and 1970s researchers benefited from<br />
the re-emergence <strong>of</strong> the book catalog as a source <strong>of</strong> vast retrospective<br />
holdings, supplementing the National Union Catalog, in ways that greatly<br />
enhanced interlibrary borrowing and lending. 2 <strong>The</strong> specialized printed<br />
book catalog for the American library historian, the Dictionary Catalog <strong>of</strong><br />
the Library <strong>of</strong> the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Service, based on library collections at<br />
Columbia <strong>University</strong>, appeared in seven volumes in 1962, followed by a<br />
four-volume supplement in 1976. 3 <strong>The</strong> Dictionary Catalog represents especially<br />
strong retrospective holdings because Melvil Dewey had begun collecting<br />
materials in 1883 when he was appointed Columbia College<br />
librarian.<br />
Historians <strong>of</strong> American librarianship take as axiomatic the significance<br />
<strong>of</strong> the year 1876, which has become synonymous with the pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
consciousness <strong>of</strong> library workers. <strong>The</strong> American Library
194 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
Association, devoted to the development, improvement, and promotion<br />
<strong>of</strong> libraries and the pr<strong>of</strong>ession <strong>of</strong> librarianship, was established that year<br />
and has organized conferences and <strong>issue</strong>d publications ever since. That<br />
same year, Richard Bowker, Melvil Dewey, and Frederick Leypoldt established<br />
the Library Journal; Dewey <strong>issue</strong>d his classification scheme and subject<br />
index for the arrangement <strong>of</strong> library materials; and the United<br />
States Bureau <strong>of</strong> Education under the directorship <strong>of</strong> John Eaton <strong>issue</strong>d<br />
its massive document, Public Libraries in the United States <strong>of</strong> America: <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
History, Condition and Management, Special Report. 4 Thus the pr<strong>of</strong>essional literature<br />
began flowing at much higher levels in the national centennial<br />
year, marking 1876 as a watershed in the growth and development <strong>of</strong><br />
librarianship as a pr<strong>of</strong>ession. And while much American library historiography<br />
treats the period <strong>of</strong> the early republic, the vast majority focuses<br />
on the years since 1876 and especially various periods <strong>of</strong> the twentieth<br />
century.<br />
Access to the pr<strong>of</strong>essional literature produced in the formative stages<br />
<strong>of</strong> American librarianship begins with Harry George Turner Cannons’s<br />
Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Library Economy . . . 1876 to 1920 published in 1927. 5 This<br />
volume is not limited, <strong>of</strong> course, to sources written consciously as history<br />
but, rather, like Columbia’s Dictionary Catalog, serves as a guide to the literature<br />
for all aspects <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>ession. Anne Harwell Jordan and<br />
Melbourne Jordan prepared an author index to Cannons <strong>issue</strong>d by<br />
Scarecrow Press in 1976. 6 For the periods before, during, and after<br />
Cannons, researchers occasionally rely on or perhaps overlook indexes <strong>of</strong><br />
the general periodical literature such as Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature,<br />
1802–1906, the Nineteenth Century Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature,<br />
1890–1899, and Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature. 7 One <strong>of</strong> the most<br />
remarkable sources for the library historian, Libraries in American<br />
Periodicals before 1876, was compiled by Larry J. Barr, Haynes McMullen,<br />
and Steven G. Leach. 8 <strong>The</strong> compilers scoured research libraries, performing<br />
tedious spadework among hundreds <strong>of</strong> periodicals, and produced<br />
more than 1,400 annotated or abstracted entries.<br />
In using these tools, one assumes a definition <strong>of</strong> “library history” that<br />
would begin with the history <strong>of</strong> individual libraries, <strong>of</strong> groups <strong>of</strong> libraries,<br />
or <strong>of</strong> libraries in given geographical regions or periods <strong>of</strong> time. Yet the<br />
definition <strong>of</strong> “library history” is simple only in a deceptive way and<br />
embraces numerous other connotations. American Library History:<br />
1876–1976, edited by Howard Winger, for example, features contributions<br />
on topics as diverse as historiography, research collections,<br />
demographics, library buildings, education for librarianship, library associations<br />
and publications, librarians, cataloging, subject analysis, and<br />
bibliographic systems, as well as services to children and youth, college<br />
students, adults, and special library clienteles. 9 A Century <strong>of</strong> Service:
Librarianship in the United States and Canada, another product <strong>of</strong> the centennial<br />
year, includes studies <strong>of</strong> ethnic minorities, library personnel,<br />
women in librarianship, library technology, library research, national<br />
libraries, and the book trade. 10<br />
As the quality <strong>of</strong> the scholarly output has advanced in recent decades,<br />
so have concepts <strong>of</strong> what library history ought to embrace. A number <strong>of</strong><br />
authorities are stretching the boundaries <strong>of</strong> previous conceptions <strong>of</strong> the<br />
term. Topics such as the history <strong>of</strong> printing, book culture, and reading<br />
provide library historians with links to broader <strong>issue</strong>s in intellectual history.<br />
<strong>The</strong> value <strong>of</strong> such links to other disciplines and subfields is most<br />
<strong>of</strong>ten underscored in the proceedings <strong>of</strong> national and international conferences.<br />
Trends toward multicultural and gender-based perspectives and<br />
other social historical <strong>issue</strong>s (i.e., the history <strong>of</strong> architecture, labor, philanthropy,<br />
urban life) that have enriched American studies and American<br />
history are beginning to enrich library history as well.<br />
Sources <strong>of</strong> Current Scholarship<br />
195<br />
Critical reviews <strong>of</strong> current research in the history <strong>of</strong> librarianship stem<br />
from an essay by Michael Harris in the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History, volume 2<br />
(1967). 11 Harris continued to review the literature for several years, publishing<br />
essays in volumes 3, 5, and 7 (1968, 1970, and 1972), and was<br />
joined by Donald G. Davis, Jr., as co-author in volumes 9 and 11 (1974<br />
and 1976). Wayne A. Wiegand maintained the series at regular intervals<br />
with essays in volumes 14, 17, 19, and 21 (1979, 1982, 1984, and 1986).<br />
Wiegand also prepared essays for volume 23 in 1988 when JLH was retitled<br />
Libraries & Culture and again for volume 25 (1990). Wiegand was succeeded<br />
by Joanne E. Passet for volumes 27 and 29 (1992 and 1994) and<br />
Edward A. Goedeken for volumes 31 and 33 (1996 and 1998). Goedeken<br />
continues as essayist but also provides an additional service; when he and<br />
David M. Hovde were appointed co-editors <strong>of</strong> the LHRT Newsletter in<br />
1990, they greatly expanded the column identifying recent scholarship<br />
with Goedeken serving as bibliographer. Goedeken’s semi-annual<br />
columns have become an essential resource for historians scanning the<br />
literature in search <strong>of</strong> current writings and, on request, he provides readers<br />
with a computer disk that accumulates his Newsletter entries, now<br />
totaling about 2,000; he also makes these entries available on the ALA<br />
Library History Round Table webpage. 12<br />
Harris incorporated many <strong>of</strong> the citations collected for his early bibliographic<br />
essays in JLH into sourcebooks on library historiography.<br />
His Guide to Research in American Library History featured three bibliographic<br />
essays on the state <strong>of</strong> the art and annotated entries <strong>of</strong> dissertations<br />
and theses. 13 Harris and Davis further expanded the concept <strong>of</strong> a
196 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
bibliographic sourcebook when they published American Library History: A<br />
Bibliography. 14 Identifying more than 3,000 articles, books, theses, and<br />
dissertations, the Harris-Davis bibliography quickly became the first<br />
source to consult before beginning a research project. Davis collaborated<br />
with John Mark Tucker on the subsequent edition, American<br />
Library History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature, which provided<br />
more than 7,150 entries introduced by fifteen bibliographic essays. 15<br />
Arthur P. Young’s American Library History: A Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Dissertations<br />
and <strong>The</strong>ses also succeeds Harris’s 1974 Guide and complements Davis-<br />
Tucker by annotating nearly 1,000 entries and identifying another 200<br />
unpublished papers and reports. 16<br />
Reference Sources<br />
Foundational sources that <strong>of</strong>fer basic information include scholarly<br />
and popular indexes and biographical dictionaries. Among those most<br />
fruitful for library history are America: History and Life, American National<br />
Biography, Biography Index, Humanities Index, MLA International Bibliography,<br />
and Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, most <strong>of</strong> which are available in<br />
online as well as printed versions. A growing corps <strong>of</strong> scholarly biographical<br />
sources supplements the general sources and underscores the emerging<br />
recognition <strong>of</strong> the role <strong>of</strong> women in American life. Notable American<br />
Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary and Notable American Women:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Modern Period are now complemented by Notable Black American Women,<br />
Notable Black American Women: Book II, and Black Women in America: An<br />
Historical Dictionary. 17<br />
As scholarly biography has expanded, so too has access to information<br />
about African-Americans. Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston<br />
edited the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Negro Biography as a partial corrective to<br />
the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Biography, and Jessie Carney Smith compiled<br />
Notable Black American Men. <strong>The</strong> major retrospective biographical source,<br />
a collection <strong>of</strong> directories and dictionaries, was <strong>issue</strong>d in micr<strong>of</strong>iche by<br />
Chadwyck-Healey as Black Biographical Dictionaries, 1790–1950. Broad coverage<br />
<strong>of</strong> retrospective and current scholarly and popular literature is provided<br />
by the Index to Black Periodicals, In Black and White: A Guide to<br />
Magazine Articles, Newspaper Articles and Books Concerning More Than 15,000<br />
Black Individuals and Groups, and—now available on the World Wide<br />
Web—the Kaiser Index to Black Resources, compiled by the Schomburg<br />
Center for Research in Black Culture from more than 150 publications<br />
relevant to the black experience and African diaspora. 18<br />
Specialized publications with a pr<strong>of</strong>essional focus have proven most<br />
beneficial to the library historian. From its inception in 1968 the
197<br />
Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science (ELIS) has charted an ambitious<br />
course. It includes numerous volumes beyond the original set <strong>of</strong><br />
thirty-four <strong>issue</strong>d over fifteen years (volume 61, supplement 24 appeared<br />
in 1998). 19 ELIS provides hundreds <strong>of</strong> historical articles on individual<br />
libraries, on library associations and organizations, on the growth and<br />
development <strong>of</strong> library and information services in various countries, and<br />
on the evolution <strong>of</strong> types <strong>of</strong> libraries and library-related functions. Many<br />
<strong>of</strong> its contributions, even those without a consciously historical focus, present<br />
much background, containing retrospective and chronological features<br />
that are uncommon in the literature generally. <strong>The</strong> major<br />
drawback <strong>of</strong> ELIS, the inconsistency <strong>of</strong> treatment that marks many<br />
anthologies, results from author selection. Accomplished historians could<br />
not be found to write the definitive narrative about each institution that<br />
deserved treatment. Often, then, a library administrator or a library<br />
school director or pr<strong>of</strong>essor would produce the article, with mixed<br />
results. Some essays are little more than brief reports, while others are<br />
richly analytical and extensive enough for separate publication.<br />
Whatever its faults, the ELIS represents a large vision and a magnificent<br />
achievement, and without it many <strong>of</strong> our pr<strong>of</strong>essional institutions would<br />
not have received the historical study they deserve. Serving as a kind <strong>of</strong><br />
one-volume complement to ELIS, the ALA World Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
and <strong>Information</strong> Services was <strong>issue</strong>d in 1980, 1986, and 1993. For the historian<br />
<strong>of</strong> librarianship, the ALA Encyclopedia serves most capably as a source<br />
<strong>of</strong> biographical information. 20<br />
Pride <strong>of</strong> place among reference works belongs to the Dictionary <strong>of</strong><br />
American Library Biography (DALB), edited in 1978 by George S. Bobinski,<br />
Jesse Hauk Shera, and Bohdan Wynar, and its Supplement, edited in 1990<br />
by Wayne A. Wiegand. <strong>The</strong> DALB signaled a new level <strong>of</strong> maturity in<br />
scholarly writing about librarianship. <strong>The</strong> authors researched their subjects<br />
well, basing their narratives in the contexts <strong>of</strong> documentary materials<br />
and institutional history. Subjects included persons deceased before<br />
1976 and, for the Supplement, before July 1987. Edward A. Goedeken analyzed<br />
the 301 subjects <strong>of</strong> the original volume in combination with the 51<br />
subjects <strong>of</strong> the Supplement. He categorized individuals according to gender,<br />
race, place <strong>of</strong> birth, type and level <strong>of</strong> education, place <strong>of</strong> employment,<br />
and father’s occupation and confirmed our presuppositions that<br />
the historiography <strong>of</strong> librarianship has been dominated by white, middleclass<br />
males. He also confirmed our sense that as librarianship and cultural<br />
maturity generally spread from the Northeast to the Midwest in<br />
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they combined with<br />
collegiate coeducation to produce significant employment opportunities<br />
for women. 21 Since so many <strong>of</strong> the subjects—and their institutions—
198 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
overlap, the DALB and its Supplement together illustrate the maze <strong>of</strong><br />
interconnections among individuals and institutions that makes the historical<br />
study <strong>of</strong> librarianship a fascinating prospect.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library History (ELH) aims for international coverage.<br />
Editors Wayne A. Wiegand and Donald G. Davis, Jr., scoured the literature<br />
in search <strong>of</strong> topics for approval by an international advisory<br />
board. <strong>The</strong> editors solicited authorities from throughout the world for<br />
essays <strong>of</strong> predetermined length. Historical articles focus on the library as<br />
an institution within a specified time and, like articles that deal with<br />
library programs or user groups, extend across geographical boundaries<br />
and time periods. Geographical articles focus on the development <strong>of</strong> the<br />
library as an institution within nations or regions. That the ELH omits<br />
biographical articles stems from its holistic, well-integrated conception,<br />
which features thorough indexing. Contributors adopted pluralistic perspectives,<br />
and their collective essays make the ELH an essential summative<br />
and interpretive companion for the devoted historian. 22<br />
Chronologies maintain the ancient tradition <strong>of</strong> lauding the exploits <strong>of</strong><br />
warriors and the administrative achievements <strong>of</strong> kings and queens. In<br />
their modern manifestations chronologies may supplement the reading<br />
and learning <strong>of</strong> library history if not necessarily its research and writing.<br />
<strong>The</strong>ir most effective use may be as objects <strong>of</strong> perusal in life’s occasional<br />
leisurely moments, perhaps then to plant a seed for future inquiry. Two<br />
chronologies appeared in the late 1960s, those by Elizabeth W. Stone and<br />
Josephine Metcalfe Smith. Stone published “Historical Approach to<br />
American Library Development: A Chronological Chart,” which focuses<br />
on the American library as a social institution from 1629 to 1966. She<br />
arranged entries into the categories <strong>of</strong> (1) public, (2) federal and special,<br />
(3) educational, (4) technical processes, (5) publications, and (6) pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
activity. 23<br />
Smith began with the first century, continuing through 1959, and thus<br />
presents an international perspective, although the twentieth-century<br />
entries are decidedly American. Like Stone, Smith cites the source for<br />
each entry, but unlike Stone, she enhances the work with more than fifty<br />
pages <strong>of</strong> subject and name indexing. 24<br />
Stone’s massive American Library Development 1600–1899 establishes a<br />
standard unlikely to be met again in our lifetime. She devotes one section<br />
to a chronological chart and a second section to her entries, presenting<br />
them within a context sufficient to understand the significance <strong>of</strong> the<br />
event described. She expanded the original six categories into eight by<br />
adding legislation and buildings/miscellaneous. Stone also provides an<br />
introductory essay on historiographical and methodological <strong>issue</strong>s, thorough<br />
indexing, and an extensive list <strong>of</strong> sources consulted. 25
Reference Sources: Minority Voices<br />
Women dominate the demographics <strong>of</strong> librarianship but have not dominated<br />
its historiography. Kathleen Weibel, Kathleen Heim, and Diane<br />
Ellsworth sought redress for this grievance in <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> Women in<br />
Librarianship 1876–1976: <strong>The</strong> Entry, Advancement, and Struggle for Equalization<br />
in One Pr<strong>of</strong>ession. 26 <strong>The</strong> compilers <strong>issue</strong>d a collection <strong>of</strong> historically significant<br />
readings, but their most important contribution, a chronologically<br />
arranged annotated bibliography, features books, articles, and “letters to<br />
the editor” <strong>of</strong> journals identified in sources from the formative period <strong>of</strong><br />
librarianship (i.e., Cannons’s Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Library Economy). <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong><br />
Women in Librarianship signaled a new level <strong>of</strong> consciousness about the<br />
contributions <strong>of</strong> women to a male-dominated yet feminized pr<strong>of</strong>ession.<br />
Subsequent scholarship has focused as much on sociology and economics<br />
as history, with some notable exceptions. 27 <strong>The</strong> Handbook <strong>of</strong> Black<br />
Librarianship, edited by E. J. Josey and Ann Allen Shockley, features biographical<br />
entries, historical essays (including one on black library associations),<br />
and a chronology <strong>of</strong> black American librarianship compiled by<br />
Josey and Casper LeRoy Jordan. 28<br />
Documentary Materials<br />
199<br />
Experienced historians tend to use the term “original” synonymously<br />
with the terms “manuscript” and “archival.” While the term “original,”<br />
according to Louis Gottschalk in Understanding History, suggests a number<br />
<strong>of</strong> meanings, those most important for historians are that an original<br />
source (1) is uncopied, untranslated, perhaps unpolished, as <strong>issue</strong>d from<br />
the hand <strong>of</strong> the author, and/or (2) provides the “earliest available information<br />
(i.e. the origin) regarding the question under investigation. . . .<br />
Primary sources need not be original in either <strong>of</strong> these two ways. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
need be ‘original’ only in the sense <strong>of</strong> ‘underived or first hand as to their<br />
testimony.’” 29 To Gottschalk, the “primary” source is the testimony <strong>of</strong> an<br />
eyewitness or a witness by any other <strong>of</strong> the senses or even a mechanical<br />
device such as an audio tape recorder. A “secondary” source is the testimony<br />
<strong>of</strong> someone not an eyewitness, someone not present at the events<br />
under consideration. Obviously, then, a manuscript source is no more<br />
likely to be “primary” than “secondary,” and it may be a copy rather than<br />
the “original.” Once these distinctions are understood, however, historians<br />
may be forgiven the occasional interchangeable use <strong>of</strong> “manuscript,”<br />
“archival,” and “original” as a type <strong>of</strong> verbal shorthand for the documentary<br />
evidence most needed, that <strong>of</strong> sources as close as possible to the<br />
events being investigated.
