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Libraries 

& 

Culture 

a journal of library history 

Volume 35 / Number 1 / Winter 2000 

Editor: Donald G. Davis Jr. 

Assistant Editor: Bette W. Oliver 

Associate Editors: Robert L. Dawson, Alison K. Frazier, 

David B. Gracy II, Joan A. Holladay, David Hunter, Robert S. 

Martin, Francis L. Miksa, Irene Owens, Michael B. Winship 

Advisory Board: John Y. Cole, Library of Congress; Phyllis Dain, 

Columbia University; D. W. Krummel, University of Illinois at 

Urbana-Champaign; Mary Niles Maack, University of California, Los 

Angeles; Cheryl Knott Malone, University of Illinois at Urbana- 

Champaign, representing the Library History Round Table, 

American Library Association; Peter F. McNally, McGill 

University; Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Wisconsin-Madison; 

Ian R. Willison, British Library 

Cover Story Editor: Judith A. Overmier 

University of Texas Press

Libraries & Culture is an interdisciplinary journal that explores the significance of collections 

of recorded knowledge—their creation, organization, preservation, and utilization—in 

the context of cultural and social history, unlimited as to time or place. It is 

edited at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The University of 

Texas at Austin, and is published quarterly by the University of Texas Press. All views or 

conclusions are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the editorial staff, the 

University of Texas Press, The University of Texas at Austin, or The University of Texas 

System. From its establishment in 1966 as the Journal of Library History until 1976, the 

Journal was edited and published by the School of Library Science, Florida State University, 

Tallahassee. It assumed its present title in 1988. 

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LIBRARY HISTORY RESEARCH 

IN AMERICA 

Essays Commemorating 

the Fiftieth Anniversary of 

the Library History Round Table 

American Library Association 

Edited by 

Andrew B. Wertheimer 

and Donald G. Davis, Jr. 

Authorized and Supported by 

the Library History Round Table 

Published by 

Libraries & Culture 

Graduate School of Library and Information Science 

University of Texas at Austin 

2000

Contents 

Library History Research in America 

1 Introduction 

Andrew B. Wertheimer and Donald G. Davis, Jr. 

Critical Approach to Library History 

4 American Library History Literature, 1947–1997: 

Theoretical Perspectives? 

Wayne A. Wiegand 

Pioneers of the Library History Round Table 

35 Louis Shores and Library History 

Lee Shiflett 

41 The Library History Round Table’s First Twenty-five Years: 

Reminiscences and Remarks on Recent Research 

John David Marshall 

New Directions for Library History 

51 Library Feminism and Library Women’s History: Activism and 

Scholarship, Equity and Culture 

Suzanne Hildenbrand 

66 International Dimensions of Library History: Leadership and 

Scholarship, 1978–1998 

Mary Niles Maack 

77 Toward a Multicultural American Public Library History 

Cheryl Knott Malone 

88 “They Sure Got to Prove It on Me”: Millennial Thoughts on Gay 

Archives, Gay Biography, and Gay Library History 

James V. Carmichael, Jr. 

103 The History of Youth Services Librarianship: A Review of the 

Research Literature 

Christine A. Jenkins

Library History and Cognate Fields 

141 The Failure or Future of American Archival History: A Somewhat 

Unorthodox View 

Richard J. Cox 

155 Historical Bibliography and Library History 

D. W. Krummel 

The LHRT and the State of Library History Research 

161 The Library Historian’s Field of Dreams: A Profile of the First 

Nine Seminars 

Edward A. Goedeken 

173 Advancing the Scholarship of Library History: The Role of the 

Journal of Library History and Libraries & Culture 

Jon Arvid Aho and Donald G. Davis, Jr. 

192 Clio’s Workshop: Resources for Historical Studies in American 

Librarianship 

John Mark Tucker 

215 Fifty Years of Promoting Library History: A Chronology of the 

ALA (American) Library History Round Table, 1947–1997 

Andrew B. Wertheimer and John David Marshall 

240 The Historical Sensibility 

Phyllis Dain 

244 The Cover—The Cavagna Collection: A Case Study in Special 

Collections 

Elizabeth R. Cardman 

251 Contributors

Introduction 

Andrew B. Wertheimer and Donald G. Davis, Jr. 

Anniversaries have been the occasion of some of the finest and also the 

poorest historical writings. Unfortunately, library history is no exception. 

We hope that you will find these writings on the state of historical 

research on librarianship to fall closer to the former category, bearing in 

mind that the variety of topics and approaches has resulted in a diversity 

of styles. The anniversary this issue belatedly celebrates is the fiftieth 

anniversary of the American Library Association’s Library History Round 

Table (LHRT), the oldest organization dedicated to the promotion of historical 

research in librarianship. 