200 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
American historians have produced a number <strong>of</strong> printed collections <strong>of</strong><br />
key documentary sources; the papers <strong>of</strong> presidents <strong>of</strong> the United States<br />
and other significant figures routinely undergo textual analysis and<br />
appear in multivolume editions. American library historians, however,<br />
have nothing that serves comparably other than Raking the Historical<br />
Coals: <strong>The</strong> A.L.A. Scrapbook <strong>of</strong> 1876, edited by Edward G. Holley. 30 At the<br />
Conference on Historical and Bibliographical Methods in Library<br />
Research, Holley discussed the textual problems he encountered in<br />
assembling the Scrapbook and expressed concerns about the “absence <strong>of</strong><br />
many records which would be considered primary and/or original, in<br />
Gottschalk’s sense.” 31 In his Scrapbook, Holley set an example that no one<br />
seems to have emulated, and one wonders at the lack <strong>of</strong> interest from the<br />
library history community in this aspect <strong>of</strong> historical scholarship.<br />
While the character <strong>of</strong> primary source material varies according to the<br />
nature <strong>of</strong> the subject, most likely such material must consist at its core<br />
<strong>of</strong> manuscripts such as letters, memoranda, internal reports, notes, and<br />
diaries produced by and for individuals and institutions. <strong>The</strong> major<br />
source for this genre is the National Union Catalog <strong>of</strong> Manuscript Collections<br />
(NUCMC), compiled by the Manuscript Section <strong>of</strong> the Descriptive<br />
Cataloging Division <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress. 32 Having served as the<br />
historian’s primary inroad into documentary materials for four decades,<br />
the NUCMC is now greatly enhanced by the Index to Personal Names in the<br />
National Union Catalog <strong>of</strong> Manuscript Collections, 1959–1984. 33<br />
Additional sources that respond to the historian’s need to locate documentary<br />
materials have, like previous improvements, stemmed partly<br />
from technological advances. In 1983 Chadwyck-Healey launched the<br />
National Inventory <strong>of</strong> Documentary Sources (NIDS), which covers fewer repositories<br />
than NUCMC but goes one step further by reproducing (on thousands<br />
<strong>of</strong> micr<strong>of</strong>iche) the registers, indexes, and finding aids for each<br />
depository. NIDS is updated in micr<strong>of</strong>iche and CD-ROM formats. In 1984<br />
NUCMC and NIDS began cross-referencing each other’s catalog numbers<br />
in its own entries. Another vital resource for records <strong>of</strong> archival holdings<br />
is contained within the Research Libraries <strong>Information</strong> Network (RLIN),<br />
an online database created and maintained by the Research Libraries<br />
Group (RLG), which represents major libraries, archives, and museums<br />
both public and private (including, for example, those <strong>of</strong> Harvard and<br />
Stanford Universities). Cooperative work by the National Historical<br />
Publications and Records Commission, the Society <strong>of</strong> American<br />
Archivists, and RLG with support from the National Endowment for the<br />
Humanities resulted in RLIN’s Archival and Manuscripts Control<br />
(AMC) <strong>file</strong>, implemented in 1984. <strong>The</strong> AMC provides for bibliographic<br />
descriptions <strong>of</strong> archival holdings based on protocols accepted by major<br />
constituencies in the archival, historical, and library communities. As a
201<br />
result, the RLIN online database, which contains (among millions <strong>of</strong> others)<br />
approximately 500,000 records from 2,000 archive repositories, has<br />
become a valuable tool for historians. 34<br />
Historians find documentary evidence in any number <strong>of</strong> libraries,<br />
archives, and public or private agencies. <strong>The</strong> vast possibilities range from<br />
the National Archives to the filing cabinets in the director’s <strong>of</strong>fice <strong>of</strong> the<br />
local public library. Yet one special archive has proven very fruitful over<br />
a period <strong>of</strong> years, that <strong>of</strong> the American Library Association. In the early<br />
1990s, the ALA included “943 committees, 46 subcommittees, 92 task<br />
forces, 107 discussion or interest groups, 11 associations or divisions, 15<br />
round tables, 51 sections, 23 <strong>of</strong>fices, 243 chapters and affiliates, and 13<br />
editorial boards.” 35 Maynard Brichford asserts that, due to its rich social<br />
and organizational attributes, the ALA archives should appeal to scholars<br />
in a wide range <strong>of</strong> disciplines. Studies <strong>of</strong> library services and institutions<br />
or even broader topics such as reading and history represent only a limited<br />
selection <strong>of</strong> what could be researched. 36<br />
Prior to 1<strong>973</strong>, scholars examining the ALA archives had to travel to<br />
the North Pier Terminal Warehouse on the Chicago waterfront. <strong>The</strong> ALA<br />
then transferred its holdings to the archives <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois<br />
at Urbana-Champaign under Brichford’s direction. Illinois was an appropriate<br />
location due, in part, to Brichford’s success in placing Illinois<br />
among the national leaders in college and university archival programs.<br />
Especially rich manuscript holdings in the university’s archives feature—<br />
as one example that complements the ALA materials—the papers <strong>of</strong><br />
Phineas L. Windsor, director <strong>of</strong> the library and the library school from<br />
1909 to 1940, who corresponded with hundreds <strong>of</strong> early-twentiethcentury<br />
librarians and library educators. <strong>The</strong> manuscripts are further<br />
enhanced by the university library’s rich retrospective collections in the<br />
field <strong>of</strong> library and information science, a collection that was begun and<br />
greatly expanded under the leadership <strong>of</strong> both Windsor and Robert B.<br />
Downs (1946–71) and that is likely unparalleled in North America.<br />
In addition, Illinois possesses the largest total library collection <strong>of</strong> any<br />
public university in the United States, and its collections, services, patterns<br />
<strong>of</strong> organization, and automation projects have been subjected to<br />
much study. Moreover, the university’s faculty <strong>of</strong> library administration<br />
routinely ranks at the top in studies <strong>of</strong> scholarly production by academic<br />
librarians, and the Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science<br />
is among the oldest and most prominent <strong>of</strong> its type.<br />
<strong>The</strong> university archives at Illinois had been one <strong>of</strong> the earliest to<br />
develop an automated database for archival holdings and, having added<br />
the ALA materials, secured a grant from the National Endowment for<br />
the Humanities to improve their accessibility. Results <strong>of</strong> these efforts<br />
became apparent in 1979 when the ALA published the Guide to the
202 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
American Library Association Archives. By 1987, when the Guide was revised,<br />
the research potential <strong>of</strong> ALA materials was emphasized by reviewers<br />
who noted that, in the eight years between editions, the various series <strong>of</strong><br />
ALA records had expanded by 39 percent and the volume <strong>of</strong> material by<br />
45 percent. Meanwhile, the 1979 Guide had become the foundation for<br />
the National Catalog <strong>of</strong> Sources for the History <strong>of</strong> Librarianship (NCSHL), published<br />
three years later. <strong>The</strong> NCSHL features an introductory essay by<br />
Marion Casey, who underscored the relative infancy <strong>of</strong> library history, the<br />
difficulties historians encounter in relating library historical studies to<br />
contemporary times, and the gaps and deficiencies in a number <strong>of</strong> documentary<br />
collections. Casey indicated that librarians on a “mission” <strong>of</strong><br />
public service engaged in selective preservation <strong>of</strong> materials in order to<br />
influence future interpretation, an assertion that merits further<br />
research. At any rate, the rich resources identified in the NCSHL should,<br />
according to Casey and reviewer Edward G. Holley, lead to numerous<br />
additional primary sources. 37<br />
Due to continued growth and expansion, the ALA archives has<br />
emerged as the centerpiece collection <strong>of</strong> “the major North American<br />
research center for the history <strong>of</strong> librarianship.” 38 As <strong>of</strong> 1997, the collection<br />
had grown to almost 2,000 cubic feet, the equivalent <strong>of</strong> nearly 1,200<br />
<strong>file</strong> drawers. <strong>The</strong> archives attracted additional collections and thus is further<br />
complemented by the archives <strong>of</strong> the American Association <strong>of</strong> Law<br />
Libraries, the Association for Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science<br />
Education, the Geoscience <strong>Information</strong> Society, the Health Sciences<br />
Librarians <strong>of</strong> Illinois, and the Map and Geography Division <strong>of</strong> the Special<br />
Libraries Association.<br />
<strong>The</strong> library history community has not ignored newer historical methods<br />
such as oral history. In fact, a rare imprint <strong>of</strong> the ALA Library<br />
History Round Table is devoted to this topic, Doris Cruger Dale’s<br />
Directory <strong>of</strong> Oral History Tapes <strong>of</strong> Librarians in the United States and Canada.<br />
This volume grew out <strong>of</strong> Jesse Shera’s vision <strong>of</strong> a major oral history project<br />
that would assemble the recollections <strong>of</strong> library leaders <strong>of</strong> the twentieth<br />
century. While Shera’s plan was never realized, an important result<br />
<strong>of</strong> his efforts was that the round table sponsored the survey from which<br />
Dale compiled her directory. She provided essential information for more<br />
than 200 interviews <strong>of</strong> librarians and library educators as well as name<br />
and subject indexes. 39<br />
Access to documentary resources continued to advance in the form <strong>of</strong><br />
two remarkable collections published in micr<strong>of</strong>iche. John Y. Cole edited<br />
<strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> Congress: A Documentary History, and Kenneth E. Carpenter<br />
edited <strong>The</strong> Harvard <strong>University</strong> Library: A Documentary History. <strong>The</strong>se collections<br />
hold potential for encouraging scholars to re-examine the
203<br />
development <strong>of</strong> two eminent libraries as well as to seek connections<br />
between these institutions and more specialized topics. Cole assembled<br />
his materials in order to facilitate research into the relationship between<br />
the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress and cultural nationalism; he sought to provide<br />
insight into the evolution <strong>of</strong> the Library as a “legislative, national, and<br />
international institution” and to “stimulate research about the Library and<br />
its relation to American politics, scholarship, librarianship, and culture.” 40<br />
John Richardson projects Cole’s collection as most appealing to researchoriented<br />
library school students and to mainstream historians concerned<br />
with institutional history, tacitly acknowledging that the collection may<br />
hold minimal appeal for the accomplished historian <strong>of</strong> librarianship. 41<br />
Carpenter’s collection on Harvard is slightly smaller in size (463<br />
micr<strong>of</strong>iche compared to 549 for the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress) but no less<br />
ambitious. Carpenter explores the <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> why histories <strong>of</strong> academic<br />
libraries have lagged far behind those <strong>of</strong> public libraries, positing a number<br />
<strong>of</strong> explanations. He suggests that the public library <strong>of</strong>fers historians<br />
the possibility <strong>of</strong> examining the large theme <strong>of</strong> American democracy. He<br />
reasons, however, that the great academic research libraries exist in wonderfully<br />
rich research environments where the tools, the support, and the<br />
potential authors are readily at hand. Perhaps, though, potential authors<br />
are influenced not to consider academic library history by pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
historians (who may place little value in narrative chronologies with an<br />
apparently inevitable outcome) and so choose not to recount events that<br />
lead to a seemingly obvious present.<br />
Carpenter takes heart from events such as the 1987 conference on<br />
Libraries and Scholarly Communication in the United States: <strong>The</strong><br />
Historical Dimension and the renaming <strong>of</strong> the Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History as<br />
Libraries & Culture. To Carpenter, these developments signal the movement<br />
<strong>of</strong> library history more fully into the realm <strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> the<br />
book with its potential for multiple variations. He views library history as<br />
evolving much like business history. He challenges earlier views that a<br />
critical mass <strong>of</strong> company histories would facilitate synthesis. When company<br />
histories continued to accumulate without the subsequent development<br />
<strong>of</strong> explanatory synthesis, historians turned directly to the<br />
relationship between businesses and society and shed new light on comparative<br />
and conceptual possibilities. 42 Thus, he concludes, historians<br />
who advance library historiography theoretically will closely examine<br />
institutional interactions with the surrounding social context.<br />
Carpenter and Cole have made accessible materials that would have<br />
taken months or even years <strong>of</strong> painstaking research for outside scholars<br />
to assemble. While the ready availability <strong>of</strong> these materials far<br />
exceeds anything the library history community had a right to expect,
204 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
the specialized nature <strong>of</strong> the topics raises questions about the ultimate<br />
utility <strong>of</strong> these collections. After all, how many historians choose the<br />
Library <strong>of</strong> Congress or Harvard <strong>University</strong> as the primary subjects for<br />
their research? Richardson raises this <strong>issue</strong> in his review <strong>of</strong> Cole. One<br />
hopes, however, that with the passage <strong>of</strong> time more scholars will examine<br />
these resources and begin to make connections between comprehensive<br />
historical <strong>issue</strong>s and the nation’s two richest research<br />
collections.<br />
From the time <strong>of</strong> their widest use in the nineteenth century, photographs<br />
have been collected by libraries, archives, and historical societies<br />
<strong>of</strong> all types. Photographs verify and enhance the nature <strong>of</strong> human<br />
existence and have become essential to historical record keeping and<br />
interpretation. Two books stand out as photographic records <strong>of</strong> a particular<br />
kind and illustrate the value <strong>of</strong> photographs to library historical<br />
interpretation. In <strong>The</strong> Library in America: A Celebration in Words and Pictures<br />
(a c<strong>of</strong>fee-table book that only a commercial publisher could produce),<br />
Paul Dickson celebrates his love affair with public libraries and enriches<br />
the imagination <strong>of</strong> anyone tempted to engage in a research project. 43<br />
Dickson reproduced scores <strong>of</strong> black-and-white photographs <strong>of</strong> people visiting<br />
reading rooms and bookmobiles, listening to stories in libraries, and<br />
reading books while riding to work or just sitting on the front porch. His<br />
fascination with libraries began in childhood with regular visits to his<br />
hometown Carnegie Public Library in Yonkers, New York, and eventually<br />
yielded the present volume, which begins the story with Harvard College<br />
and moves quickly to subscription libraries as antecedents <strong>of</strong> free public<br />
libraries. Most <strong>of</strong> the photographs appear in chronological order by<br />
twentieth-century decade.<br />
In <strong>The</strong> Carnegie Library in Illinois, Raymond and Linda LaPuma Bial<br />
record the rich legacy <strong>of</strong> Carnegie philanthropy through photographs <strong>of</strong><br />
the eighty-three Carnegie buildings still in use. <strong>The</strong> brief essays on each<br />
<strong>of</strong> the buildings, plus the twenty-two no longer in existence, are based on<br />
the original correspondence that these Illinois towns conducted with<br />
Andrew Carnegie or his representatives. 44 <strong>The</strong> Bial and Bial photographs<br />
enliven the Carnegie historiography and remind us <strong>of</strong> that wonderful<br />
convergence <strong>of</strong> private philanthropy and municipal pride that made the<br />
public library building an important feature on the landscape <strong>of</strong><br />
Progressive era America.<br />
<strong>The</strong> sense <strong>of</strong> achievement that these photographs might elicit in<br />
library practitioners and historians should be mitigated, however, by the<br />
ahistorical mindset <strong>of</strong> our service-intensive pr<strong>of</strong>ession. In terms saddening<br />
and alarming, Dickson corroborates Marion Casey’s concerns about<br />
the selective preservation <strong>of</strong> internal records. Dickson asserts that
some big blunders are being committed by libraries. It would not<br />
do to name names . . . but the public relations director for one<br />
large urban system told me that all the event and publicity photographs<br />
having to do with the library before 1980 had been disposed<br />
<strong>of</strong>—I was too cowardly to ask how—because they were taking<br />
up too much room. I was told by a librarian who had recently gotten<br />
rid <strong>of</strong> several <strong>file</strong> folders <strong>of</strong> photographs that I would not have<br />
been interested in them anyway because they were “old and obsolete.”<br />
An administrator for another large system told me on the<br />
morning we had an appointment to see her institution’s picture collection<br />
that she had just been informed that the collection was “<strong>of</strong>f<br />
limits” to the public. 45<br />
Historians in Association<br />
205<br />
Library historians, in gathering for conferences and seminars, engage<br />
in activities that sociologists would characterize as a highly specialized<br />
community. Members <strong>of</strong> this community, constituted largely <strong>of</strong> library<br />
educators and academic librarians, conduct research and share the<br />
results <strong>of</strong> that research at conferences and through books and articles.<br />
Much <strong>of</strong> this activity—though perhaps only a solid fraction <strong>of</strong> it—is concentrated<br />
in the ALA’s Library History Round Table. A loosely knit group<br />
<strong>of</strong> about 400 members, the LHRT functions as much through informal<br />
personal connections as through the formal sharing <strong>of</strong> mutual intellectual<br />
and pr<strong>of</strong>essional pursuits.<br />
<strong>The</strong> LHRT was founded in the late 1940s by Wayne Shirley and Louis<br />
Shores. Members presented papers as part <strong>of</strong> the ALA’s annual summer<br />
conference. Program attendance could occasionally draw as many as 150,<br />
though it typically has drawn fewer. Program sessions usually feature two<br />
or three speakers; in the early 1990s the LHRT added a research forum,<br />
sometimes developed with refereed rather than contributed papers and<br />
occasionally designed to complement the program session. <strong>The</strong> papers<br />
presented may appear in scholarly journals; they may also summarize<br />
extended research such as dissertations or theses.<br />
Through the years the LHRT has gradually become more bureaucratized<br />
without losing its clublike informality or its ability to absorb newly<br />
minted scholars and to provide them with meaningful tasks. In 1978 the<br />
LHRT established a semi-annual newsletter that took on an enlarged<br />
format in 1992, the same year the LHRT <strong>issue</strong>d its own Handbook for<br />
Officers. <strong>The</strong> LHRT maintains liaisons to a number <strong>of</strong> organizations; its<br />
members report most consistently about the activities <strong>of</strong> the ALA<br />
Library Research Round Table, the International Federation <strong>of</strong> Library
206 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
Associations and Institutions, the National Coordinating Committee for<br />
the Promotion <strong>of</strong> History, the Society <strong>of</strong> American Archivists, and the<br />
Society for the History <strong>of</strong> Authorship, Reading, and Publishing.<br />
Perhaps the LHRT’s most significant achievement is the sponsorship,<br />
once every five years, <strong>of</strong> an international seminar on library historical<br />
topics. Seminars are cosponsored by Libraries & Culture, the quarterly<br />
journal edited since 1977 by Donald G. Davis, Jr., <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Texas at Austin, to which the LHRT maintains a permanent liaison.<br />
Davis works closely with seminar planners to <strong>issue</strong> proceedings both as<br />
special numbers <strong>of</strong> Libraries & Culture and as separate volumes published<br />
by the Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science at UT-<br />
Austin. 46 Often the seminars attract external sponsorship or related support;<br />
the last four have been hosted by library schools at the <strong>University</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong> Texas, the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina, Indiana <strong>University</strong>, and the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Alabama, respectively.<br />
Members <strong>of</strong> the library history community have not, <strong>of</strong> course, confined<br />
their activities to the LHRT. Indeed, such scholars seek the opportunity<br />
to present findings in many other pr<strong>of</strong>essional settings. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
would include other ALA organizations such as the Library Research<br />
Round Table and the Association <strong>of</strong> College and Research Libraries.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y also include such information-intensive groups as the Association<br />
for Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science Education; the Special Libraries<br />
Association; the American Society for <strong>Information</strong> Science; the Society<br />
for the Bibliography <strong>of</strong> History; the Society for the History <strong>of</strong> Authorship,<br />
Reading, and Publishing; and the International Federation <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
Associations and Institutions. Library historians occasionally seek the<br />
opportunity to present papers devoted to reading, printing, publishing, or<br />
libraries at meetings <strong>of</strong> state, regional, or national historical societies.<br />
Two significant conferences mentioned above resulted in collections <strong>of</strong><br />
published proceedings, the Conference on Historical and Bibliographical<br />
Methods in Library Research (1970) and the Conference on Libraries<br />
and Scholarly Communication in the United States: <strong>The</strong> Historical<br />
Dimension (1987). <strong>The</strong> former was conducted by the Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Science at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois and the latter by the Library<br />
<strong>of</strong> Congress Center for the Book and the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Service at<br />
Columbia <strong>University</strong>. <strong>The</strong>se proceedings stand out as devoted to<br />
American library history and closely related topics; both owe much to the<br />
energy <strong>of</strong> key individuals who mentored generations <strong>of</strong> historians at their<br />
respective universities, Rolland E. Stevens at Illinois and Phyllis Dain at<br />
Columbia. 47<br />
Beyond these two stellar collections and the cosponsored seminars,<br />
conferences have yielded little that would point to the historical study <strong>of</strong><br />
librarianship as worthy <strong>of</strong> significant scholarly interest. One notable
207<br />
exception resulted from the efforts <strong>of</strong> Wilson Luquire, who ingeniously<br />
brought together Keyes D. Metcalf, Robert B. Downs, David Kaser, and<br />
Jesse H. Shera for one day at Eastern Illinois <strong>University</strong> to recall the<br />
past, question the present, and predict the future. 48 While a number <strong>of</strong><br />
library historians present papers on individual panels in a variety <strong>of</strong> settings,<br />
little else <strong>of</strong> a published nature would suggest that library historians<br />
assemble regularly to present and critique the results <strong>of</strong> research.<br />
Only the quinquennial conferences with proceedings published by<br />
Libraries & Culture combined with the LHRT’s annual program session<br />
and research forum provide consistent platforms for historians <strong>of</strong><br />
American librarianship.<br />
Scholarly communication through published proceedings, while widely<br />
accepted, has been greatly complemented by Internet-based electronic<br />
communications. Vast numbers <strong>of</strong> webpages and listservs await the<br />
online explorer who can search for hours on end without suffering from<br />
eyestrain, a sore neck, or carpal tunnel syndrome. <strong>The</strong> History Highway: A<br />
Guide to Internet Resources <strong>of</strong>fers a glimpse into possibilities that have<br />
emerged in the past five years. <strong>The</strong> compilers discuss e-mail, Internet<br />
providers, newsgroups and discussion lists, Internet sites for historians,<br />
hardware and s<strong>of</strong>tware specifications, and online etiquette. 49<br />
Since publication <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> History Highway, library historians have<br />
established H-LIS under the umbrella <strong>of</strong> H-Net, sponsored by Michigan<br />
State <strong>University</strong>. A moderated discussion forum established by Suzanne<br />
Hildenbrand and Cheryl Knott Malone and edited by Hildenbrand,<br />
H-LIS serves those with an abiding interest in the interdisciplinary study<br />
<strong>of</strong> libraries and information broadly defined. H-LIS grew out <strong>of</strong> discussions<br />
at LHRT’s summer and midwinter meetings; participants hope to<br />
attract archivists, librarians, historians, and information specialists to<br />
discourse on the organization and dissemination <strong>of</strong> the culture and history<br />
<strong>of</strong> library and information science. 50<br />
For the library historian, disappointment due to inadequate recognition<br />
on the part <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional historians is only a moment away. This<br />
concern is most apparent in the lack <strong>of</strong> visibility for library history in<br />
standard bibliographies devoted to American history. Although important<br />
journals like Libraries & Culture and Library Quarterly (plus a number<br />
<strong>of</strong> others) are included in widely used indexes, historical monographs<br />
and reference sources about library history are not represented in those<br />
reference tools among which first-year graduate history students begin<br />
their pr<strong>of</strong>essional acculturation. 51<br />
This circumstance is particularly depressing given the dependence <strong>of</strong><br />
historians on libraries for their livelihood. Historians may rhapsodize<br />
about the library, referring to it as the “heart <strong>of</strong> the university” or as a<br />
“workshop for the liberal arts” or as the “arsenal <strong>of</strong> democracy,” and
208 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
historians <strong>of</strong>ten express gratitude to librarians and their staffs for assistance<br />
in obtaining materials. But libraries and the myriad developments<br />
that brought libraries into existence must seem as invisible to historians<br />
as any service bureau that functions efficiently; that is, it would merit special<br />
attention only when it is dysfunctional or is about to close its doors.<br />
<strong>The</strong> responses most <strong>of</strong>ten cited that would move the craft <strong>of</strong> library<br />
history more acceptably into the sphere <strong>of</strong> American historiography<br />
involve linkages with other subdisciplines such as book culture, the history<br />
<strong>of</strong> printing, and the history <strong>of</strong> reading. Much library historiography<br />
has moved beyond hagiography into solid administrative and institutional<br />
accounts. Following the continuum suggested by Kenneth<br />
Carpenter, the next logical direction for historians involves relating a<br />
given library or a group <strong>of</strong> libraries to larger functions in society. Thus, a<br />
library’s meaning would be found in its social or political purposes (to be<br />
determined possibly through cultural studies, comparative analyses, and<br />
social historical or prosopographical methods), explanations in the best<br />
traditions <strong>of</strong> intellectual history. During the past twenty-five years, some<br />
suggestions have been made, primarily in the selected writings <strong>of</strong><br />
William Birdsall, Phyllis Dain, David W. Davies, Rosemary R. Du Mont,<br />
Michael H. Harris, Dee Garrison, Suzanne Hildenbrand, and Wayne A.<br />
Wiegand, but their work has yet to elicit a rich historiographical<br />
response. With some key exceptions, histories <strong>of</strong> libraries are not being<br />
presented within frameworks these scholars have identified.<br />
Studies <strong>of</strong> reading and publishing <strong>of</strong>fer library historians a fresh opportunity<br />
to see where social and cultural connections might be made. Thus,<br />
for example, Wayne A. Wiegand <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin has recommended<br />
to the library history community the work <strong>of</strong> Harvey J. Graff<br />
and Carl F. Kaestle. <strong>The</strong> interdisciplinary character <strong>of</strong> their work is apparent<br />
in the titles <strong>of</strong> selected contributions: Graff published <strong>The</strong> Literacy<br />
Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth-Century City, and Kaestle<br />
published Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading since 1880. 52<br />
In 1992 the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin at Madison collaborated with the<br />
State Historical Society <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin to establish the Center for the<br />
History <strong>of</strong> Print Culture in Modern America under the direction <strong>of</strong><br />
James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand. (Fruits <strong>of</strong> their early labors<br />
appeared in Print Culture in a Diverse America.) 53 <strong>The</strong> Center encourages<br />
the interdisciplinary study <strong>of</strong> print culture history and the use <strong>of</strong> print<br />
culture collections, promotes the development <strong>of</strong> international perspectives<br />
on American print culture, and seeks consortial arrangements in<br />
support <strong>of</strong> exhibits, conferences, and publications. Wiegand has also consulted<br />
with scholars at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina and the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas about the establishment <strong>of</strong> similar programs. <strong>The</strong>se
efforts complement the Center for the Book at the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress<br />
under the direction <strong>of</strong> John Y. Cole and the Center for the History <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Book at Pennsylvania State <strong>University</strong> under the direction <strong>of</strong> James L.<br />
West III. While such programs are relatively new, and their long-range<br />
impacts have yet to be evaluated, one hopes that these alliances will<br />
expand and further enrich the narratives from which we continue to<br />
learn more and more about how books and libraries challenge the intellect<br />
and enliven the soul.<br />
Notes<br />
209<br />
1. Joseph Sabin, ed., Dictionary <strong>of</strong> Books Relating to America, from Its Discovery to<br />
the Present Time, 29 vols. (New York: Sabin, 1868–92 and Bibliographical Society <strong>of</strong><br />
America, 1928–36); John Edgar Molnar, ed., Author-Title Index to Joseph Sabin’s<br />
“Dictionary <strong>of</strong> Books Relating to America,” 3 vols. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press,<br />
1974); and Lawrence Sidney Thompson, ed., <strong>The</strong> New Sabin: Books Described by<br />
Joseph Sabin and His Successors, Now Described Again on the Basis <strong>of</strong> Examination <strong>of</strong><br />
Originals, and <strong>Full</strong>y Indexed by Title, Subject, Joint Authors, and Institutions and Agencies,<br />
11 vols. (Troy, N.Y.: Whitston, 1974–83). See also Charles Evans, ed., American<br />
Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary <strong>of</strong> All Books, Pamphlets, and Periodical<br />
Publications Printed in the United States <strong>of</strong> America from the Genesis <strong>of</strong> Printing in 1639<br />
Down to and Including the Year 1800; with Bibliographical and Biographical Notes, 14<br />
vols. (Chicago: Evans, 1903–59). Since completion <strong>of</strong> Evans’s bibliography, a<br />
number <strong>of</strong> scholars have produced corrections, additions, or indexes. A few major<br />
research libraries <strong>issue</strong>d bibliographies identifying local holdings <strong>of</strong> imprints<br />
listed in Evans. Sources such as Evans and Sabin will become even more readily<br />
accessible when they are converted into digital formats for delivery in web-based<br />
environments.<br />
2. National Union Catalog: A Cumulative Author List Representing Library <strong>of</strong> Congress<br />
Printed Cards and Titles Reported by Other American Libraries, 1953–1957, 22 vols. (Ann<br />
Arbor, Mich.: Edwards, 1958). <strong>The</strong> NUC was published in book form for a number<br />
<strong>of</strong> years; since 1983 it has been published by the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress in<br />
micr<strong>of</strong>iche. See also National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints: A Cumulative Author<br />
List Representing Library <strong>of</strong> Congress Printed Cards and Titles Reported by Other American<br />
Libraries, 754 vols. (London: Mansell, 1968–81). Klaus Musmann recounts the<br />
impact <strong>of</strong> technological developments on how libraries have conducted their work<br />
in Technological Innovations in Libraries, 1860–1960: An Anecdotal History (Westport,<br />
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993).<br />
3. Columbia <strong>University</strong> Libraries, Library Service Library, Dictionary Catalog <strong>of</strong><br />
the Library <strong>of</strong> the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Service, 7 vols. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1962); and<br />
Supplement, 4 vols. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1976). Bonnie Nelson demonstrates the<br />
research potential <strong>of</strong> book catalogs in A Guide to Published Library Catalogs<br />
(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1982). More recently, Robert Singerman<br />
<strong>issue</strong>d his richly retrospective “American Library Book Catalogues, 1801–1875: A<br />
National Bibliography,” <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Occasional Papers 203–204 (1996).<br />
4. United States, Office <strong>of</strong> Education, Public Libraries in the United States <strong>of</strong><br />
America: <strong>The</strong>ir History, Condition, and Management, Special Report, Part I (Washington,<br />
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1876).
210 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
5. Harry George Turner Cannons, Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Library Economy: A Classified<br />
Index to the Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Periodical Literature in the English Language Relating to Library<br />
Economy, Printing, Methods <strong>of</strong> Publishing, Copyright, Bibliography, etc. from 1876 to 1920<br />
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1927; reprinted by B. Franklin, 1970).<br />
6. Anne Harwell Jordan and Melbourne Jordan, eds., Cannons’ Bibliography <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Economy, 1876–1920: An Author Index with Citations (Metuchen, N.J.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1976).<br />
7. Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature, 1802–1906, 7 vols. (Boston: Houghton,<br />
Mifflin, 1882–1908); C. Edward Wall, ed., Cumulative Author Index for “Poole’s Index<br />
to Periodical Literature, 1802–1906” (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pierian Press, 1971);<br />
Nineteenth Century Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, 2 vols. (New York: H. W.<br />
Wilson, 1944); Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature (New York: H. W. Wilson,<br />
1901–).<br />
8. Larry J. Barr, Haynes McMullen, and Steven G. Leach, comps., Libraries in<br />
American Periodicals before 1876: A Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Abstracts and an Index (Jefferson,<br />
N.C.: McFarland, 1983).<br />
9. Howard W. Winger, ed., American Library History: 1876–1976 (Urbana:<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Science, 1976), also <strong>issue</strong>d as<br />
Library Trends 25, no. 1 (1976).<br />
10. Sidney L. Jackson, Eleanor B. Herling, and E. J. Josey, eds., A Century <strong>of</strong><br />
Service: Librarianship in the United States and Canada (Chicago: American Library<br />
Association, 1976). General library history readers are not plentiful. Collections<br />
with a comprehensive focus include those by John David Marshall, ed., An<br />
American Library History Reader: Contributions to Library Literature (Hamden, Conn.:<br />
Shoe String Press, 1960); <strong>The</strong>lma Eaton, ed., Contributions to American Library<br />
History (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Edwards Brothers, 1961); Michael H. Harris, ed.,<br />
Reader in American Library History (Washington, D.C.: NCR Microcard Editions,<br />
1971); and Richard D. Johnson, ed., Libraries for Teaching, Libraries for Research:<br />
Essays for a Century (Chicago: ALA, 1976). For the latter volume Johnson assembled<br />
essays originally published in College & Research Libraries.<br />
11. Michael H. Harris, “Library History: A Critical Essay on the In-Print<br />
Literature,” Journal <strong>of</strong> Library History 2 (1967): 117–25.<br />
12. Readers interested in receiving a computer disk <strong>of</strong> bibliographic entries<br />
should contact Ed Goedeken at the Parks Library, Iowa State <strong>University</strong>. Joy<br />
Kingsolver maintains the LHRT webpage from the Asher Library, Spertus<br />
Institute <strong>of</strong> Jewish Studies in Chicago; the current web address is<br />
http://www.spertus.edu/library-history/. See also American Library Association,<br />
Library History Round Table, LHRT Newsletter, n.s. (Chicago: ALA, LHRT, 1992–).<br />
<strong>The</strong> LHRT Newsletter began in 1978 as ALHRT: American Library History Round Table<br />
Newsletter.<br />
13. Michael H. Harris, A Guide to Research in American Library History (Metuchen,<br />
N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1968; 2nd ed., 1974).<br />
14. Michael H. Harris and Donald G. Davis, Jr., American Library History: A<br />
Bibliography (Austin: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, 1978).<br />
15. Donald G. Davis, Jr., and John Mark Tucker, American Library History: A<br />
Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1989).<br />
16. Arthur P. Young, American Library History: A Bibliography <strong>of</strong> Dissertations and<br />
<strong>The</strong>ses, 3rd rev. ed. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988).<br />
17. Notable American Women 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, 3 vols.<br />
(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard <strong>University</strong>, 1971); Notable American<br />