The anniversary itself—commemorated at the American Library 

Association conference in Washington, D.C., at the Center for the Book 

at the Library of Congress on June 27, 1998—suggested many of the 

themes for this collection, such as the two studies of the LHRT, while 

others are a reflection of our interest in reconnecting library history with 

the larger profession and other historians of print culture. In cognate 

fields we feature essays by Richard J. Cox from the perspective of 

an archival historian and by scholar of the book and library history 

D. W. Krummel. We tried to include some additional scholarly bridge 

with the emerging group of historians of information science, but publication 

schedules and other details meant that we could not include the 

commissioned essay on this topic. 

Our volume is anchored by an excellent examination by Wayne A. 

Wiegand, who has done so much to raise the standards of historical 

research in library history. This new essay is a reflection of some of his 

recent concerns and opinions. 

Much of the history of the LHRT and library history research 

remains to be written; however, we are pleased to include essays by Lee 

Shiflett, who draws upon his biographical research on LHRT founder 

Louis Shores, and John David Marshall, who writes as an early pioneer 

of the round table. These essays point out that two very important byproducts 

of the LHRT are the Library History Seminars and this journal, 

Libraries & Culture. These are the foci of essays by Edward A. 

Libraries & Culture, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2000 

2000 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

2 L&C/Introduction 

Goedeken and by Jon Arvid Aho and Donald G. Davis, Jr. We also feature 

an essay by John Mark Tucker on reference tools in library history 

research, which should be extremely useful for students and publishers, 

among others. 

We tried to find some of the best-established and forthcoming library 

historians and asked them to reflect on different questions related to 

their own research area. As a result, some of the essay titles may sound 

like literature reviews, but most actually are groundbreaking examinations 

of key questions that have received comparatively little scholarly 

attention to date. Professors Suzanne Hildenbrand, Mary Niles Maack, 

Cheryl Knott Malone, James V. Carmichael, Jr., and Christine Jenkins 

each raise some important questions on gender, international aspects, 

ethnicity, sexuality, and children that will be of interest to other scholars 

of the history of the professions. 

We owe a deep gratitude to the LHRT 50th Anniversary Committee: 

Donald G. Davis, Jr. (chair), Michele V. Cloonan, David B. Hovde, Joy A. 

Kingsolver, John Mark Tucker, and Andrew B. Wertheimer. The committee, 

along with John Y. Cole of the Center for the Book, Library of 

Congress, oversaw an excellent program on the fiftieth anniversary of 

the round table that provided initial drafts of some of the essays collected 

here. These presentations were reactions to papers read at the 

first meeting of the Library History Round Table by Stanley Pargellis and 

Louis Shores, published as “Long Life to the Library History Round 

Table” (Wilson Library Bulletin 22 [April 1948]: 601–3, 607) and “The 

Importance of Library History” (in John David Marshall, ed., American 

Library History Reader [Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961], 3–7). 

Phyllis Dain’s current comments, selected from the commemoration’s 

papers, provide a fitting meditation on historiography. 

Other features in this collection enhance the appeal of this unique 

work. The extensive chronology of LHRT, from 1947 to 1997, compiled by 

Andrew B. Wertheimer and John David Marshall, consists of as complete 

a record as possible of programs, awards, and officers of the round table. 

Liz Cardman’s essay on the bookplate, which goes well beyond the usual 

L&C cover essay, also adds to this work. 

We would also like to thank the chairs of the LHRT who secured financial 

and other support while this volume took shape: Louise S. Robbins, 

David B. Hovde, and Sybil E. Moses. Because of their support, this volume 

also is being published as a monograph under the imprint of the 

LHRT and the University of Texas at Austin Graduate School of Library 

and Information Science. An additional thanks goes to David Hovde’s 

family, whose contribution made an index to the hard-cover volume a 

reality. The index itself is the fine work of Hermina G. B. Anghelescu

and is of great benefit, as it is our hope that this work will be used as a 

reference tool. 

Our final thank you goes out to the contributors of the individual 

essays. They have been a pleasure to work with, and, more importantly, 

without them we would not have the rich scholarly offerings that now 

await you. 

3

American Library History Literature, 

1947–1997: Theoretical Perspectives? 

Wayne A. Wiegand 

An examination of fifty years of published research literature in 

American library history that was facilitated by the Library History Round 

Table reveals a significant and welcome increase in the diversity of coverage 

but a relative dearth of theoretical perspective. The author argues that 

after establishing a substantial base of quality literature, the time has now 

come for American library historians to harness ideas articulated by critical 

theorists in order to examine a social construction of reality and a 

process of cultural consumption. He also argues that American library historians 

need to join with social and cultural historians to help locate the 

library in a larger context of social and cultural forces. 