Women: <strong>The</strong> Modern Period (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard <strong>University</strong>,
211<br />
1980); Jessie Carney Smith, ed., Notable Black American Women (Detroit, Mich.:<br />
Gale Research, 1992) and Notable Black American Women: Book II (Detroit, Mich.:<br />
Gale Research, 1996); and Darlene Clark Hine, ed., Black Women in America: An<br />
Historical Dictionary, 2 vols. (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1993).<br />
18. Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American<br />
Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982); Jessie Carney Smith, ed., Notable Black<br />
American Men (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research, 1999); Randall K. Burkett, Nancy<br />
Hall Burkett, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds., Black Biography: A Cumulative Index,<br />
1790–1950, 3 vols. (Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck-Healey, 1991); Index to Black<br />
Periodicals (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984–), which continues an index begun in the<br />
mid-1950s at the Hallie Q. Brown Library at Central State <strong>University</strong> in<br />
Wilberforce, Ohio; Mary Mace Spradling, ed., In Black and White: A Guide to<br />
Magazine Articles, Newspaper Articles, and Books Concerning More Than 15,000 Black<br />
Individuals and Groups, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research, 1980) plus<br />
related volumes <strong>issue</strong>d in 1971, 1976, and 1985; and New York Public Library,<br />
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Kaiser Index to Black Resources,<br />
1948–1986, 5 vols. (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1992).<br />
19. Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science (New York: Marcel Dekker,<br />
1968–).<br />
20. ALA World Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong> Services (Chicago: ALA,<br />
1980; 2nd ed., 1986; 3rd ed., 1993).<br />
21. George S. Bobinski, Jesse Hauk Shera, and Bohdan S. Wynar, eds.,<br />
Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited,<br />
1978); Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Supplement to the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library<br />
Biography (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1990); and Edward A.<br />
Goedeken, “<strong>The</strong> Rainbow Survivors <strong>of</strong> Some Vanished Grey Moment <strong>of</strong> Reality’:<br />
A Prosopographical Study <strong>of</strong> the Dictionary <strong>of</strong> American Library Biography and Its<br />
Supplement,” Libraries & Culture 30 (Spring 1995): 153–69. Goedeken did not assert<br />
that the history <strong>of</strong> librarianship itself is male-dominated but rather that the writings<br />
about the history are. Scholars who wrote about librarianship tended to<br />
choose male subjects, and most accomplished historians <strong>of</strong> this subject would<br />
agree that women have been seriously underrepresented as subjects and that<br />
much work remains to be done in order to correct this imbalance. For additional<br />
biographical entries, see Rudolph Engelbarts, Librarian Authors: A Bibliography<br />
(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1981) and Donald C. Dickinson, Dictionary <strong>of</strong><br />
American Book Collectors (New York: Greenwood, 1986).<br />
22. Wayne A. Wiegand and Donald G. Davis, Jr., eds., Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
History (New York: Garland, 1994).<br />
23. Elizabeth W. Stone, “Historical Approach to American Library<br />
Development: A Chronological Chart,” <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Occasional Papers 83<br />
(1967).<br />
24. Josephine Metcalfe Smith, A Chronology <strong>of</strong> Librarianship (Metuchen, N.J.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1968).<br />
25. Elizabeth W. Stone, American Library Development 1600–1899 (New York:<br />
H. W. Wilson, 1977).<br />
26. Kathleen Weibel, Kathleen M. Heim, and Diane J. Ellsworth, eds., <strong>The</strong> Role<br />
<strong>of</strong> Women in Librarianship 1876–1976: <strong>The</strong> Entry, Advancement, and Struggle for<br />
Equalization in One Pr<strong>of</strong>ession (Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1979).<br />
27. <strong>The</strong> present essay emphasizes bibliographic, reference, and documentary<br />
sources rather than individual essays or monographs. Readers interested in the<br />
history <strong>of</strong> women in librarianship should consult selected writings <strong>of</strong> Barbara
212 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
Brand, James V. Carmichael, Jr., Lora D. “Dee” Garrison, Laurel A. Grotzinger,<br />
Kathleen Heim, Suzanne Hildenbrand, Mary Niles Maack, and Joanne E. Passet.<br />
Most notable among recent collections are those edited by Suzanne Hildenbrand,<br />
Reclaiming the American Library Past: Writing the Women In (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex,<br />
1996) and James V. Carmichael, Jr., Daring to Find Our Names: <strong>The</strong> Search for<br />
Lesbigay Library History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998).<br />
28. E. J. Josey and Ann Allen Shockley, eds., Handbook <strong>of</strong> Black Librarianship<br />
(Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1977). See also Donald Franklin Joyce,<br />
Black Book Publishers in the United States: A Historical Dictionary <strong>of</strong> the Presses,<br />
1817–1990 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991). Additional authors who<br />
have enriched our understanding <strong>of</strong> the historical development <strong>of</strong> African-<br />
American librarianship include but are not exclusive to Rosemary R. Du Mont,<br />
Arthur C. Gunn, Annette L. Phinazee, Jessie Carney Smith, Benjamin F. Speller,<br />
Jr., and Dorothy Porter Wesley.<br />
29. Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer <strong>of</strong> Historical Method (New<br />
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), 53–55.<br />
30. Edward G. Holley, ed., Raking the Historical Coals: <strong>The</strong> A.L.A. Scrapbook <strong>of</strong><br />
1876 (N.p.: Beta Phi Mu, 1967).<br />
31. Edward G. Holley, “Textual Criticism in Library History,” in Rolland E.<br />
Stevens, ed., Research Methods in Librarianship: Historical and Bibliographical Methods<br />
in Library Research (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
Science, 1971), 96.<br />
32. Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, Descriptive Cataloging Division, Manuscript Section,<br />
National Union Catalog <strong>of</strong> Manuscript Collections (Washington, D.C.: Library <strong>of</strong><br />
Congress, 1962–).<br />
33. Harriet Ostr<strong>of</strong>f, ed., Index to Personal Names in the National Union Catalog <strong>of</strong><br />
Manuscript Collections, 1959–1984, 5 vols. (Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck-Healey,<br />
1988).<br />
34. Mary McCampbell Bell, Clifford Dwyer, and William Abbot Henderson,<br />
“Finding Manuscript Collections: NUCMC, NIDS, and RLIN,” National<br />
Genealogical Society Quarterly 77 (September 1989): 208–18; and H. Thomas<br />
Hickerson, “RLG: A Vital Force in the Archival Community,” Library Hi Tech 12,<br />
no. 2 (1994): 22–24.<br />
35. Maynard Brichford, “<strong>The</strong> Context for a History <strong>of</strong> the American Library<br />
Association,” Libraries & Culture 26 (Spring 1991): 348.<br />
36. Ibid., 350–51.<br />
37. Marion Casey, “On the Use <strong>of</strong> Primary Sources in Writing Library<br />
History,” in Maynard Brichford, ed., National Catalog <strong>of</strong> Sources for the History <strong>of</strong><br />
Librarianship (Chicago: ALA, 1982), 6; Maynard J. Brichford, Guide to the<br />
American Library Association Archives (Chicago: ALA, 1979); National Catalog <strong>of</strong><br />
Sources for the History <strong>of</strong> Librarianship, reviewed by Edward G. Holley in Libraries &<br />
Culture 19 (Spring 1984): 325–27; and Maynard J. Brichford and Anne Gilliland,<br />
Guide to the American Library Association Archives, 2nd ed. (Chicago: ALA, 1987),<br />
reviewed by Donald G. Davis, Jr. in Library Quarterly 58 (October 1988): 415–16<br />
and Frederick J. Stielow in Libraries & Culture 23 (Summer 1988): 394. <strong>The</strong><br />
homepage address for the ALA archives, featuring a searchable database, is<br />
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/ ahx/ala/default.asp.<br />
38. Elizabeth Cardman, “Preview <strong>of</strong> the Past: <strong>The</strong> American Library<br />
Association Archives,” College & Research Libraries News 10 (November 1997): 688.<br />
39. Doris Cruger Dale, comp., A Directory <strong>of</strong> Oral History Tapes <strong>of</strong> Librarians in the<br />
United States and Canada (Chicago: ALA, LHRT, 1986). Collected works dependent
213<br />
in part on oral history include Edward G. Holley and Robert F. Schremser, <strong>The</strong><br />
Library Services and Construction Act: An Historical Overview from the Viewpoint <strong>of</strong> Major<br />
Participants (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1983); Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Leaders<br />
in American Academic Librarianship: 1925–1975 (Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1983); and<br />
John Mark Tucker, ed., Untold Stories: Civil Rights, Libraries, and Black Librarianship<br />
(Champaign: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science, 1998). Significant autobiographical collections<br />
were assembled by E. J. Josey, ed., <strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.:<br />
Scarecrow Press, 1970) and <strong>The</strong> Black Librarian in America Revisited (Metuchen,<br />
N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994).<br />
40. John Y. Cole, ed., <strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> Congress: A Documentary History, Guide to the<br />
Micr<strong>of</strong>iche Collection (Bethesda, Md.: CIS Academic Editions, 1987), ix. Cole was<br />
reviewed by John V. Richardson, Jr., in Libraries & Culture 23 (Summer 1988):<br />
385–87.<br />
41. Richardson review, 386–87.<br />
42. Kenneth E. Carpenter, ed., <strong>The</strong> Harvard <strong>University</strong> Library: A Documentary<br />
History, Bibliographic Guide (Bethesda, Md.: <strong>University</strong> Publications <strong>of</strong> America,<br />
1990), ix–xi. Carpenter was reviewed by Herbert J. Spiro in Libraries & Culture 27<br />
(Summer 1992): 336–37. Spiro makes the remarkable statement that he had not<br />
viewed the micr<strong>of</strong>iche in the Harvard collection, and he fails to mention<br />
Carpenter’s historiographical analysis, acknowledging only the latter’s interpretation<br />
<strong>of</strong> the term “scholar-librarian.”<br />
43. Paul Dickson, <strong>The</strong> Library in America: A Celebration in Words and Pictures (New<br />
York: Facts on File Publications, 1986).<br />
44. Raymond Bial and Linda LaPuma Bial, <strong>The</strong> Carnegie Library in Illinois<br />
(Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1991).<br />
45. Dickson, <strong>The</strong> Library in America, xiii.<br />
46. <strong>The</strong> work <strong>of</strong> Donald G. Davis, Jr., and, in particular, his editorship <strong>of</strong><br />
Libraries & Culture have played important roles in the growth and development<br />
<strong>of</strong> the LHRT. As chair <strong>of</strong> the LHRT, Davis was instrumental in the establishment<br />
<strong>of</strong> the LHRT Newsletter; as a faculty member at Texas, he hosted Library History<br />
Seminar VI; and since 1980 he has edited and published seminar proceedings.<br />
Not surprisingly, the LHRT supported the publication <strong>of</strong> Hermina G. B.<br />
Anghelescu and Elizabeth A. Dupuis, eds., Libraries & Culture: Twenty-Five-Year<br />
Cumulative Index (Austin: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas, Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science, 1995).<br />
47. Rolland E. Stevens, ed., Research Methods in Librarianship: Historical and<br />
Bibliographical Methods in Library Research (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois, Graduate<br />
<strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library Science, 1971); and Phyllis Dain and John Y. Cole, eds., Libraries<br />
and Scholarly Communication in the United States: <strong>The</strong> Historical Dimension (New York:<br />
Greenwood Press, 1990).<br />
48. “Metcalf, Downs, Kaser, & Shera at Eastern Illinois <strong>University</strong> April 10,<br />
1981,” LJ Special Report, no. 21 (1981).<br />
49. Dennis A. Trinkle et al., <strong>The</strong> History Highway: A Guide to Internet Resources<br />
(Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1997).<br />
50. “Announcing H-LIS,” LHRT Newsletter, n.s. 3, no. 4 (Spring 1998): 6. See<br />
also “Library History on the Web,” LHRT Newsletter, n.s. 3, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 1.<br />
51. Historical monographs about librarianship as well as bibliographies and<br />
other reference sources about library history are not cited in Frank Burt Freidel,<br />
ed., Harvard Guide to American History, rev. ed., 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap<br />
Press <strong>of</strong> Harvard <strong>University</strong> Press, 1974) or in Mary Beth Norton and Pamela
214 L&C/Clio’s Workshop<br />
Gerardi, eds., <strong>The</strong> American Historical Association’s Guide to Historical Literature, 3rd<br />
ed., 2 vols. (New York: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1995).<br />
52. Harvey J. Graff, <strong>The</strong> Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the<br />
Nineteenth Century City (New York: Academic Press, 1979); and Carl F. Kaestle et<br />
al., Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading since 1880 (New Haven, Conn.:<br />
Yale <strong>University</strong> Press, 1991).<br />
53. James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse<br />
America (Urbana: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Press, 1998).
Fifty Years <strong>of</strong> Promoting Library History: A<br />
Chronology <strong>of</strong> the ALA (American) Library<br />
History Round Table, 1947–1997<br />
Andrew B. Wertheimer and John David Marshall<br />
Programs<br />
1947, Summer, San Francisco<br />
Monday, 30 June, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Topic to Be Announced” (outlining the ALHRT goals), Louis Shores,<br />
Florida State <strong>University</strong>, Tallahassee<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Decline and Fall <strong>of</strong> Adult Education,” Wayne Shirley, Pratt<br />
Institute Library, Brooklyn<br />
1948, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Friday, 30 January, 2:30 P.M.<br />
“Recollections <strong>of</strong> W. F. Poole,” Carl Roden, Chicago Public Library<br />
“Long Life to the Library History Round Table,” Stanley Pargellis,<br />
Newberry Library, Chicago<br />
“Report on Illinois and New York Library History”<br />
1948, Summer, Atlantic City<br />
Monday, 14 June, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Struggle for Sunday Openings,” Sidney Ditzion, City College <strong>of</strong><br />
New York<br />
“Sunday <strong>School</strong> Library in America,” Francis W. Allen, Congregational<br />
Library, Boston<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Trenton Library Company, 1750–1850,” Howard L. Hughes, Free<br />
Public Library, Trenton<br />
“Recollections <strong>of</strong> R. R. Bowker,” Frederic G. Melcher, R. R. Bowker Co.,<br />
New York<br />
1949, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Thursday, 20 January, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Some Notes on Florida Library History,” Paul Kruse, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Chicago<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
216 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
“A History <strong>of</strong> the New Harmony Workingmen’s Institute,” Dan A.<br />
Williams, Public Library, Muncie, Indiana<br />
“Recollections <strong>of</strong> Josephine Adams Rathbone, and Miss Rathbone’s<br />
Narrative on Library Pioneers,” Nordica Fenneman, Public Library,<br />
Chicago<br />
1949, Summer<br />
No meetings scheduled<br />
1950, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Thursday, 26 January, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Thomas Jefferson—His System <strong>of</strong> Library Classification,” James<br />
Servies, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Miami Library, Coral Gables<br />
“Melvil Dewey and the ‘Steam Engine in Pants (William Raney<br />
Harper),’” Stanley E. Gwynn, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago<br />
1950, Summer, Cleveland<br />
Monday, 17 July, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> California Gold Rush Libraries,” Hazel Pulling, Florida State<br />
<strong>University</strong>, Tallahassee (read by Louis Shores, Florida State <strong>University</strong>,<br />
Tallahassee)<br />
“Ohio’s Coonskin Library,” Vinnie J. Mayer, State Archeological and<br />
Historical Society, Ohio State Museum, Columbus<br />
“W. H. Brett, Man and Librarian,” Carl Vitz, Cincinnati Public Library<br />
1951, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Tuesday, 30 January, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Notes on a History <strong>of</strong> American Libraries,” Robert B. Brown, Clements<br />
Library <strong>of</strong> Americana, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Michigan, Ann Arbor<br />
“Charles Kendall Adams and the Early Development <strong>of</strong> Three <strong>University</strong><br />
Libraries,” Jackson E. Towne, State College Library, East Lansing, Mich.<br />
“Informal Remarks on Andrew Carnegie,” Robert M. Lester, Carnegie<br />
Corp. <strong>of</strong> New York<br />
1951, Summer, Chicago<br />
Monday, 9 July, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Our Pioneers,” Charles H. Brown, Iowa State College, Ames<br />
1952, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Tuesday, 29 January, 2:30 P.M.<br />
<strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> the Special Library Movement in Minneapolis and St.<br />
Paul,” Sister Christina Varner, College <strong>of</strong> St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minn.
217<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Centennial Conference <strong>of</strong> Librarians, Philadelphia, 1876,” William<br />
L. Williamson, Graduate Library <strong>School</strong>, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago<br />
1952, Summer, Columbia <strong>University</strong>, New York<br />
Monday, 30 June, 10:30 A.M.<br />
“A Worm’s-Eye View <strong>of</strong> the Pioneers,” Marian C. Manley, Public Library,<br />
Newark, N.J.<br />
“Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Recollections <strong>of</strong> E. H. Anderson, F. F. Hopper, and H. M.<br />
Lydenberg,” Keyes D. Metcalf, Harvard <strong>University</strong> Library, Cambridge,<br />
Mass.<br />
1953, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Tuesday, 3 February, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Recollections <strong>of</strong> Arthur H. Bostwick,” Margery Doud, Public Library,<br />
St. Louis, Mo.<br />
“ALA and Intellectual Freedom,” David K. Berninghousen, Cooper<br />
Union, New York<br />
1953, Summer, Los Angeles<br />
Monday, 22 June, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Stop Thief! A Nocturnal Episode in Library History,” Lawrence Clark<br />
Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library and <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
California Library, Los Angeles<br />
“I Take My Pen in Hand,” Colton Storm, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Michigan, Ann Arbor<br />
[“Cooperation between British and American Librarians,” Louis J.<br />
Shores, Florida State <strong>University</strong>, Tallahassee, scheduled, not delivered]<br />
1954, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Tuesday, 2 February, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Sydney B. Mitchell,” Lawrence Clark Powell, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California,<br />
Los Angeles<br />
“Personalities in Public Affairs <strong>Information</strong> Service,” Marian C. Manley,<br />
Public Library, Newark, N.J.<br />
“Memories <strong>of</strong> Electra Collins Doren,” Virginia Hollingsworth, Public<br />
Library, Dayton, Ohio<br />
1954, Summer, Minneapolis<br />
Monday, 21 June, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“H. W. Wilson, Friend <strong>of</strong> Libraries,” Howard Haycraft, H. W. Wilson Co.,<br />
New York<br />
“Frank Avery Hutchins, Promoter <strong>of</strong> the Wisconsin Idea,” Alan E. Kent,<br />
State Historical Society, Madison, Wis.
218 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
“Frederick Crunden, Library Statesman,” Bertha Doane, Public Library,<br />
St. Louis, Mo.<br />
“Herbert Putnam, Librarian <strong>of</strong> the United States,” David C. Mearns,<br />
Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, Washington, D.C.<br />
1955, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1955, Summer, Philadelphia<br />
Monday, 4 July, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Northern Libraries in the Civil War: Survival and Progress,” George<br />
Winston Smith, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New Mexico, Albuquerque<br />
“William E. Foster: A Liberal Librarian in a Conservative Country,”<br />
Clarence E. Sherman, Public Library, Providence, R.I.<br />
“Early Choice <strong>of</strong> Books for the Library Co. <strong>of</strong> Philadelphia,” Edwin Wolf<br />
II, Library Company <strong>of</strong> Philadelphia<br />
1956, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1956, Summer, Miami Beach<br />
Tuesday, 19 June, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“Southern <strong>University</strong> Librarians in the Civil War,” Benjamin E. Powell,<br />
Duke <strong>University</strong>, Durham, N.C.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Contributions <strong>of</strong> Louis Round Wilson to American Librarianship,”<br />
Maurice F. Tauber, Columbia <strong>University</strong>, New York<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Carnegie Corporation and the Library Renaissance in the South,”<br />
Robert M. Lester, Chapel Hill, N.C.<br />
1957, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1957, Summer, Kansas City, Mo.<br />
Monday, 24 June, 10:00 A.M.<br />
“William Warner Bishop,” Foster E. Mohrhardt, U.S. Department <strong>of</strong><br />
Agriculture Library, Washington, D.C.<br />
“Books on a Changing Frontier,” R. Richard Wohl, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago<br />
1958, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed
1958, Summer, San Francisco<br />
Wednesday, 16 July, 4:30 P.M., California State Historical Society<br />
“James L. Gillis,” Peter T. Conmy, Oakland Public Library,<br />
Oakland, Calif.<br />
“Mary Isom, Creative Pioneer and Leader in the Northwest, Librarian <strong>of</strong><br />
the Library Association <strong>of</strong> Portland, Ore., 1901–1920,” Bernard W. Van<br />
Horne, Library Association <strong>of</strong> Portland<br />
1959, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1959, Summer, Washington, D.C.<br />
Wednesday, 24 June, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“Mr. ALA: Carl Hastings Milam,” Emily Miller Danton, Public Library,<br />
Birmingham, Ala. [Published in the ALA Bulletin 53 (1959): 753–62.]<br />
“Josephine Adams Rathbone,” Wayne Shirley, Finch College Library,<br />
New York<br />
“My Favorite Library <strong>School</strong> Teachers,” Louis Shores, Florida State<br />
<strong>University</strong>, Tallahassee<br />
1960, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1960, Summer, Montreal<br />
Wednesday, 22 June, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Multilateral Approach Required <strong>of</strong> French-Canadian Librarianship,”<br />
M. Jean-Charles Bonenfant, Legislative Reference Librarian,<br />
Province <strong>of</strong> Quebec<br />
“A Distinguished Ghost and the National Library,” H. Pearson Gundy,<br />
<strong>University</strong> Librarian, Queen’s <strong>University</strong>, Kingston, Ontario<br />
1961, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
219<br />
1961, Summer, Cleveland<br />
Wednesday, 12 July, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“Life as a Weekend Anthologist,” John David Marshall, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Georgia, Athens<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Astor Library Ghost,” Gerald D. McDonald, New York Public<br />
Library
220 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
“Douglas C. McMurtie, 1888–1944: His History <strong>of</strong> Printing; His Library<br />
Contacts: His Manuscripts and Memorabilia,” Jackson E. Towne, Michigan<br />
State <strong>University</strong>, East Lansing<br />
1962, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1962, Summer, Miami Beach<br />
Wednesday, 20 June, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“A Military Book Buying Tour in Europe, 1815–1817,” Sidney Forman,<br />
U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.<br />
“Miami’s Public Library,” Frank B. Sessa, Miami Public Library<br />
1963, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1963, Summer, Chicago<br />
Monday, 15 July, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“ALA Headquarters—When!—Past, Places, Personalities,” Everett O.<br />
Fontaine, Crowell Collier Publishing Co., New York<br />
“Deeds Not Words (Essae Martha Culver),” Sallie J. Farrell, Louisiana<br />
State <strong>University</strong>, Baton Rouge<br />
1964, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1964, Summer, St. Louis, Mo.<br />
Monday, 29 June, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Librarians <strong>of</strong> Harvard Law <strong>School</strong> Library,” Earl Bogeson, Harvard<br />
Law <strong>School</strong> Library, Cambridge, Mass.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Archoons <strong>of</strong> Colophon and the Melvil Chowder and Marching<br />
Association,” Wayne Shirley, Wentworth Institute, Boston<br />
1965, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1965, Summer, Detroit<br />
Monday, 5 July, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“William Stetson Merrill: Reminiscences <strong>of</strong> a Centenarian,” D. W.<br />
Krummel, Newberry Library, Chicago<br />
“Libraries, Librarianship, and the Negro,” Virginia Lacy Jones, <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Service, Atlanta <strong>University</strong>
“<strong>The</strong> First Centenary <strong>of</strong> the Detroit Public Library,” Frank Woodward,<br />
Detroit<br />
1966, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1966, Summer, New York<br />
Monday, 11 July, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“Fred Melcher as I Knew Him,” Daniel Melcher, R. R. Bowker Co., New<br />
York<br />
“New York: <strong>The</strong> Convention <strong>of</strong> ’53,” John Frost, New York <strong>University</strong>,<br />
New York<br />
1967, Midwinter, New Orleans<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1967, Summer, San Francisco<br />
Monday, 26 June, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“Oral Library History: An Opportunity,” Elizabeth Dixon, Oral History<br />
Program, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Los Angeles, assisted by Frances<br />
Richardson and Catherine Chadwick, Ventura County Library, and Vice-<br />
President, California Library Association<br />
“Ida Kidder, Pioneer Western Land Grant Librarian,” W. H. Carlson,<br />
Oregon State System <strong>of</strong> Higher Education Libraries, Corvallis<br />
“Mabel Ray Gillis, California State Librarian,” Peter T. Conmy, Public<br />
Library, Oakland, Calif.<br />
1968, Midwinter, Bal Harbor, Fla.<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1968, Summer, Kansas City, Mo.<br />
Monday, 24 June, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“Edward Christopher Williams—A Librarian’s Librarian,” E. J. Josey,<br />
Bureau <strong>of</strong> Academic and Research Libraries, New York State Library,<br />
Albany<br />
“Reflections on <strong>School</strong> District Libraries,” Richard B. Sealock, Kansas<br />
City Public Library<br />
1969, Midwinter, Washington, D.C.<br />
No meetings listed<br />
221
222 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
1969, Summer, Atlantic City<br />
Monday, 23 June, 4:30 P.M.<br />
“Program to Be Announced”<br />
1970, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1970, Summer, Detroit<br />
Thursday, 2 July, 4:30–6:00 P.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> American Library in Paris,” Foster Mohrhardt, Council on Library<br />
Resources, Washington, D.C., and <strong>The</strong>odore Walker, Grolier Educational<br />
Corporation, New York<br />
1971, Midwinter, Los Angeles<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1971, Summer, Dallas<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1972, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
No meetings listed<br />
1972, Chicago<br />
25th Anniversary Program <strong>of</strong> the ALHRT<br />
Presiding: N. Orwin Rush, Florida State <strong>University</strong>, Tallahassee<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Library and Society,” Louis Shores, Tallahasee<br />
“Carl Milam and the American Library Association,” Peggy A. Sullivan,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Pittsburgh<br />
Election <strong>of</strong> Officers<br />
ALHRT’s Part in the Centennial Celebration<br />
1<strong>973</strong>, Midwinter, Washington, D.C.<br />
Monday, 29 January, 4:30–6:00 P.M.<br />
ALHRT Nominating Committee<br />
Monday, 29 January, 8:30–10:30 P.M.<br />
ALHRT Program Committee<br />
Tuesday, 30 January, 4:30–6:00 P.M.<br />
ALHRT Constitution and Bylaws Committee<br />
Wednesday, 31 January, 10:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M.<br />
ALHRT Centennial Committee (ad hoc)
1<strong>973</strong>, Las Vegas, N.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> American Library Association Centennial—1976”<br />
Presiding: Michael H. Harris, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Kentucky, Lexington<br />
“Ainsworth Rand Sp<strong>of</strong>ford, the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, and the ALA,” John<br />
Y. Cole, Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, Washington, D.C.<br />
“Charles Ami Cutter, Melvil Dewey and the ALA,” Francis Miksa,<br />
Louisiana State <strong>University</strong>, Baton Rouge<br />
1974, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Sunday, 20 January, 8:30–10:30 P.M.<br />
ALHRT Centennial Committee (ad hoc)<br />
1974, New York<br />
Tuesday, 9 July, 4:30–6:00 P.M.<br />
“Women in the Past as Leaders in the Library Pr<strong>of</strong>ession”<br />
Presiding: Russell Eugene Bidlack<br />
“Katherine Sharp and Margaret Mann,” Laurel A. Grotzinger, Western<br />
Michigan <strong>University</strong><br />
“American Association <strong>of</strong> <strong>School</strong> Librarians,” Patricia Brown Pond,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Oregon<br />
1975, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Tuesday, 21 January, 8:30–10:30 P.M.<br />
ALHRT Executive Committee<br />
1975, San Francisco<br />
“Historical Development <strong>of</strong> the American Library Association”<br />
Presiding: George S. Bobinski, State <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New York, Buffalo<br />
“Research on the History <strong>of</strong> the A.L.A.: Problems and Findings,” Dennis<br />
Thomson, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Southern California, Los Angeles<br />
“A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to a Dissertation: Library Work<br />
with Children and the A.L.A.,” Peggy Sullivan, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago<br />
1976, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Monday, 19 January, 8:30–10:30 P.M.<br />
ALHRT Executive Committee<br />
1976, Centennial Conference, Chicago<br />
Monday, 19 July, 10:00–12:00 P.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Service Ethos in American Libraries, 1876–1976”<br />
223
224 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
(cosponsored by Circulation Services Division, Library Administration<br />
Division)<br />
Panel <strong>of</strong> speakers representing academic libraries: Richard W. Boss,<br />
Princeton <strong>University</strong>; public libraries: C. Lamar White, Memphis–Shelby<br />
County Public Library and <strong>Information</strong> Center; school libraries: Coleen<br />
Salley, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New Orleans<br />
Tuesday, 20 July, 4:30–6:00 P.M.<br />
“Historical Writing: Editorial Problems and Pleasures” (panel)<br />
Presiding: Sarah K. Vann, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Hawaii<br />
Speakers: George S. Bobinski, State <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New York at Buffalo;<br />
Sidney L. Jackson, Kent State <strong>University</strong>; Howard W. Winger, <strong>University</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong> Chicago<br />
Greetings from Godfrey Dewey on tape<br />
Thursday, 22 July, 10:00–12:00 P.M.<br />
ALHRT Business Meeting<br />
1977, Midwinter<br />
ALHRT Executive Committee<br />
1977, Summer, Detroit<br />
Sunday, 19 June, 4:30–6:00 P.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Nature and Use <strong>of</strong> Library History”<br />
Presiding: Margaret F. Maxwell, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Arizona, Tucson<br />
Speakers: Edward G. Holley, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina, Chapel Hill;<br />
Michael H. Harris, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Kentucky, Lexington; Phyllis Dain,<br />
Columbia <strong>University</strong>, New York; Jesse H. Shera, Case Western Reserve<br />
<strong>University</strong>, Cleveland; Peggy Sullivan, Chicago Public Library<br />
1978, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Monday, 23 January, 10:00–12:00 P.M.<br />
ALHRT Executive Committee<br />
1978, Summer, Chicago<br />
Monday, 26 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
Presiding: Jean Key Gates, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> South Florida, Tampa<br />
“<strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Graduate <strong>School</strong>: <strong>The</strong> First 25 Years,” John<br />
Richardson, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Indiana, Bloomington<br />
“Recollections,” Jesse H. Shera, Case Western Reserve <strong>University</strong>,<br />
Cleveland
“Global Book Crusade: <strong>The</strong> American Library Association and World<br />
War I,” Arthur P. Young, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Alabama, Tuscaloosa<br />
Comments, Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Kentucky, Lexington<br />
1979, Midwinter<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1979, Summer, Dallas<br />
Tuesday, 26 June, 2:00–5:30 P.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Library <strong>of</strong> Congress: Past, Present and Future,” Daniel J. Boorstin,<br />
Library <strong>of</strong> Congress<br />
“Libraries and Scholarship: Past, Present and Future,” Ian Willison,<br />
British Library, London<br />
1980, Midwinter<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1980, New York<br />
Monday, 30 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
“Library History and Oral History: An Introduction and Challenge”<br />
Chair: Philip Metzger, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
“History and Procedures <strong>of</strong> Oral History,” Elizabeth B. Mason, Columbia<br />
<strong>University</strong>, New York<br />
“Review <strong>of</strong> Work in Library History: Using Oral History Techniques,”<br />
John V. Richardson, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles<br />
“What Needs to Be Done in the Field Using Oral History,” Laurel A.<br />
Grotzinger, Western Michigan <strong>University</strong>, Kalamazoo<br />
1981, Midwinter<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
225<br />
1981, Summer, San Francisco<br />
Monday, 29 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
“Libraries under Communism: <strong>The</strong> U.S.S.R. and the People’s Republic <strong>of</strong><br />
China”<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Historical Development <strong>of</strong> Soviet Librarianship, 1917–1980,” Boris<br />
Raymond, Dalhousie <strong>University</strong><br />
“Chinese Libraries and Library Education, 1949–1980: Truth and Myth<br />
in the People’s Republic <strong>of</strong> China,” Lee-hsia Ting, Western Illinois<br />
<strong>University</strong>
226 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
Comments: Edward Kasinec, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Berkeley;<br />
Raymond N. Tang, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Berkeley<br />
Tuesday, 30 June, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
“Leaders in American Academic Librarianship, 1925–1975: An<br />
Experience in Oral History”<br />
Panel Chair: Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Kentucky, Lexington<br />
“Focus on Robert Downs, Keyes Metcalf, Louis Round Wilson, Ralph<br />
Ellsworth, Charles Harvey Brown, Lawrence Clark Powell and Jerald<br />
Orne”<br />
Panelists: Arthur P. Young, Peter Hernon, John V. Richardson, Jr., Edward<br />
R. Johnson, Edward G. Holley, Wayne A. Wiegand, Rosemary R. DuMont<br />
1982, Midwinter, Denver<br />
Saturday, 23 January, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1982, Summer, Philadelphia<br />
Monday, 12 July, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
“Images <strong>of</strong> Librarianship; or, What Collecting Librariana Can Tell Us<br />
about Library History”<br />
Panel Chair: Norman D. Stevens, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Connecticut, Storrs<br />
“Sam Walter Foss and His Poetry: A Reading,” George Parks, Colgate<br />
<strong>University</strong><br />
“Panel Discussion on the Ways Which Libraries, Librarians, and<br />
Librarianship Are Depicted in Various ‘Media’”<br />
Introduction, Norman D. Stevens, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Connecticut, Storrs<br />
“Cartoons,” Gail Grill, Garden Spot High <strong>School</strong><br />
“Images,” Catherine Heinz, Broadcast Pioneers Library, Washington, D.C.<br />
“Film,” Raymond Tevis, Ball State College, Muncie, Ind.<br />
“Postcards,” Marjorie A. Mark<strong>of</strong>f, Millersville State College; Billy Ray<br />
Wilkonson, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Maryland, Baltimore County<br />
“Postage Stamps,” John Henry Richter, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Michigan, Ann<br />
Arbor<br />
“Commemoratives,” David C. Libbey, Southern Connecticut College,<br />
New Haven<br />
“Librariana,” Norman D. Stevens, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Connecticut, Storrs
Tuesday, 13 July, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
“Women in Library History: Liberating Our Past”<br />
Presiding: Mary Niles Maack<br />
“Biographical Research,” Laurel A. Grotzinger, Western Michigan<br />
<strong>University</strong>, Kalamazoo<br />
“Librarianship and Other Female Intensive Pr<strong>of</strong>essions,” Barbara Brand,<br />
State <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New York, Stony Brook<br />
“<strong>The</strong>oretical Perspectives,” Suzanne Hildenbrand, State <strong>University</strong><br />
College, Geneseo, N.Y.<br />
“Cross Cultural Research,” Mary Niles Maack, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Minnesota,<br />
Minneapolis<br />
1983, Midwinter, San Antonio<br />
Saturday, 8 January, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1983, Los Angeles<br />
Monday, 27 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
(cosponsored by ACRL-RBMS)<br />
“ ‘So Good and Worthy a Designe’: Library Services to the Public in<br />
17th, 18th Centuries: Archbishop Tennison’s Library and Public Library<br />
Provision in England, 1660–1715” Peter A. Hoare, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Nottingham<br />
“Philadelphia Readers and Libraries in the 18th Century,” Marie E.<br />
Korey, Free Library <strong>of</strong> Philadelphia<br />
Tuesday, 28 June, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
LHRT Research Forum<br />
Presiding: Donald G. Davis, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
“Tauber’s Wilson: Biography or Autobiography,” Robert Sidney Martin,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina at Chapel Hill<br />
“Adelaide Haase and the Origin <strong>of</strong> the SuDoc Scheme,” Gail Nelson,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Los Angeles<br />
“Establishing Public Libraries in New England, 1850–1900,” William L.<br />
Olbrich, Jr., Baylor <strong>University</strong>, Waco, Tex.<br />
1983 Justin Winsor Prize Paper<br />
1984, Midwinter, Washington, D.C.<br />
Saturday, 7 January, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
227
228 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
1984, Summer, Dallas<br />
Monday, 25 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
“Censorship and the Dilemma <strong>of</strong> a Moral Culture,” Frederick Stielow,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Maryland<br />
“Early Library Education as ‘Gatekeeping,’” Lee Shiflett, Louisiana State<br />
<strong>University</strong><br />
1984 Justin Winsor Prize Paper<br />
Tuesday, 26 June, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
“Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science: Historical Perspectives”<br />
“Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science: <strong>The</strong> Integration <strong>of</strong> Complementary<br />
Fields,” W. Boyd Rayward, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago<br />
“Jesse Shera as an Interface between the Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science<br />
Fields,” H. Curtis Wright, Brigham Young <strong>University</strong>, Provo, Utah<br />
“Malchup’s Categories <strong>of</strong> Knowledge as a Framework for Viewing<br />
Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science History,” Francis Miksa, Louisiana<br />
State <strong>University</strong><br />
1985, Midwinter, Washington, D.C.<br />
Saturday, 5 January, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1985, Summer, Chicago<br />
Saturday, 6 July, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
(cosponsored with LRRT)<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Dialectic <strong>of</strong> Defeat: Antinomies in Research in Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science”<br />
Speaker: Michael H. Harris, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Kentucky<br />
Moderator: Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Kentucky<br />
Panel: Charles McClure, Jane Robbins-Carter, Don Swanson<br />
Tuesday, 9 July, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
LHRT Research Forum<br />
“Tackling Early Public Libraries in Texas or Wow! Is Texas a Big State<br />
and the Early Libraries Are Spread All Over,” Gretchen L. Lake, <strong>University</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
“<strong>The</strong> American Library Pr<strong>of</strong>ession and U.S. Cultural Diplomacy,” Gary<br />
Kraske, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Maryland, College Park
“Bringing Books to the People: <strong>The</strong> First Generation <strong>of</strong> Graduates from<br />
the Illinois Library <strong>School</strong>, 1898–1908,” Loriene Roy, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois<br />
at Urbana-Champaign<br />
1986, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Saturday, 18 January, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1986, Summer, New York<br />
Monday, 30 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Social Service Pr<strong>of</strong>essions: New Approaches to Historical<br />
Scholarship”<br />
Chair: Arthur P. Young, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Rhode Island<br />
“Rethinking the History <strong>of</strong> the Pr<strong>of</strong>essions,” John H. Ehrenreich, SUNY<br />
College at Old Westbury<br />
“ ‘Not Merely a Pr<strong>of</strong>ession’: Nurses and Conflict over Pr<strong>of</strong>essionalization,”<br />
Barbara Melosh, National Museum <strong>of</strong> American History,<br />
Smithsonian Institute<br />
Commentary: Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Kentucky, Lexington<br />