Hard to believe it’s been twenty-five years since I was introduced to a 

personalized world of American library history. The occasion was the 

1974 ALA conference in New York; I was a month away from getting my 

M.L.S. and Ph.D. in American history and had been invited to an informal 

gathering of American library historians in a hotel suite. Mike 

Harris set up the meeting. His article, “The Purpose of a Public 

Library, a Revisionist Interpretation,” had appeared in Library Journal 

the previous September and had set on edge the world of American 

library history, until then so used to celebrating itself. 1 His thesis was 

simple: American public libraries were agents of social control exercised 

by members of the upper classes, who sought to influence the behavior 

of the masses that frequented them. Mike was eager to engage a dialogue 

on revisionist ideas about American library history he had developed 

from theoretical perspectives imported from educational and 

social history, so he had gathered to the meeting some of American 

library history’s giants. 

In one chair was Jesse Shera, whose solidly researched Foundations of the 

Public Library (1949) had temporarily interrupted the celebration of 

American library history. 2 “Judged by every standard and measured by 

every criterion,” Jesse had concluded in his book (I actually memorized 

the sentence before attending the meeting), “the public library is 

revealed as a social agency dependent upon the objectives of society. It 



followed—it did not create—social change.” In another chair was Sidney 

Ditzion, whose Arsenals of a Democratic Culture (1947) represented a valiant 

attempt by a consensus historian to link library history to a new social 

history just then emerging. 3 

In a third chair was Laurel Grotzinger, whose biography of Katharine 

Sharp had sent out a clarion call that women’s contributions to American 

library history would no longer be ignored. 4 Also there was Dee Garrison, 

who had just finished a history dissertation that eventually turned into 

Apostles of Culture, which would marry the solid scholarship of Shera and 

Ditzion with the revisionism of Harris. 5 Sitting on a divan was Phyllis 

Dain, whose history of the New York Public Library had set a new standard 

for the history of public library institutions. 6 And there was Don 

Davis, already plotting a series of bibliographical projects to bring organization 

to a wandering literature. Pretty heady company for someone 

just starting a career in the craft. The animated conversation that took 

place in that room convinced me that American library history had a 

promising future. I was anxious to become part of it. 

The year before that meeting I had tried to introduce myself to 

American library history through its literature. I admit I wasn’t very 

impressed. Other than the bright spots mentioned above, most history 

(it seemed to me) sought to celebrate, not analyze, and most was based 

on analysis of secondary or published primary sources available in any 

good research library, not on unique unpublished primary sources in 

manuscript collections housed in archival depositories across the nation. 

Most also seemed narrowly focused, not historically contextualized to the 

culture in which its subject matter existed and of which it was only a 

part. And a lot of it was contained in dissertations, master’s theses, and 

seminar papers of marginal quality. Scarecrow had published many of the 

dissertations as monographs, but at the time the Journal of Library History 

carried the lion’s share of the literature, with Library Quarterly running a 

distant second. Both were fed copy via a series of forums. Every summer 

the American Library History Round Table sponsored programs at ALA 

conferences. In addition, Library History Seminars that moved around 

the country were held quinquennially. 

Certainly this sizable secondary literature did a good job of unearthing 

most of the details of American library history, but it didn’t do much for 

perspective. My American history doctoral training had taught me to 

value extensive research into primary source materials (no matter where 

they were located) and then to relate the results of that research to a 

wider body of American history literature. The purpose of studying history, 

I believed, was to augment understanding of the present, and critical 

analysis was crucial to that enterprise. Because celebrating the past 

simply couldn’t do the whole job, I could understand why the library 

5

6 L&C/American Library History Literature 

profession did not take its own history very seriously, at least not until 

Mike’s 1973 essay. 

In this special commemorative issue on the fifty-year history of the 

Library History Round Table, L&C editors have asked me to review from 

theoretical perspectives the American library history literature published 

in the last half century in about twenty pages. In terms of volume, that’s 

a difficult task that will allow me only to concentrate on the best or the 

most unique. In terms of theoretical perspectives, however, that’s relatively 

easy. Like librarians in general, American library historians have 

assumed a basic social good in the institutions, the professional expertise, 

and the people they study and have tended to look at their arena of 

scholarship from the inside out. To stretch a metaphor, they generally 

study the history of individual trees with little attention to the ecological 

patterns and changes in the much larger forest in which these trees are 

rooted, grow, and survive, prosper, or die. And because librarianship itself 

has not generated influential or significant theoretical perspectives (it is 

focused mostly on process, seeking to answer “how” rather than “why” 

questions), American library history has lacked theoretical diversity. I 

conclude that, with few exceptions (like Mike Harris’s essay and Dee 

Garrison’s book), this in large part explains why it has been of marginal 

value to the profession and of limited value to historians working in other 

sectors of American history. 

In a way, it’s a bit awkward for me even to recount the history of 

American library history literature published in the last half century, 

since for the past twenty-five years I’ve spent my professional life 

attempting to contribute actively to its quantity and (I hope) its quality. 

In fact, a good share of this brief journey through American library history 

literature published between 1947 and 1997 feels like autobiography. 

And because I know and am friends with most of the people I cite here, 

I am probably more inclined to dull the critical edge that distance (in 

time and place) makes more likely. In addition, as a coeditor I stand with 

Ken Carpenter at the front end of what we hope will be a multivolume 

history of librarianship in the United States that will build on the literature 

of the past but at the same time locate the roles libraries, librarians, 

and librarianship have played in the nation’s social, cultural, intellectual, 

and institutional multicultural history. 7 

In general, in this essay I ignore master’s theses and doctoral dissertations 

(I hope the best of the latter will eventually be published as books) 

and also concentrate more on books than articles. To organize my discussion 

of the literature I adopt some categories familiar to readers of 

American library history (e.g., bibliographies and reference literature, 

biography, education, associations), but because I perceive the structure 

of the profession somewhat differently than many of my colleagues, I also

create a few new categories (e.g., “institution,” which will cover libraries 

of all types; “expertise,” which will cover literature addressing public and 

technical services in libraries; general historical studies of the profession 

and its activities; and “print culture history,” which represents a new 

interdisciplinary area of scholarship that I think has tremendous potential 

to help contextualize the more accurate and comprehensive role that 

American libraries have played in a larger world of social, intellectual, 

and cultural history). And within “biography” I also address “collective 

biographies” of women’s and African-American library history literature, 

the vast majority of which found its way into print only after 1974. Mike 

Harris’s essay certainly did signal a shift in American library history literature. 

It not only gave historical understanding to the rebels fighting 

the ALA establishment at the time, but it also encouraged voices heretofore 

residing outside a WASP heterosexual male–dominated literature to 

make their own history known to the profession. 

Bibliographies and Reference Literature 

The starting point for anyone interested in secondary sources in 

American library history should be the biennial literature review essays 

included since 1967 in the Journal of Library History and its successor, 

Libraries & Culture. Mike Harris wrote the first essay, Ed Goedeken the 

last one published. 8 In between Mike paired with Don Davis for one 

essay, then I took over for six essays from the late 1970s to early 1990s 

and was succeeded by Joanne Passet for one essay, who was then succeeded 

by Ed. Largely from these essays and earlier bibliographical work, 

Harris and Davis compiled American Library History: A Bibliography (1978), 

later superseded by Don Davis and Mark Tucker’s American Library 

History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (1989). 9 Anyone interested in 

the published literature should start with Davis and Tucker, then supplement 

it with subsequently published biennial essays. Because so much 

American library history literature exists in unpublished form (much of 

which Davis and Tucker cite), scholars can amass additional factual 

material from the seminar papers, master’s theses, and dissertations 

listed first in two editions of Mike Harris’s Guide to Research in American 

Library History, later revised and greatly expanded in Art Young’s American 

Library History: A Bibliography of Dissertations and Theses. 10 

Other useful bibliographies more focused chronologically or by type of 

library include Libraries in American Periodicals before 1876, Robert Winans’s 

Descriptive Checklist of Book Catalogues Separately Printed in America, 

1693–1800 (which includes listings of private and social library collections), 

and Bob Singerman’s American Library Book Catalogues, 1801–1875. 11 

And since 1933 the H. W. Wilson Company’s Library Literature has 

7


indexed the American library history literature published in selected 

library periodicals. 

A few general encyclopedias exist. The third edition of the World 

Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services contains much historical 

information, but more historically focused is the one-volume Encyclopedia 

of Library History that Don Davis and I completed in 1994. 12 Also useful is 

the International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science and the 

multivolume Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. 13 American 

library history has also been served by a number of textbooks. 14 Betty 

Stone’s American Library Development, 1600–1899 is a useful compendium of 

basic data. 15 

Biography 

For the most part, American library history biographers have placed a 

highly positive spin on their protagonists. The best attempt more balance 

and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their subjects. This 

section subdivides into four categories: general biographical reference 

works, separately published biographies, separately published autobiographies, 

and works of collective biography on women and African 

Americans in American library history. I conclude with a brief subsection 

subtitled “Blind Spots.” 

Biographical Reference Works 

The starting point for biographical sketches of notable librarians 

remains the Dictionary of American Library Biography (library historians 

refer to it as “DALB”), edited in 1978 by Bohdan Wynar, and its 

Supplement, which I edited in 1990. 16 The former contains 302 biographical 

sketches, the latter adds 51 more. Both include all deceased 

Librarians of Congress and presidents of the American Library 

Association; both generally celebrate more than contextualize their subjects. 