Tuesday, 1 July, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
(cosponsored with LRRT)<br />
“Research Paper Presentation” (Justin Winsor Prize Essay)<br />
1987, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Saturday, 17 January, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
229<br />
1987, San Francisco<br />
Monday, 29 June, 2:00–5:30 P.M.<br />
“Carnegie Denied: Communities Refusing Construction Grants,<br />
1898–1920”<br />
Chair: Robert S. Martin<br />
“Indiana,” J. Mark Tucker, Purdue <strong>University</strong>, West Lafayette<br />
“New York,” Fredrick Stielow, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Maryland, College Park<br />
“<strong>The</strong> South,” Donald G. Davis, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin, and<br />
Ronald C. Stone, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
“Michigan, Illinois and Ohio,” Daniel Ring, Oakland <strong>University</strong>, Calif.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Pittsburgh Case,” Rosemary DuMont, Kent State <strong>University</strong>, Ohio<br />
“Pennsylvania,” Pamela Spence Richards, Rutgers <strong>University</strong>, N.J.<br />
(presented by Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin, Madison)
230 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
Monday, 29 June, 11:30–12:30 P.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1988, Midwinter, San Antonio<br />
Saturday, 9 January, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1988, New Orleans<br />
Sunday, 10 July, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
(cosponsored with LRRT)<br />
“Research Paper Presentation” (Justin Winsor Prize Essay)<br />
Monday, 11 July, 2:00–5:30 P.M.<br />
“ ‘<strong>The</strong> Creation <strong>of</strong> Patriarchy’: Its Implications for Librarianship,” Gerda<br />
Lerner, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin, Madison<br />
[Implications for Female <strong>School</strong> Librarians], Rebecca T. Bingham,<br />
Jefferson County Public <strong>School</strong>s, Ky.<br />
[Implications for Female Academic Librarians], Sharon Hogan,<br />
Louisiana State <strong>University</strong><br />
1989, Midwinter, Washington, D.C.<br />
Saturday, 7 January, 9:00–11:00 A.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1989, Dallas<br />
Monday, 25 July, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
(cosponsored with LRRT)<br />
“Research Paper Presentation” (Justin Winsor Prize Essay)<br />
Monday, 25 June, 2:00–5:30 P.M.<br />
“Reflections on the Future <strong>of</strong> Humanistic Scholarship: Humanistic<br />
Scholarship in the Context <strong>of</strong> Cultural Policy,” Bernhard Fabian,<br />
Münster <strong>University</strong>, Federal Republic <strong>of</strong> Germany<br />
Respondents: Michael Ryan, Stanford <strong>University</strong> Libraries; Thomas F.<br />
Staley, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
1990, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Saturday, 6 January, 9:00–11:00 A.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee
1990, Chicago<br />
Monday, 25 June, 9:30–12:30 P.M.<br />
“To Plead Our Own Cause: Black Publishing in American History and<br />
Library Programs”<br />
Chair: Suzanne Hildenbrand, SUNY-Buffalo<br />
“Black Literature in the 19th Century: <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong> the Periodical Press,”<br />
Henry Louis Gates, Cornell <strong>University</strong><br />
“<strong>The</strong> Anatomy <strong>of</strong> a College-Community Series on the History <strong>of</strong> Black<br />
Book Publishing,” Betty Jenkins, City College, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New York<br />
1991, Midwinter, Chicago<br />
Saturday, 12 January, 9:00–11:00 A.M.<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1991, Atlanta<br />
Monday, 1 July, 8:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
“Technology, <strong>Information</strong> Science and Libraries in the 20th Century”<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Library Bureau and Office Technology,” Gerri Flanzraich, New<br />
York College <strong>of</strong> Osteopathic Medicine<br />
“<strong>Information</strong> Scientists and Graduate <strong>School</strong>s <strong>of</strong> Librarianship: <strong>The</strong> First<br />
Generation,” John V. Richardson, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los<br />
Angeles<br />
“Issues in Formulating Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science History,” Francis<br />
Miksa, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
1992, Midwinter<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
231<br />
1992, Summer, San Francisco<br />
Monday, 29 July, 2:00–5:00 P.M.<br />
LHRT Program: “<strong>The</strong> Old History and the New: Reflections on the<br />
Historic Role <strong>of</strong> Libraries”<br />
Chair: Mary Niles Maack, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles<br />
Presenter: Phyllis Dain, Columbia <strong>University</strong><br />
Commentators: John Y. Cole, Library <strong>of</strong> Congress, Washington, D.C.;<br />
Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin, Madison<br />
Tuesday, 30 June, 9:30–12:30 P.M.<br />
LHRT Research Forum: “<strong>The</strong> Public Library Inquiry: Reminiscences,<br />
Reflections and Research”
232 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
Chair: Mary Niles Maack, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Public Library Inquiry: Purpose, Procedures and Participants,”<br />
Alice Bryan, Columbia <strong>University</strong><br />
“<strong>The</strong> Public Library Inquiry: Search for Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Legitimacy,”<br />
Douglas Raber, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Missouri<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Relationship between the Public Library Inquiry and Library<br />
Planning,” Kathleen Molz, Columbia <strong>University</strong><br />
“Research on Public Libraries: Reflections <strong>of</strong> a Historian,” Mary Niles<br />
Maack, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles<br />
1993, Midwinter<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1993, Summer, New Orleans<br />
Monday, 28 June, 2:00–5:30 P.M.<br />
LHRT Program: “Perspectives on the Scholar’s Workshop: Papers in<br />
Honor <strong>of</strong> Edward G. Holley”<br />
Moderator and Commentator: Robert S. Martin<br />
“Andrew Carnegie and the Black College Libraries,” David Kaser,<br />
Indiana <strong>University</strong><br />
“Change and Tradition in Land-Grant <strong>University</strong> Libraries,” J. Mark<br />
Tucker, Purdue <strong>University</strong>, and Donald G. Davis, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas<br />
at Austin<br />
“Big Stakes in a Big Fight: Holley and Service to the Pr<strong>of</strong>ession,” James<br />
V. Carmichael, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina, Greensboro<br />
Tuesday, 29 June, 9:30–12:30 P.M.<br />
LHRT Research Forum: “Women’s Work: Vision and Change in<br />
Librarianship”<br />
(cosponsored by <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Science)<br />
Moderator: Joanne E. Passet, Indiana <strong>University</strong><br />
“Invisible, Indestructible Network: Women and the Diffusion <strong>of</strong><br />
Librarianship at the Turn <strong>of</strong> the Century,” Laurel Grotzinger, Michigan<br />
State <strong>University</strong><br />
“Southerners in the North and Northerners in the South: <strong>The</strong> Impact <strong>of</strong><br />
the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Library <strong>School</strong> on Southern Librarianship,”<br />
James V. Carmichael, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina, Greensboro<br />
“Women’s Work: Vision, Influence, and Power for Change,” Mary Niles<br />
Maack, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles
1994, Midwinter<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1994, Summer, Miami Beach<br />
Monday, 27 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
LHRT Program Session: “Libraries, Books and the Civil Rights<br />
Movement”<br />
Moderator: J. Mark Tucker, Purdue <strong>University</strong><br />
“Freedom Libraries,” Donald G. Davis, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
and Cheryl Knott Malone, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
“Racial Integration at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Houston: A Personal<br />
Perspective,” Edward G. Holley, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina and<br />
Charles D. Churchwell, Clark Atlanta <strong>University</strong><br />
“Black Women, Civil Rights & Libraries,” Jessie Carney Smith, Fisk<br />
<strong>University</strong><br />
Tuesday, 28 June, 8:30–11:30 A.M.<br />
LHRT Research Forum: “<strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> Black Librarianship in<br />
America”<br />
Moderator: Casper LeRoy Jordan, Atlanta <strong>University</strong><br />
“<strong>The</strong> Founding and Prevalence <strong>of</strong> African-American <strong>School</strong> Libraries and<br />
Historical Societies, 1918–1928: Gatekeepers <strong>of</strong> Early Black History,<br />
Collections and Literature,” Rosie L. Albritton, Wayne State <strong>University</strong><br />
“From Segregation to Integration: A History <strong>of</strong> Library Service to Blacks<br />
in South Carolina,” Dan Lee, Lander <strong>University</strong><br />
“ACRL’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Libraries Projects,<br />
1972–1994,” Beverly P. Lynch, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles,<br />
and Casper L. Jordan, Atlanta <strong>University</strong><br />
1995, Midwinter<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
233<br />
1995, Summer, Chicago<br />
Saturday, 24 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
(cosponsored by ALA-SRRT)<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Importance <strong>of</strong> LesbiGay Library History”<br />
Presiding: James V. Carmichael, Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina,<br />
Greensboro<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Silence Surrounding LesbiGay Library History,” James V. Carmichael,<br />
Jr., <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina, Greensboro
234 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
“Biographical Research on LesbiGay Subjects: <strong>The</strong> Case <strong>of</strong> Lillian<br />
Smith,” Rose Gladney, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Alabama<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Silence Surrounding Gay and Lesbian Library History,” Polly<br />
Thislewaite, Hunter College, New York, and James Carmichael<br />
“Difficulties in Establishing the Archival Record,” Brenda Marston,<br />
Cornell <strong>University</strong>, Ithaca, N.Y.<br />
“Multimedia Celebration,” Marie Kuda, Chicago<br />
[no research forum]<br />
1996, Midwinter<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1996, New York<br />
Monday, 8 July, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
LHRT Research Program “<strong>The</strong> History <strong>of</strong> ‘Trash’ in the Library,” Joe<br />
Raiola, Mad Magazine<br />
Respondents: Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin, Madison;<br />
Judith A. Overmier, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Oklahoma<br />
Sunday, 7 July, 9:30–12:30 P.M.<br />
LHRT Research Forum: “Women <strong>of</strong> Influence: Implications <strong>of</strong> Feminist<br />
Leadership Research for Library Historians”<br />
“Women Leaders: Power as Empowerment,” Helen Astin, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
California at Los Angeles<br />
“Women in Librarianship: Identifying the Leaders,” Mary Niles Maack,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles<br />
“Seizing the Day: <strong>The</strong> Powerful Impact <strong>of</strong> Mildred L. Batchelder,”<br />
Dorothy J. Anderson, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles<br />
“Courage <strong>of</strong> the Inconspicuous: Children’s Librarians as Leaders,”<br />
Christine Jenkins, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois, Urbana-Champaign<br />
Respondent: Nancy Becker Johnson, Wayne State <strong>University</strong><br />
1997, Midwinter<br />
LHRT Executive Committee<br />
1997, Summer, San Francisco<br />
Saturday, 28 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M.<br />
LHRT Research Forum: “Reading for Moral Progress”<br />
Moderator: Mary Kay Duggan, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Berkeley<br />
“Bread upon the Waters: <strong>The</strong> Printed Word in Sunday <strong>School</strong>s in 19th
Century England and the United States,” Donald G. Davis, Jr.,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Library Is a Valuable Hygienic Appliance,” David M. Hovde,<br />
Purdue <strong>University</strong><br />
“Wide Awakening: Political and <strong>The</strong>ological Impulses for Reading and<br />
Libraries at Oberlin College, 1883–1908,” J. Mark Tucker, Purdue<br />
<strong>University</strong><br />
Sunday, 29 June, 9:30–11:00 A.M.<br />
LHRT/LRRT Joint Program: “Library History as Research”<br />
Moderator, Nancy Becker Johnson, Wayne State <strong>University</strong><br />
“Romancing the Muse <strong>of</strong> History,” Christine A. Jenkins, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Rebecca Watson-Boone<br />
Sunday, 29 June, 11:30–12:30 P.M.<br />
Justin Winsor Prize Essay Award<br />
“Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library, 1907–1922,” Cheryl Knott Malone,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois, Urbana-Champaign<br />
Justin Winsor Prize<br />
LHRT Awards<br />
235<br />
1981 “Women Librarians in France: <strong>The</strong> First Generation,”<br />
Mary Niles Maack, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles<br />
1982 (Tie) “Aryan Librarianship: Academic and Research Libraries<br />
under Hitler,” Pamela Spence Richards, Rutgers<br />
1983<br />
<strong>University</strong><br />
“British Propaganda in American Public Libraries,<br />
1914–1917,” Wayne A. Wiegand, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin,<br />
Madison<br />
“Maurice F. Tauber’s Louis Round Wilson: An Analysis <strong>of</strong> a<br />
Collaboration,” Robert S. Martin, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North<br />
Carolina at Chapel Hill<br />
1984 “Library Culture and the Role <strong>of</strong> Libraries in Democratic<br />
America: Baltimore, 1815–1840,” Joseph Lawrence Yeatman,<br />
Towson High <strong>School</strong>, Baltimore<br />
1985 Not awarded
236 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
1986 “Adult Education and Economic Opportunism in the<br />
Gilded Age: <strong>The</strong> Library, the Chautauqua and the<br />
Railroads in DeFuniak, Florida,” Ronald Blazek, Florida<br />
State <strong>University</strong>, Tallahassee<br />
1987 “American Nervousness and Turn <strong>of</strong> the Century<br />
Librarians,” Rosalee McReynolds, Loyola <strong>University</strong>, New<br />
Orleans<br />
1988 “Library Service to the American Commission to Negotiate<br />
Peace and to the Preparatory Inquiry, 1917–1919,” Brother<br />
Thomas O’Connor, Manhattan College, New York<br />
1989 “Rapprochement: Carl Milam, Archibald Macleish, and<br />
World War II,” Frederick J. Stielow, Catholic <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
America<br />
1990 “Teaching General Reference Work: <strong>The</strong> Essential<br />
Paradigm, 1890–1990,” John V. Richardson, Jr., <strong>University</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong> California at Los Angeles<br />
1991 “<strong>The</strong> Postwar Purge <strong>of</strong> German Public Libraries,<br />
1992<br />
Democracy and the American Reaction,” Margaret F.<br />
Stieg, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Alabama<br />
“Men in a Feminized Pr<strong>of</strong>ession: <strong>The</strong> Male Librarian,<br />
1887–1921,” Joanne E. Passet, Indiana <strong>University</strong><br />
1993 Not awarded<br />
1994 Not awarded<br />
1995 Not awarded<br />
1996 “<strong>The</strong> ‘Amherst Method’: <strong>The</strong> Origins <strong>of</strong> the Dewey<br />
Decimal Classification Scheme,” Wayne A. Wiegand,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin, Madison<br />
1997 “Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library, 1907–1922,” Cheryl<br />
Knott Malone, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois, Urbana-Champaign<br />
Source: Wayne A. Wiegand, “Library History Research in<br />
the United States,” Libraries & Culture 25 (1990): 113.<br />
Phyllis Dain Library Dissertation Award<br />
1993 “American Public Library Service to the Immigrant<br />
Community, 1876–1948: A Biographical History <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Movement and Its Leaders,” Plummer Alston Jones, Jr.,<br />
Elon College, Elon College, NC
1996 “From Altruism to Activism: <strong>The</strong> Contributions <strong>of</strong><br />
Women’s Organizations to Arkansas Public Libraries,”<br />
Marilyn J. Martin, Texas Woman’s <strong>University</strong><br />
Honorable Mention<br />
[History <strong>of</strong> Micr<strong>of</strong>ilming], Susan Cady, Lehigh <strong>University</strong><br />
Leadership<br />
1947–67 Chair: Wayne Shirley<br />
Secretary: Louis Shores<br />
1967–68 Chair: Wayne Shirley<br />
Secretary: Louis Shores<br />
Editor: John David Marshall<br />
1969 Chair: N. Orwin Rush<br />
Secretary: John David Marshall<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Flora D. Colton<br />
1970 Chair: N. Orwin Rush<br />
Secretary: John David Marshall<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Flora D. Colton<br />
1971 Chair: N. Orwin Rush<br />
Secretary: John David Marshall<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Flora D. Colton<br />
1972 Chair: Michael H. Harris<br />
Secretary: David Carleton Libbey<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Flora D. Colton<br />
1<strong>973</strong> Chair: Russell Eugene Bidlack<br />
Secretary: Laurel A. Grotzinger<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Flora D. Colton<br />
1974 Chair: George S. Bobinski<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Doris C. Dale<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Flora D. Colton<br />
1975 Chair: Sarah K. Vann<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Sidney L. Jackson<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Flora D. Colton<br />
1976 Chair: Margaret F. Maxwell<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Susan O. Thompson<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Flora D. Colton<br />
237
238 L&C/Promoting Library History<br />
1977 Chair: Budd L. Gambee<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Wayne A. Wiegand<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee<br />
1978 Chair: Donald G. Davis, Jr.<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Phyllis Dain<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee<br />
1979 Chair: Donald E. Oehlerts<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Arthur P. Young<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee<br />
1980 Chair: Phyllis Dain<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Marion Casey<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee<br />
1981 Chair: Doris Cruger Dale<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Mary Niles Maack<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee<br />
1982 Chair: Anna Lou Ashby<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Philip A. Metzger<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee<br />
1983 Chair: Lee Shiflett<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Betty Young<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee<br />
1984 Chair: Laurel A. Grotzinger<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Robert V. Williams<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee<br />
1985 Chair: Arthur P. Young<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Gordon B. Neavill<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee<br />
1986 Chair: Robert M. Martin<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: James V. Carmichael, Jr.<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Emily I. Melton<br />
1987 Chair: Wayne A. Wiegand<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Jane A. Rosenberg<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Emily I. Melton<br />
1988 Chair: Gordon B. Neavill<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Charles A. Seavey<br />
Members at Large: Arthur P. Young, R. Kathleen Molz<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Emily I. Melton
239<br />
1989 Chair: Suzanne Hildenbrand<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Joanne E. Passet<br />
Members at Large: R. Kathleen Molz, Mary Niles Maack<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Charles T. Harmon<br />
1990 Chair: Francis Miksa<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Judith A. Overmier<br />
Members at Large: Richard Hume Werking, Margaret F. Steig<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Charles T. Harmon<br />
1991 Chair: Mary Niles Maack<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Rosalee McReynolds<br />
Members at Large: Margaret F. Steig, Laurel A. Grotzinger<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Charles T. Harmon<br />
1992 Chair: Joanne E. Passet<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Nancy Becker Johnson<br />
Members at Large: Laurel A. Grotzinger, Barbara B. Brand<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Charles T. Harmon<br />
1993 Chair: John Mark Tucker<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Betty Hanson<br />
Members at Large: Barbara B. Brand, Judith A. Overmier<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Charles T. Harmon<br />
1994 Chair: James V. Carmichael, Jr.<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Nancy Becker Johnson<br />
Members at Large: Barbara B. Brand, Michele V. Cloonan<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Charles T. Harmon<br />
1995 Chair: Judith A. Overmier<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Louise S. Robbins<br />
Members at Large: Michele V. Cloonan, Deanna Marcum<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Renee Prestegard<br />
1996 Chair: Nancy Becker Johnson<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: David M. Hovde<br />
Members at Large: Deanna Marcum, Christine Jenkins<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Mary Jo Lynch<br />
1997 Chair: Louise S. Robbins<br />
Secretary-Treasurer: Ann Moss<br />
Members at Large: Christine Jenkins, Holly G. Willett<br />
ALA Staff Liaison: Mary Jo Lynch
<strong>The</strong> Historical Sensibility<br />
Phyllis Dain<br />
Library historians, most <strong>of</strong> them librarians themselves, bring identity,<br />
context, and continuity to librarianship, as well as situating libraries and<br />
librarianship in the general stream <strong>of</strong> history. <strong>The</strong>y do this mainly through<br />
exploring historical topics. <strong>The</strong>y can also apply their historical insight<br />
directly to contemporary <strong>issue</strong>s and problems and thereby contribute a<br />
valuable perspective to the practice <strong>of</strong> librarianship today.<br />
It’s a pleasure to celebrate with you the fiftieth anniversary <strong>of</strong> LHRT,<br />
and I congratulate all who have participated through the years in the<br />
very successful effort to promote the scholarly study <strong>of</strong> library history.<br />
Special recognition is due to two good friends and colleagues: Don Davis<br />
for his indefatigable work for the cause in so many key ways, and John<br />
Cole (and the Center for the Book) for always faithful support.<br />
In stimulating and supporting new historical work LHRT has served as<br />
a forum for library historians, a place to find kindred spirits and form<br />