To each sketch is attached a brief bibliography that lists relevant 

primary source material. Additional biographical sketches of living and 

deceased librarians can be found in the ALA World Encyclopedia of Library 

and Information Services. Coverage of American librarians has been 

increased in the recently published American National Biography, worthy 

successor to the Dictionary of American Biography. 17 Future American 

library history biographical reference tools should model their scholarship 

on ANB sketches. 

Between 1924 and 1953 the American Library Association published 

an American Library Pioneer series that also tended to celebrate the 

lives of the profession’s heroes rather than analyze their roles. Only the

iography of Charles Coffin Jewett and Emily Danton’s Pioneering Leaders 

in Librarianship have been published since 1947. 18 In 1975 Libraries 

Unlimited started a Heritage of Librarianship Series and in the next five 

years published rather positive biobibliographical volumes on Jewett, 

Ainsworth Rand Spofford, Charles Ammi Cutter, Melvil Dewey, and 

Justin Winsor. 19 

Biographies 

Two works published in 1963 established new standards for American 

library history biography: Ed Holley’s award-winning Charles Evans: 

American Bibliographer and Bill Williamson’s William Frederick Poole and the 

Modern Library Movement. 20 Both are grounded in research into primary 

source materials, both attempt to contextualize their protagonists in a 

larger professional world, both identify and address their subject’s 

strengths and weaknesses. A worthy predecessor to Holley and 

Williamson is E. M. Fleming’s work on R. R. Bowker. 21 Worthy successors 

include Laurel Grotzinger’s favorable biography of Katharine Sharp, 

Peggy Sullivan’s admirable work on Carl Milam, Marion Casey’s excellent 

Charles McCarthy, John Richardson’s careful piece on Pierce Butler, 

and Lee Shiflett’s recently published work on Louis Shores. 22 

Perhaps no figure in American library history has drawn so much 

attention as Melvil Dewey, our profession’s most enigmatic pioneer. 

Grosvenor Dawe’s authorized and highly reverential biography was published 

shortly after Dewey’s death in 1931. It was followed in 1944 by 

Fremont Rider’s brief work for the American Library Pioneer series. In 

1978 Sarah Vann did a very favorable sketch of Dewey in the Heritage of 

Librarianship Series; in 1981 Forest Press hosted a seminar on Dewey 

and his classification, then later published the proceedings. The latest 

addition to Dewey biographical coverage is my own Irrepressible Reformer, 

which carefully examines Dewey in the context of his time, looks at the 

whole man (halos and warts, including his anti-Semitism and sexual 

harassment), and at the same time grounds a narrative of his fascinating 

past and the influential role he played in structuring the American 

library profession in an analysis of scores of relevant archival collections 

across the country. 23 

Autobiographies 

American library history now has a creditable body of autobiographies. 

Charles Compton’s Memories of a Librarian is still worth a read. 24 Larry 

Powell’s Fortune and Friendship (and the sequel Life Goes On), Keyes 

Metcalf’s Random Recollections, Ralph Ellsworth’s Ellsworth on Ellsworth, 

9


Robert Downs’s Perspectives on the Past, and Bill Eschelman’s No Silence!: A 

Library Life are also useful, if not particularly forthcoming and critical. 25 

Autobiographies of Edith Guerrier, Annie McPheeters, and Mary V. 

Gaver document work lives in a feminized profession, yet in general all 

three sidestep the issues of gender that affected their work and careers. 26 

McPheeters’s book is particularly interesting; in it she reflects on her life 

as a black woman dedicated to serving the black community in an institution 

administratively controlled by whites. Jane Pejsa’s Gratia 

Countryman quotes so extensively from her protagonist’s letters that her 

book nearly constitutes autobiography. 27 Careful but brief autobiographical 

statements of nine late-twentieth-century American library women 

can also be found in Women View Librarianship. 28 

Collective Biography: Women 

In 1974 Margaret Corwin published her analysis of female leadership 

in state and local library associations in Library Quarterly. 29 Within a 

decade it was followed by two anthologies on the history of the role and 

status of women in librarianship, one edited by Kathleen Weibel and 

Kathleen Heim, the other edited by Heim alone. 30 In 1979 Dee 

Garrison published Apostles of Culture: The Public Librarian and American 

Society, 1876–1920. Unlike much previous biographical coverage of 

women in librarianship, Garrison’s research attempted to locate library 

women in a larger professional world at the turn of the century. She 

divided her much-cited book into four sections. The first covers a 

“Missionary Phase,” characterized by a predominance of New England 

gentry men who wanted to resist the changes brought about by immigration, 

industrialization, and urbanization and instead preserve the 

moral climate with which they were more familiar. These men assumed 

that exposing the masses to what they defined as good literature would 

help maintain the social order and minimize the chance for social revolution 

(echoes of Harris here). 