good friendships. This has been immensely important. Library historians<br />
can feel somewhat intellectually isolated. Mainly pr<strong>of</strong>essional librarians,<br />
they either teach at library schools or work out in the field; few work at<br />
history full time. In library schools (or, to be up to date, schools <strong>of</strong> information<br />
studies), unless things have changed, historians will usually be<br />
lucky to teach a history <strong>of</strong> libraries course; at most they cover history in<br />
a general backgrounds course or incorporate it into the contemporary<br />
subjects they teach. Out in the library field, although historical work is<br />
respected, and much more so now than fifty years ago, that’s <strong>of</strong> course<br />
not where the action is (about which more later). In the history pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />
proper, so to speak, we still stand somewhat at the margins, though<br />
less so now than earlier.<br />
Still, we librarians continue to do historical research and writing. Why?<br />
As many have said, such work can delineate the role <strong>of</strong> libraries in society,<br />
supply the pr<strong>of</strong>ession with perspective, help build a realistic, critical<br />
sense <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional identity and continuity, inculcate pr<strong>of</strong>essional traditions<br />
and culture, point to accomplishments and failings, and so on. That<br />
is all quite valid, but it applies to the significance <strong>of</strong> historical work, not<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
241<br />
why we really do it. In a personal sense it begs the question. We do history<br />
because we want to. It’s interesting. We love it. We have a historical<br />
cast <strong>of</strong> mind. We’re humanists and historians by inclination and training;<br />
probably most <strong>of</strong> us were history majors in college, many did graduate<br />
work in history, and almost all did a historical doctoral dissertation.<br />
Librarianship has always attracted historians, and there’s been a natural<br />
affinity between librarians and historians. Whatever else it may be, history<br />
is a humanistic discipline that uses the records <strong>of</strong> human activity<br />
and thought. Librarianship has been, and remains, a humanistic<br />
endeavor, concerned with preserving and organizing those records and<br />
with serving the human need for cultural continuity and intellectual<br />
nourishment as well as practical information.<br />
Library historians, with their love for history and their understanding<br />
<strong>of</strong> its winding course, can make a special contribution to the humanistic<br />
role <strong>of</strong> libraries as it is played out today. <strong>The</strong> fact that we’re involved in<br />
current pr<strong>of</strong>essional affairs as well as historical research <strong>of</strong>fers us a<br />
unique opportunity. In the intensely practical pr<strong>of</strong>ession <strong>of</strong> librarianship<br />
to which we are committed and which we also love, the historical sensibility<br />
can be very valuable. History is a mode <strong>of</strong> “thinking in time,” as<br />
Richard Neustadt and Ernest May put it in their book on “the uses <strong>of</strong> history<br />
for decision-makers.” 1 Human beings live in time and through time.<br />
Historians explore that experience, and with awareness <strong>of</strong> all the contradictions<br />
and complexities and unknowables that such study presents.<br />
History yields context, and those <strong>of</strong> us who do history can’t help but<br />
think in contextual terms. We’re trained to do so.<br />
Historical perspective powerfully informed classic works on contemporary<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s in librarianship—for example, Carleton Joeckel’s 1935 study<br />
<strong>of</strong> the government <strong>of</strong> the American public library, or the post–World<br />
War II Public Library Inquiry. Library historians today can enrich current<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional discourse by providing similar context, by pointing out<br />
both continuums and disjunctions between past and present and by analyzing<br />
and assessing, in our time <strong>of</strong> rapid change, processes <strong>of</strong> change.<br />
This is not a matter <strong>of</strong> learning lessons from the past, though there are<br />
lessons to be drawn. People seldom do so, it seems, or they learn the<br />
wrong lessons or the right ones at the wrong times. Nor does “thinking<br />
in time” about present <strong>issue</strong>s imply a presentist view <strong>of</strong> history. Rather,<br />
it is the opposite—taking a historical view <strong>of</strong> the present, seeing where<br />
the present stands in the stream <strong>of</strong> time. It means thinking backward<br />
to go forward. I’m not saying that historians/librarians should focus on<br />
the present at the expense <strong>of</strong> their historical research. And I know<br />
some <strong>of</strong> them have addressed contemporary <strong>issue</strong>s from a historical<br />
viewpoint. I would encourage more <strong>of</strong> that. <strong>The</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>ession would both<br />
welcome and benefit from historians more <strong>of</strong>ten applying historical
242 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Historical Sensibility<br />
insight and contextual thinking directly to the contemporary situation,<br />
not by preaching the value <strong>of</strong> historical perspective and context but by<br />
furnishing it.<br />
I speak, if I may, from personal experience. A few years ago R.<br />
Kathleen Molz, my colleague at Columbia <strong>University</strong>’s late <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library Service (and now on the faculty <strong>of</strong> the university’s <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
International and Public Affairs), and I undertook to co-author a book on<br />
the current state and prospects <strong>of</strong> the American public library, very<br />
broadly considered, and in terms <strong>of</strong> both national public policy and local<br />
institutional practice. That book, Civic Space/Cyberspace: <strong>The</strong> American<br />
Public Library in the <strong>Information</strong> Age, published in the fall <strong>of</strong> 1999 by the<br />
MIT Press, is an essayistic work, based on various sources: published and<br />
unpublished documents and data; field visits around the country; and<br />
interviews and conversations with several hundred librarians and others<br />
interested in libraries and information policy. We also drew upon our own<br />
years <strong>of</strong> reading, teaching, and pr<strong>of</strong>essional practice and, very significantly,<br />
our historical knowledge and cast <strong>of</strong> mind. That historical outlook<br />
lent to our work a depth <strong>of</strong> understanding and breadth <strong>of</strong> scope that,<br />
frankly, surprised even us. It helped us, I think, to give a sense <strong>of</strong> what is<br />
similar now to the past and what is different from it and <strong>of</strong> the problems<br />
and opportunities that both the traditional and the new evoke. Even if we<br />
had not already had the habit <strong>of</strong> thinking in time, we would soon have<br />
seen that we should cultivate it, for to comprehend what is going on now<br />
is impossible without that historical vista.<br />
To take one broad example among many: public libraries today are<br />
institutionally and fiscally very diverse at the same time as they are in<br />
many ways alike. <strong>The</strong> classic, fairly simple models <strong>of</strong> public libraries—<br />
independent municipal institutions and a scattering <strong>of</strong> many small town<br />
libraries, plus, later, county libraries in a few rural states—didn’t apply<br />
across the board in Joeckel’s kaleidoscopic picture, and they apply much<br />
less so now. <strong>The</strong> current scene reflects pr<strong>of</strong>ound changes in American<br />
society over the past fifty years and the superimposition on individual<br />
library entities <strong>of</strong> new consolidated and interlibrary systems that grew<br />
out <strong>of</strong> the work <strong>of</strong> Joeckel, the Public Library Inquiry, and other promoters<br />
<strong>of</strong> universal, equitable access to libraries. Library access is now ubiquitous,<br />
and services around the country are quite similar and can<br />
transcend, through technology and cooperation, local resources. But this<br />
development was neither neat nor consistent nationwide, and all the talk<br />
about globalism notwithstanding, services and resources are not equal or<br />
equally funded. This is very much because <strong>of</strong> potent local variations and<br />
boundaries that may contradict the regional way we live now but are<br />
deeply rooted in history—in how libraries were first formed, their organic<br />
connections with home communities, our federal, multitiered govern-
mental system, demographic shifts, public funding systems, and the politics<br />
<strong>of</strong> public policy.<br />
To be more specific: two leading American public library systems, Los<br />
Angeles County and King County in Washington state, are both big, successful,<br />
and progressive, with annual circulations among the highest in<br />
the country. Both systems originated in efforts to serve rural communities<br />
that have since evolved into urban, suburban, and exurban components<br />
<strong>of</strong> major metropolitan areas. But Los Angeles County Library has<br />
been in big fiscal trouble and has had to be quite entrepreneurial, while<br />
King County Library has continued to flourish without much interruption.<br />
Los Angeles County Library, dating from 1912, operates in functional<br />
buildings in a heterogeneous, populous service area; the somewhat<br />
smaller King County Library, established in 1943, serves far-flung, more<br />
or less homogeneous, albeit changing communities in many beautiful<br />
new or renovated buildings. <strong>The</strong> Los Angeles system is a creature <strong>of</strong> the<br />
county, and California counties have suffered from the state’s economic<br />
vicissitudes, antitax measures, and the decline in its historic commitment<br />
to educational institutions. King County Library is an independent<br />
taxing district in a state with no direct state aid for libraries and in a<br />
region still experiencing economic boom times and with many independent<br />
districts delivering public services. History . . . Context . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> book did divert me to an extent from my historical projects, but I<br />
can honestly say that everything I had previously done informed the work<br />
on the book and that that work made me think more deeply about historical<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s. <strong>The</strong> traveling and interviews and reading also gave me a<br />
wider range <strong>of</strong> knowledge about the evolution <strong>of</strong> public libraries. And it<br />
was all very inspiring, even to such sharp-eyed critics as Kathleen Molz<br />
and I tend to be. We met wonderful people and saw very effective<br />
libraries, some operating under difficult conditions. I also have to say<br />
that many librarians expressed appreciation for the chance to step back<br />
from their everyday work and discuss larger pr<strong>of</strong>essional and, yes, historical<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s with us. For our part, we hope we’ve contributed toward an<br />
understanding <strong>of</strong> an “old” institution that remains vital in the “new”<br />
American life.<br />
Note<br />
1. Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: <strong>The</strong> Uses <strong>of</strong> History<br />
for Decision-Makers (New York: Free Press, 1986).<br />
243
<strong>The</strong> Cover—<strong>The</strong> Cavagna Collection: A Case<br />
Study in Special Collections<br />
Designed for the Cavagna Collection at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois in<br />
Urbana-Champaign, the black-and-white bookplate depicts at its center<br />
the Cavagna family crest. <strong>The</strong> Cavagna family, from the Lombardy<br />
region <strong>of</strong> Italy, traces its name to 1112. <strong>The</strong>ir crest consists <strong>of</strong> a gold<br />
lion on a red background. Crossing the lion is a blue band with a cestus<br />
in gold. Set above is a golden-crowned, two-headed black eagle on a<br />
gold background. Surrounding the crest is an ornate Italian<br />
Renaissance design, as befits the collection, with the university’s motto,<br />
Bookplate courtesy <strong>of</strong> the Cavagna Collection<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
245<br />
“Learning and Labor,” modestly emblazoned across the bottom <strong>of</strong> the<br />
bookplate.<br />
Acquired in 1921, the Cavagna Collection belonged to Count Antonio<br />
Cavagna Sangiuliani di Gualdana (1843–1913), Italian nobleman, writer,<br />
and bibliophile from Pavia. Born in Piedmont on 15 August 1843, he was<br />
the last <strong>of</strong> the Cavagna counts. In 1853 his cousin Antonio Sangiuliani,<br />
who had no heir, adopted him, thus allowing Cavagna to add the name <strong>of</strong><br />
Sangiuliani to his surname.<br />
Cavagna fought for the unification <strong>of</strong> Italy, which interrupted his study<br />
<strong>of</strong> law at several universities. Eventually he received the laurea in legge<br />
from the l’Universitá Pontificia in Rome in 1871. Active in public life<br />
until his death, he was also a member <strong>of</strong> many learned societies, academies,<br />
and institutions. He wrote over 160 publications, from short newspaper<br />
articles and obituaries to full-length books. Topics were chiefly on<br />
art, local and regional history, biography and genealogy, and catalogs <strong>of</strong><br />
his own library and archives. He was a recognized authority on the local<br />
history <strong>of</strong> Lombardy and Piedmont.<br />
Starting in the early 1860s, Cavagna built a library that centered<br />
around his research interests, with manuscripts on the study <strong>of</strong> the<br />
local history <strong>of</strong> Italian cities and towns, institutions, societies, and families.<br />
Spanning 1116 to 1913, the collection consists <strong>of</strong> approximately<br />
30,000 volumes and 90 cubic feet <strong>of</strong> 138 portfolios <strong>of</strong> unbound manuscripts<br />
arranged alphabetically by place, 290 bound volumes <strong>of</strong> manuscript<br />
material (some 50 items predate 1600), and 100 volumes <strong>of</strong><br />
later transcripts from Italian archives. It includes legal documents,<br />
maps, investitures, <strong>of</strong>ficial documents on Italian local history, statutes<br />
<strong>of</strong> Italian communes and cities, regulations on banks and banking, and<br />
bibliographical, biographical, and genealogical accounts <strong>of</strong> Italian families<br />
and individuals. Other individual interests <strong>of</strong> Cavagna reflected in<br />
his library are opera and theater, education and health care for the<br />
poor and handicapped, travel literature, information on Italian spas<br />
and mineral waters, and literary pieces in celebration <strong>of</strong> marriage.<br />
<strong>The</strong> focus is primarily on Lombardy and Piedmont and secondarily on<br />
Tre Venezie, Emilia-Romagna, and Tuscany, with other regions less<br />
represented.<br />
Covering such diverse fields, most <strong>of</strong> the works are in Italian, but there<br />
are also Italian editions <strong>of</strong> French publications, Latin works, Italian<br />
translations from the Latin, and German publications. <strong>The</strong> oldest item<br />
in the collection dates to 1116. An original parchment document <strong>of</strong><br />
Henry V, emperor <strong>of</strong> the Holy Roman Empire, it concerns his disagreements<br />
with Pope Paschal II over the right <strong>of</strong> investiture.<br />
Cavagna died on 5 April 1913. His four daughters, to whom he had<br />
willed the library, were unsuccessful in selling their father’s library
246 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Cover<br />
locally. Neither the Pavia Historical Society nor the Ministry <strong>of</strong> Public<br />
Instruction had the funds to buy it. In 1914 a book dealer in Leipzig first<br />
alerted the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Library to the availability <strong>of</strong> the collection<br />
for a princely sum. <strong>The</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois librarian, Phineas L.<br />
Windsor, directed David Carnahan, chair <strong>of</strong> the Romance Languages<br />
Department at Illinois, to examine the collection while on a research trip<br />
in Europe. Windsor hoped that dealing directly with the family and<br />
bypassing the book dealer would lower the price. A direct quote from the<br />
family was indeed less than that <strong>of</strong> the book dealer.<br />
<strong>The</strong> war prevented further negotiations. Illinois remained patient,<br />
thinking it might negotiate an even better price after the war. In 1919<br />
the price remained the same, but the devaluation <strong>of</strong> the lire made it a<br />
more realistic purchase. By May 1919 Kenneth McKenzie, now chair <strong>of</strong><br />
the Romance Languages Department, personally inspected the collection.<br />
In June the Senate Library Committee <strong>of</strong> the university unanimously<br />
recommended the purchase. Shortly thereafter, the university’s<br />
board <strong>of</strong> trustees authorized a special appropriation. Only negotiations<br />
to arrange boxing, shipping, and insuring the collection remained. At<br />
this point the deal was nearly shelved, with the family threatening to<br />
back out and Italian authorities complicating the process. Permission to<br />
export finally came in March 1921.<br />
By July 1921 the last <strong>of</strong> the 117 boxes, weighing 20 tons altogether,<br />
arrived in Illinois. Windsor appraised the collection: “looked at from a<br />
money point <strong>of</strong> view it is a great bargain, and looked at from the point <strong>of</strong><br />
view <strong>of</strong> its influence on Italian studies here in Urbana [Illinois] it is difficult<br />
to overestimate the value <strong>of</strong> the collection.” 1 Over fifty years later,<br />
a scholar echoed Windsor’s assessment, considering the Cavagna<br />
Collection “one <strong>of</strong> the most remarkable and rich collections <strong>of</strong> its kind<br />
outside <strong>of</strong> Italy. And I would not be surprised if it surpassed even those<br />
single collections available for consultation in northern Italy.” 2<br />
Despite the amount <strong>of</strong> material that did arrive, not all the items in<br />
Cavagna’s library reached Illinois. <strong>The</strong>re is evidence <strong>of</strong> items known to<br />
have been in the library that have since surfaced in communal archives<br />
in Italy. Suspicions have been aimed at Cavagna’s son-in-law, who represented<br />
the family in its negotiations and in all likelihood sold some items<br />
locally. Other material identified as from the Cavagna library has<br />
appeared in other U.S. libraries.<br />
Cataloging the collection began immediately after its arrival in<br />
Illinois. A lone librarian, Meta M. Sexton, devoted nearly her entire<br />
career to the project. By the time she retired in 1951, she had cataloged<br />
over 20,000 items. <strong>The</strong> remaining uncataloged items, mostly pamphlets,<br />
went into storage. Not until Illinois received an NEH grant in the early<br />
1980s was funding available to catalog the balance <strong>of</strong> the collection and<br />
publish a comprehensive guide. 3
Special Collections and the Making <strong>of</strong> a Research Library<br />
247<br />
<strong>The</strong> bookplate <strong>of</strong> the Cavagna Collection is one <strong>of</strong> the earliest at<br />
Illinois designed for a specific collection bought by the library. In the first<br />
quarter <strong>of</strong> the twentieth century, the library began singling out special<br />
collections with these bookplates and, in doing so, marked an important<br />
phase in the library’s development: the library’s strategy to buy important<br />
private libraries from Europe at that time led directly to the creation<br />
<strong>of</strong> a major research library in the Midwest.<br />
<strong>The</strong> earliest years <strong>of</strong> the library did not foreshadow such growth. In<br />
early 1868, the first year the Illinois Industrial <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong>fered<br />
courses, Regent John Milton Gregory traveled to New York. His monthlong<br />
trip east to purchase books cost the university $104.09 in travel<br />
expenses and resulted in a core collection <strong>of</strong> 644 volumes, costing<br />
$1,000. 4 <strong>The</strong> library’s collection grew admirably during Gregory’s tenure<br />
but declined after he left in 1880.<br />
During the following decade, various faculty members in languages<br />
and classics indifferently managed the library. It did not improve greatly<br />
in size or service, with appropriations for books never exceeding $1,500 a<br />
year. <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois president Draper, appointed in 1894,<br />
expressed interest in the library by hiring its first full-time director in his<br />
first year. <strong>The</strong> director, Percy F. Bicknell, had no formal library training<br />
but had been an assistant librarian at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.<br />
Active in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession, he was part <strong>of</strong> a group that formed the<br />
Illinois Library Association and was its first treasurer. An “ill-tempered”<br />
man, he was dismissed in April 1897 by Draper. 5<br />
With the advent <strong>of</strong> the Draper administration the university politicked<br />
for more funds from the state legislature to erect a separate building for<br />
the university library. Funds obtained, the university began construction<br />
on a library in 1896. It was completed in June 1897 and included facilities<br />
for the library and the newly established Illinois Library <strong>School</strong>.<br />
Grotzinger implies that it was Draper’s wish to secure a competent<br />
librarian that drove his decision to hire Katharine Lucinda Sharp as<br />
librarian, which he did under the advice <strong>of</strong> Melvil Dewey. 6 Dewey also<br />
gave the main dedicatory speech at the opening <strong>of</strong> the library. <strong>The</strong> student<br />
newspaper recorded his impressions <strong>of</strong> the new building: “<strong>The</strong> situation<br />
was admirable for the training school <strong>of</strong> the whole west, and he<br />
congratulated the <strong>University</strong> on having secured in Miss Sharp and Miss<br />
[Mary L.] Jones [the new assistant pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> library economy], librarians<br />
recognized throughout the country for the excellence <strong>of</strong> their work<br />
and for their peculiar adaptation to what he believed would prove the<br />
brilliant literary future <strong>of</strong> Illinois.” 7<br />
Modeled on Sharp’s own experience at Dewey’s Albany school, the university<br />
library became the learning laboratory for the student body in the