A second section discusses the “fiction problem.” Here Garrison 

hypothesizes that librarians were ultimately forced to admit that the 

masses did not want the sophisticated literature advocated by the genteel 

set but instead preferred “recreational reading” more in tune with 

their tastes and levels of comprehension. A third section provides an 

extended biographical sketch of Dewey, the first to take a critical look at 

Dewey’s sexism and anti-Semitism. A final section, however, entitled 

“The Tender Technicians,” has driven much of the scholarship on women 

in the profession in the last twenty years. Here Garrison argues that the 

feminization of the public library profession forced limitations on the 

progress of the institution because women who filled positions merely

extended their traditional motherly role to a different arena and were 

passively willing to work for low wages. 

Scholars like Mary Niles Maack, Barbara E. Brand, Phyllis Dain, and 

especially Suzanne Hildenbrand have been reacting to Garrison’s thesis 

ever since. A 1982 American Library History Round Table program entitled 

“Women in Library History: Liberating Our Past” drew the lines of 

debate and generated a number of essays that have now been read by 

hundreds (if not thousands) of LIS students in the past fifteen years. 31 By 

the end of the century, however, the initial debate had tempered, and in 

its place solid scholarship that documents role more than contribution 

and analyzes more than celebrates women in librarianship began to provide 

a richer literature. Here I include Joanne Passet’s Cultural Crusaders 

and Alison Parker’s Purifying America, which compares WCTU and ALA 

women’s turn-of-the-century procensorship reform efforts. 32 Essays in 

Reclaiming the American Library Past: Writing the Women In, an anthology 

edited by Suzanne Hildenbrand in 1996, document accomplishments of 

female librarians long forgotten, but most also tend to admire more than 

analyze. 33 

In this section I also include an emerging scholarship on the history of 

children’s and youth services librarianship, a sector of our profession that 

has always been dominated by women. For example, Frances Sayers’s 

reverential biography of Anne Carroll Moore and Miriam Braverman’s 

Youth, Society, and the Public Library are now being superseded by solid 

interdisciplinary scholarship coming from the word processors of Anne 

MacLeod, Christine Jenkins, and Anne Lundin. 34 The spring issue of 

Library Trends that Karen Smith edited—subtitled “Contributions of 

Women to American Youth Services and Literature”—is reverential but 

revealing. 35 With scholarship like this, coverage of women in American 

library history has now begun to emerge from simply celebrating their 

contributions to move toward deeper and more critical evaluations of the 

roles they played in a larger historical context. All of it adds significantly 

to our understanding of the present. 

Collective Biography: African Americans 

Another area of collective biography that has emerged in the last quarter 

century is African-American library history literature. E. J. Josey, a 

pioneering civil rights activist who in the 1960s and 1970s often forced 

American librarianship to confront its own racism, published a number 

of works that identified black library pioneers. 36 More recently, Ismail 

Abdullahi has edited an anthology of essays about Josey and his contributions. 

37 Sketches of Jean Blackwell Hutson and Dorothy Porter Wesley 

also appear in Reclaiming the Past. 38 Jessie Carney Smith covers “Black 

11


Women Librarians, 1882–1992,” and in What a Woman Ought to Be and Do, 

Stephanie Shaw includes discussions of librarians among her coverage of 

black professional women workers during the Jim Crow era. 39 Elinor Des 

Verney Sinnette’s biography of Arthur Schomburg is also worth a read. 40 

Collective Biography: Blind Spots 

Collective biographical work on women and African Americans published 

in the past quarter century has amply enriched American library 

history and demonstrated how research that reveals a set of blind spots 

can partially correct a jaundiced perspective of the past. But much more 

needs to be done, especially with the history of librarianship that has 

affected Hispanic, Asian, and Native Americans. A hint of the possibilities 

here is evident in Daring to Find Their Names, a series of essays Jim 

Carmichael recently gathered to document the lesbigay presence 

(another vastly understudied population) in American librarianship in 

the last quarter century. 41 There is an irony here. For a profession dedicated 

to multiculturalism, our historical literature demonstrates too 

much tunnel vision. At this point in its own history, librarianship knows 

relatively little of its role in retarding or facilitating multiculturalism’s 

nineteenth- and twentieth-century progress. 

Institutions 

Although Shera’s and Ditzion’s germinal works on the library as an institution 

are much in need of revision after half a century, they nonetheless 

remain standard treatments. In this section I divide my discussion of 

the historical literature of American library institutions into categories 

already familiar to readers of L&C literature review essays: (1) private 

libraries; (2) predecessors to the public library; (3) public libraries; 

(4) academic and research libraries (including archives); (5) special 

libraries (including state library agencies); and (6) school libraries. 

Private Libraries 

A number of works in social, intellectual, and cultural history published 

in the past half century have included private libraries in their 

coverage. Among them are Louis B. Wright’s Cultural Life of the American 

Colonies, Samuel Eliot Morison’s Intellectual Life of Colonial New England, 

and Richard Beale Davis’s Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, from which 

he drew his data for A Colonial Southern Bookshelf. 42 More recently, Kevin 

Hayes published A Colonial Woman’s Bookshelf to show that women as well 

as men had active reading interests before the American Revolution. 43

Print culture history has also generated increased interest in the personal 

library collections of several famous American authors, including 

Mark Twain, Flannery O’Connor, Henry James, and Henry David 

Thoreau. 44 Students of American library history should also consult 

Kevin Hayes’s The Library of William Byrd of Westover. 45 

Predecessors to the Public Library 

Solid works treating predecessors to the public library include David 

Kaser’s A Book for a Sixpence, which covers the history of the circulating 

library in the United States, Haynes McMullen’s research on social 

libraries before 1876, and Edward Stevens’s analysis of the relationships 

between wealth and social library membership in early-nineteenthcentury 

Ohio. 46 Other works worthy of mention include Charles 

Laugher’s Thomas Bray’s Grand Design, Joe Kraus’s analysis of nineteenthcentury 

YMCA libraries, and C. S. Thompson’s Evolution of the American 

Public Library, 1653–1876. 47 Solid analyses of nineteenth-century school 

district and Sunday school libraries remain to be written. 

Public Libraries 

Public library history enjoys a generous literature. Shera outlined the 

origins of the public library before it evolved into an institution; Ditzion 

took it from there with his Arsenals of Democracy, which set the tone for 

viewing the public library as an agency that facilitated democratic culture 

and an informed citizenry. His perspective dominated the literature 

of public library history for the next quarter century and was evident in 

the public library histories for Boston, Detroit, Baltimore, New York, 

Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Buffalo that followed. 48 Works on continuing 

education services to adults in public library history literature echo 

the tone of these favorable treatises. 49 

But Harris’s 1973 essay signaled a shift in public library historiography. 

No subject within public library history demonstrates this shift better 

than the literature surrounding the library philanthropy of Andrew 

Carnegie. For example, George Bobinski’s Carnegie Libraries outlines the 

philanthropy but sidesteps issues of motive and intent. 50 David I. 

Macleod does a bit better in his study of Carnegie libraries in 

Wisconsin. 51 A new, more critical history, however, appears in Carnegie 

Denied, which consists of a series of essays edited by Bob Martin that 

examine the reasons scores of communities rejected Carnegie grants. 52 

Essay authors find gender, race, and class issues (among others) laced 

throughout community reactions. More recently, Abigail Van Slyck 

looked at the architecture of typical Carnegie library buildings from a 

13


social history perspective and found gender and class distinctions built 

into the structures and designed into the furniture and appliances. 53 Her 

conclusions provide an excellent example of how to marry library history 

with social, cultural, and institutional history. I think the historiographical 

distance between her and Bobinski mirrors the potential of our craft 

for growth. 

The rough outlines of some of that growth were already evident in the 

late 1970s with the publication of Rosemary Du Mont’s Reform and 

Reaction: The Big City Public Library in American Life and Garrison’s Apostles 

of Culture. 54 Evelyn Geller’s Forbidden Books in American Public Libraries, 

1876–1939 followed shortly thereafter, thus creating a literature that not 

only accommodated but also welcomed newer works like Joanne Passet’s 

Cultural Crusaders, Deanna Marcum’s Good Books in a Country Home (which 

covers Mary Titcomb’s librarianship in Hagerstown, Maryland), and 

Doug Raber’s Librarianship and Legitimacy: The Ideology of the Public Library 

Inquiry. 55 Marcum’s work constitutes a case study of one small public 

library in rural America, a ubiquitous institution whose history remains 

vastly understudied. Raber’s work contextualizes the Public Library 

Inquiry, a midcentury study funded by the Carnegie Corporation that 

yielded works still read and reverentially referred to in public library 

research studies. 56 

Academic and Research Libraries 

Academic and research libraries also have a rich (though less substantial) 

literature. Standard treatments for the former published in the 

last half century include Kenneth Brough’s Scholar’s Workshop: Evolving 

Conceptions of Library Service, Arthur T. Hamlin’s The University Library 

in the United States, and Lee Shiflett’s Origins of American Academic 

Librarianship. 57 All provide standard data, but all also need updating. The 

last two especially need to incorporate findings of more recent scholarship 

on higher education in the United States that examines the influence 

of twentieth-century corporate/government partnerships with 

universities. Robin Winks’s Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 

1939–1961 and Ellen W. Schrecker’s No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism & the 