248 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Cover<br />
library school. Sharp introduced modern library methodology and<br />
Deweyan efficiencies. Retiring in 1907, Sharp oversaw the growth <strong>of</strong> the<br />
academic program in librarianship at Illinois. She also administered the<br />
library, which grew from roughly 30,000 books to nearly 100,000, or more<br />
than threefold during her tenure. Many <strong>of</strong> the books and journals<br />
acquired during this period supported the disciplines predominant in a<br />
land-grant university, agriculture and engineering.<br />
An acting director was briefly in place after Sharp’s departure, and in<br />
1909 Phineas Lawrence Windsor (1871–1965), a native <strong>of</strong> Illinois and an<br />
1899 graduate <strong>of</strong> the New York State Library <strong>School</strong>, was appointed the<br />
permanent director. Better known by his friends as P. L. Windsor, he ushered<br />
in a long era <strong>of</strong> stability, retiring in 1940. Windsor, with the firm<br />
support <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> president, was the library director responsible<br />
for marshaling funds and shaping the development <strong>of</strong> the collection.<br />
During his tenure, nearly forty years after the university was founded,<br />
the university began focusing on what became a hallmark <strong>of</strong> the campus:<br />
the library.<br />
After graduating from library school, Windsor had worked briefly at<br />
the Copyright Office in Washington, D.C., and the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas<br />
library before coming to Illinois in 1909. Head <strong>of</strong> both the university<br />
library and the Library <strong>School</strong> for thirty-one years, he was an active<br />
member and high <strong>of</strong>fice holder <strong>of</strong> the ALA, the American Library<br />
Institute, the Bibliographical Society <strong>of</strong> America, the Illinois Library<br />
Association, and the Association <strong>of</strong> American Library <strong>School</strong>s.<br />
Windsor assumed directorship <strong>of</strong> the library during the presidency <strong>of</strong><br />
Edmund J. James (1904–20). Educated in Germany, James believed that<br />
a great research university required a great library: “so important, so<br />
fundamental, so necessary is a great collection, or rather the group <strong>of</strong><br />
collections, which we sum up under the term university library, to the<br />
work <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> that one might almost say a properly equipped<br />
university library would <strong>of</strong> itself in the long run build up a university.” 8<br />
With such administrative support and a goal established in 1912 to<br />
acquire one million volumes, Windsor was able to enlarge the collection<br />
in quantity and quality. Figures vary, but during his directorship the collection<br />
grew from 127,000 volumes to nearly 1.6 million and included<br />
many <strong>of</strong> the library’s most important collections. Under Windsor, the<br />
library became the fifth largest library in the country. Further, it had<br />
grown from the thirteenth largest academic library to the third and the<br />
largest state university library, a position it still holds. 9<br />
<strong>The</strong> purchase <strong>of</strong> the Cavagna Collection in 1921 typified that <strong>of</strong> many<br />
other collections bought during the Windsor era. From 1909 until the<br />
end <strong>of</strong> the First World War, the library sought to purchase the private<br />
libraries <strong>of</strong> European scholars and collectors. Faculty on research trips or
vacations in Europe were given authority to scope out potential purchases.<br />
Statistics reflect growing support for the library in President<br />
James’s era. Appropriations for the purchase <strong>of</strong> books increased from<br />
$25,000 in 1908 to $90,000 in 1920, the year <strong>of</strong> James’s retirement. By<br />
the time Windsor retired in 1940, appropriations had increased only<br />
moderately to $110,700. 10<br />
During the next phase under Windsor, after the departure <strong>of</strong><br />
President James, collection development was aimed at supporting faculty<br />
research, complementing the university’s emphasis on improving teaching<br />
and research in the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts. Two key<br />
faculty members were Thomas W. Baldwin, specializing in Shakespeare,<br />
and Harris F. Fletcher, specializing in Milton, who had joined the faculty<br />
in 1925 and 1926, respectively. With the support <strong>of</strong> the campus, the<br />
library focused on acquiring books dating from 1501 to 1700.<br />
Many <strong>of</strong> these purchases went directly to the <strong>of</strong>fices <strong>of</strong> scholars using<br />
them. In particular, Fletcher’s library studies were overwhelmed with<br />
thousands <strong>of</strong> items. To address problems <strong>of</strong> space and increasing use, the<br />
library assumed control over the materials in 1937 and placed them in<br />
the newly designated Seventeenth Century Room. Six years later, under<br />
Windsor’s successor, Robert B. Downs (1943–71), the library established<br />
a rare book room to oversee the Seventeenth Century Collection and<br />
develop a concerted program <strong>of</strong> both buying and maintaining rare materials<br />
and publicizing and providing access to them.<br />
Since the formal beginnings <strong>of</strong> the Rare Book and Special Collections<br />
Library in the early 1940s, its holdings have grown to over 250,000 books,<br />
including 1,100 incunabula, over 44,000 micr<strong>of</strong>orms, and over 7,130 linear<br />
feet <strong>of</strong> manuscripts. Materials in the library range from major rare<br />
books such as the four Shakespeare folios, Audubon’s Birds <strong>of</strong> America, the<br />
largest collection <strong>of</strong> the works <strong>of</strong> the poet John Milton in the United<br />
States, famous manuscript collections <strong>of</strong> H. G. Wells, Marcel Proust, and<br />
the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet W. S. Merwin, to extensive special collections<br />
in a wide variety <strong>of</strong> fields, including the Cavagna Collection. 11<br />
Elizabeth R. Cardman<br />
Notes<br />
249<br />
1. P. L. Windsor to Edmond J. James, 13 July 1921, Record Series 35/1/4,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Archives, Urbana.<br />
2. Eric Cochrane to Scott Bennett, 9 March 1976, from a Special Collection<br />
reference <strong>file</strong> on the Cavagna Collection in the Rare Book and Special<br />
Collections Library at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.<br />
3. Guides to the collection include <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois, List <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Manuscripts and Printed Documents <strong>of</strong> the Archivio Cavagna Sangiuliani,
250 L&C/<strong>The</strong> Cover<br />
Sezione Prima, in the library, Urbana, 1932; Catalog <strong>of</strong> the Manuscripts and<br />
Printed Documents <strong>of</strong> the Archivio Cavagna Sangiuliani, Sezione Seconda, in the<br />
library, Urbana, 1948; Shelflist <strong>of</strong> the Pamphlets in the Cavagna Collection held<br />
in the Rare Book Room, Urbana, 1980. See also Marcella Grendler, Keyword List<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Cavagna Collection (Urbana, 1980). <strong>The</strong> introduction to Grendler’s work is<br />
the basis for much <strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> Cavagna, his library and its contents, and the<br />
purchase <strong>of</strong> the collection.<br />
4. John H<strong>of</strong>fman, “Regent Gregory and the Founding <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong><br />
Library, 1868,” Non Solus 9 (1982): 34–43.<br />
5. For a history <strong>of</strong> the early years <strong>of</strong> the library, see the following: Evelyn<br />
Mildred Hensel, “History <strong>of</strong> the Catalog Department <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois<br />
Library” (master’s thesis, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois, 1936); Madeline Cord Thompson,<br />
“History <strong>of</strong> the Reference Department <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Library” (master’s<br />
thesis, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois, 1942); Lucile E. Wilcox, “History <strong>of</strong> the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Library, 1868–1897” (master’s thesis, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois,<br />
1931).<br />
6. Laurel Ann Grotzinger, <strong>The</strong> Power and the Dignity: Librarianship and Katharine<br />
Sharp (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1986), 80.<br />
7. “Dedication <strong>of</strong> the Library Building,” Illini, 9 June 1897, 1074.<br />
8. “Way in which Friends <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois might contribute to its<br />
work . . . ,” Edmund James, ca. 1914, James Faculty Correspondence, RS 2/5/6,<br />
Box 43.<br />
9. Statistics comparing sizes <strong>of</strong> academic libraries begin to appear in the<br />
library’s annual reports for 1911–12. Different academic librarians around the<br />
country culled and shared the data.<br />
10. Thomas Edward Ratcliffe, Jr., “Development <strong>of</strong> the Buildings, Policy and<br />
Collection <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Library in Urbana, 1897–1940” (master’s<br />
thesis, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois, 1949).<br />
11. A brief history <strong>of</strong> the Rare Book Room may be found in Arthur M.<br />
McAnally, “<strong>The</strong> Evolution <strong>of</strong> a Rare Book Collection,” Stecher-Hafner Book News<br />
(April 1951).
CONTRIBUTORS<br />
Jon Arvid Aho is a doctoral student at the Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
and <strong>Information</strong> Science, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin, where he<br />
received the M.L.I.S. degree. He has degrees in theology (M.Div. and<br />
S.T.M.) from Concordia <strong>The</strong>ological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and<br />
in history (M.A.) from Western Washington <strong>University</strong>, Bellingham.<br />
Prior to his library studies, he was in the Christian ministry from 1979,<br />
holding a variety <strong>of</strong> pastorates as well as working in theological libraries.<br />
His academic and pr<strong>of</strong>essional interests include the history <strong>of</strong> books and<br />
libraries, the early Christian Church, and theological librarianship.<br />
Elizabeth R. Cardman is the assistant university archivist at the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her responsibilities include<br />
management <strong>of</strong> the ALA Archives, which are maintained by the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois Archives. She holds a Ph.D. in library and information<br />
science from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her<br />
research interests include nineteenth-century librarianship and the history<br />
<strong>of</strong> women pr<strong>of</strong>essionals.<br />
James V. Carmichael, Jr., is associate pr<strong>of</strong>essor in the Department <strong>of</strong><br />
Library and <strong>Information</strong> Studies at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North Carolina at<br />
Greensboro. He received his bachelor’s degree in French and his M.Ln.<br />
from Emory <strong>University</strong>, and his Ph.D. from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> North<br />
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the editor <strong>of</strong> Daring to Find Our Names: <strong>The</strong><br />
Search for Lesbigay Library History (1998) and has written extensively on<br />
Southern library history and gender <strong>issue</strong>s.<br />
Richard J. Cox is associate pr<strong>of</strong>essor in archival studies at the <strong>University</strong><br />
<strong>of</strong> Pittsburgh <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Information</strong> Sciences. He holds an undergraduate<br />
degree in history and English, the M.A. in history from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Maryland, and the Ph.D. in library science from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Pittsburgh. He has published more than one hundred articles and four<br />
books on all aspects <strong>of</strong> archives and records management, including<br />
Documenting Localities: A Practical Model for American Archivists and Manuscript<br />
Curators (1996). Elected a fellow <strong>of</strong> the Society <strong>of</strong> American Archivists in<br />
1989, he edited American Archivist from 1991 to 1995.<br />
Phyllis Dain is pr<strong>of</strong>essor emerita <strong>of</strong> library service at Columbia<br />
<strong>University</strong>. She is the author and editor <strong>of</strong> numerous books and articles<br />
on library history, including, most notably, <strong>The</strong> New York Public Library: A<br />
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000<br />
2000 by the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
252 L&C/Contributors<br />
History <strong>of</strong> Its Founding and Early Years (1972) and, most recently, Civic<br />
Space/Cyberspace: <strong>The</strong> American Public Library in the <strong>Information</strong> Age (1999)<br />
with Redmond Kathleen Molz.<br />
Donald G. Davis, Jr., is pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> library and information science and<br />
<strong>of</strong> history at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin, where he has taught since<br />
1971 and has edited Libraries & Culture since 1977. His academic preparation<br />
includes degrees in history from UCLA and the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
California, Berkeley, and pr<strong>of</strong>essional degrees from Berkeley and the<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Considering his vocation to<br />
be the promoting <strong>of</strong> historical perspectives within his pr<strong>of</strong>ession, he has<br />
been a part <strong>of</strong> a number <strong>of</strong> national and international publishing and<br />
conference-planning projects. He has edited several reference works,<br />
including American Library History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature<br />
(1989) with John Mark Tucker and Encyclopedia <strong>of</strong> Library History (1994)<br />
with Wayne A. Wiegand, as well as numerous articles, book chapters, and<br />
review essays.<br />
Edward A. Goedeken is humanities bibliographer at Iowa State<br />
<strong>University</strong>. He holds a bachelor’s degree in American history from<br />
William Penn College, a master’s in American history from Iowa State<br />
<strong>University</strong>, an MLS from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Iowa, and a Ph.D in American<br />
history from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Kansas. His research interests include<br />
citation studies <strong>of</strong> humanities literature as well as identification <strong>of</strong> current<br />
historical writings on libraries and book culture for the bibliographies<br />
that appear twice-yearly in the LHRT Newsletter. He also produces<br />
the biennial survey <strong>of</strong> the literature <strong>of</strong> American library history for<br />
Libraries & Culture.<br />
Suzanne Hildenbrand is associate pr<strong>of</strong>essor in the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Information</strong><br />
and Library Studies, SUNY/Buffalo. She received her B.A. from Brooklyn<br />
College, her M.S. from Columbia <strong>University</strong>, and her Ph.D. in education<br />
from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Berkeley. From 1962 to 1966 she<br />
served with the U.S. <strong>Information</strong> Agency. Her varied background<br />
includes work as a librarian for several California community colleges,<br />
librarian and teacher in the New York City schools, and positions with<br />
the U.S. Department <strong>of</strong> Defense schools overseas. Her special interests<br />
are equity <strong>issue</strong>s, such as those reflected in women and librarianship, and<br />
information access in the age <strong>of</strong> information as a commodity. Her recent<br />
project is Reclaiming the American Library Past: Writing the Women In (1996).<br />
Christine A. Jenkins is assistant pr<strong>of</strong>essor at the Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-
253<br />
Champaign, teaching courses in youth services, young adult literature,<br />
gender <strong>issue</strong>s, and pr<strong>of</strong>essional foundations and history. She received her<br />
M.L.S. from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin–Madison and a master’s degree<br />
in children’s literature from Eastern Michigan <strong>University</strong> and served as<br />
a school media specialist in the Ann Arbor Public <strong>School</strong>s before completing<br />
her doctorate at Wisconsin-Madison. Author <strong>of</strong> several articles<br />
and chapters in collected works, her interests center on young people’s<br />
texts and reading practices, the children’s canon, youth services librarianship,<br />
and intellectual freedom.<br />
D. W. Krummel is pr<strong>of</strong>essor emeritus <strong>of</strong> library and information science<br />
and <strong>of</strong> music at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where<br />
he has taught since 1970. He earned undergraduate degrees, a master’s<br />
degree in music, the M.A.L.S., and the Ph.D.—all from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Michigan. He has been on the staff <strong>of</strong> the Library <strong>of</strong> Congress and has<br />
been a Guggenheim Fellow. A frequent contributor to scholarly publishing<br />
projects, he focuses his interests on the history <strong>of</strong> libraries and <strong>of</strong> bibliography,<br />
research collection development, and music bibliography. He is<br />
the author <strong>of</strong> a number <strong>of</strong> books as well as numerous articles and critical<br />
reviews.<br />
Mary Niles Maack is pr<strong>of</strong>essor in the Department <strong>of</strong> Library and<br />
<strong>Information</strong> Studies at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Los Angeles. With<br />
undergraduate degrees from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-<br />
Champaign and master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia<br />
<strong>University</strong>, she has been a national leader in studying the role <strong>of</strong> international<br />
relations in the pr<strong>of</strong>ession, particularly in the Francophone<br />
world, and in the role <strong>of</strong> women in the library pr<strong>of</strong>ession.<br />
Cheryl Knott Malone is assistant pr<strong>of</strong>essor in the Graduate <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Library and <strong>Information</strong> Science, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-<br />
Champaign. A graduate <strong>of</strong> the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Houston, she holds an<br />
M.L.S. and an M.A. degree from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Arizona and the Ph.D.<br />
from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Texas at Austin. Her research interests include<br />
the history <strong>of</strong> public libraries in the United States and the dynamics <strong>of</strong><br />
race, gender, and class in the information pr<strong>of</strong>essions. Her article<br />
“Autonomy and Accommodation: Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library,<br />
1907–1922” appeared in the summer 1999 <strong>issue</strong> <strong>of</strong> Libraries & Culture.<br />
John David Marshall is retired university librarian <strong>of</strong> Middle Tennessee<br />
State <strong>University</strong>, having held positions previously at Clemson <strong>University</strong>,<br />
Auburn <strong>University</strong>, and the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Georgia. He has degrees from<br />
Florida State <strong>University</strong> and, as a colleague <strong>of</strong> Louis Shores, was an early
254 L&C/Contributors<br />
participant in the ALA Library History Round Table. His publications<br />
include books and essays on book and library history, including An<br />
American Library History Reader (1961) and Louis Shores, Author-Librarian: A<br />
Bibliography (1979).<br />
Lee Shiflett is pr<strong>of</strong>essor at the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong><br />
Science at Louisiana State <strong>University</strong> in Baton Rouge, where he has been<br />
a member <strong>of</strong> the faculty since 1979. He is the author <strong>of</strong> Origins <strong>of</strong> American<br />
Academic Librarianship (1981) and Louis Shores: Defining Educational<br />
Librarianship (1996), and is currently working on a study <strong>of</strong> the editorial<br />
career <strong>of</strong> William Terry Couch. He served as chair <strong>of</strong> the Library History<br />
Round Table in 1984.<br />
John Mark Tucker is humanities, social science, and education librarian<br />
and pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> library science at Purdue <strong>University</strong>. A graduate <strong>of</strong><br />
David Lipscomb <strong>University</strong>, he received the M.L.S. and Ed.S. degrees<br />
from George Peabody College for Teachers <strong>of</strong> Vanderbilt <strong>University</strong> and<br />
the Ph.D. from the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His<br />
research interests include the history and biography <strong>of</strong> academic librarianship,<br />
especially the period <strong>of</strong> the late nineteenth and early twentieth<br />
centuries. His publications include American Library History: A<br />
Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (1989) with Donald G. Davis, Jr., and<br />
Untold Stories: Civil Rights, Libraries, and Black Librarianship (1998).<br />
Andrew B. Wertheimer is a doctoral candidate in the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library<br />
and <strong>Information</strong> Studies at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin–Madison and is<br />
research assistant pr<strong>of</strong>essor at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Nebraska– Lincoln.<br />
Since completing his M.L.S. from Indiana <strong>University</strong>, he has assisted in<br />
numerous projects relating to library history in the national pr<strong>of</strong>ession.<br />
His research centers on ethnic print cultures, historiography, and<br />
library history.<br />
Wayne A. Wiegand is pr<strong>of</strong>essor in the <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Library and <strong>Information</strong><br />
Studies at the <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Wisconsin–Madison, where he also serves as<br />
codirector <strong>of</strong> the Center for the History <strong>of</strong> Print Culture in Modern<br />
America. He is the author <strong>of</strong> over sixty scholarly articles and several<br />
monographs, the latest <strong>of</strong> which is Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography <strong>of</strong><br />
Melvil Dewey (1996), which won the 1998 G. K. Hall Award for<br />
Outstanding Contribution to Library Literature. Print Culture in a Diverse<br />
America (1998), an anthology he co-edited with Jim Danky, won the 1999<br />
Carey McWilliams Award for its contribution to multicultural literature.