Universities hint at the rich possibilities here. 58 Roger Geiger’s analysis of 

American research universities since World War II would help set the 

context. 59 

Thomas Harding’s College Literary Societies: Their Contribution to Higher 

Education in the United States, 1815–1876 is still useful for its analysis of the 

role the library played in the history of the college literary society, but 

existing library circulation records left by many of these societies remain 

to be exploited. 60 Other titles that cover particular dimensions of acade-

mic librarianship include Neil A. Radford’s Carnegie Corporation and the 

Development of American College Libraries, 1928–1941, Roland Person’s A New 

Path: Undergraduate Libraries at United States and Canadian Universities, 

1949–1987, Charles Osburn’s work on patterns of collection development, 

Dave Kaser’s recent study of academic library architecture, and an 

anthology of essays edited by Richard Johnson for the library profession’s 

centennial in 1976. 61 Jessie Carney Smith’s Black Academic Libraries and 

Research Collections is helpful. 62 So is a series of biographical sketches of 

influential academic library leaders (1925–75) that I edited in 1983. 63 

Individual academic libraries receive useful treatment in works by 

Ken Peterson (California-Berkeley), Charles R. Schultz (Texas A&M), 

William S. Dix (Princeton), Ellsworth Mason (Colorado), Douglas Ernest 

(Colorado State), Roscoe Rouse (Oklahoma State), Betty Young (the 

Women’s College at Duke), and William Betinck-Smith (Harvard). 64 

Mark Olsen and Louis-Georges Harvey have done some fascinating work 

in Harvard’s circulation records for the years 1773–82. 65 Their research 

demonstrates the potential that analyses of library circulation records 

have for understanding how particular groups of library users appropriate 

the information resources made available to them. 

Research libraries also have a sizable literature. A good place to start 

is Libraries and Scholarly Communication in the United States: The Historical 

Dimension, a series of essays Phyllis Dain and John Cole edited from a 

symposium on the subject in Washington in 1987. 66 A number of authors 

have covered the history of the Library of Congress in the last half century. 

David C. Mearns told The Story Up to Now in 1947, and a quarter 

century later Charles Goodrum updated the Library’s history to the 

1970s. 67 The most impressive addition to the literature covering the LC’s 

history published since midcentury is Jane Aikin Rosenberg’s The Nation’s 

Great Library, which covers the years Herbert Putnam served as Librarian 

of Congress (1899–1939). 68 Rosenberg does a masterful job of locating 

Putnam’s influence on the Library and then contextualizing that influence 

in the professionalization of librarianship as it evolved across the 

nation in the first half of the twentieth century. In his biography of 

Archibald MacLeish, Scott Donaldson devotes several reverential chapters 

to MacLeish’s tenure as Librarian of Congress (1939–45). 69 

Although the historical literature of the Library of Congress is large, I 

cannot leave a paragraph discussing it without noting the yeoman’s work 

done since 1975 by John Y. Cole, current director of the Center for the 

Book in the Library of Congress, who has published scores of articles and 

edited numerous books with the Library’s history as their focus. 

Other national libraries located in the District of Columbia area have 

also merited historical attention. Donald McCoy and Herman Viola have 

written solid works on the National Archives, while chronicles exist to 

15


document the history of the National Agricultural Library and the 

National Library of Medicine. 70 Kenneth Hafertepe covers the first 

thirty-eight years of the Smithsonian. 71 Burton K. Adkinson takes a 

broad look at the federal information many of these libraries dispersed, 

some for more than two centuries. 72 Although not located in the District 

of Columbia, the growing number of presidential libraries and museums 

documenting the lives of men who occupied the White House receives 

some historical coverage in Fritz Veit’s Presidential Libraries and 

Collections. 73 

Other research libraries have also merited considerable attention. 

New York has several. The model for an institutional history of a 

research library’s origins remains Phyllis Dain’s work on the New York 

Public Library. Pam Richards does a good job documenting the history of 

the New-York Historical Society Library. 74 So does Doris Dale, who covers 

the history of the United Nations Library. 75 The City of Brotherly Love 

has several significant research libraries, and library historians will find 

a few histories of these institutions helpful. 76 In Boston, the Boston 

Atheneum and the Massachusetts Historical Society have adequate 

chronicles; so do the John Crerar and Newberry Libraries located in 

Chicago. 77 On the West Coast, Don Dickenson’s history of the 

Huntington in San Marino, California, should stand for another generation; 

so should The Library of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and 

Peace, edited by Peter Duignan. 78 

Special Libraries (Including State Library Agencies) 

A. H. MacCormick and Rudolph Engelbarts have done adequate work 

on prison libraries. 79 Ellis E. Mount’s work on the Engineering Societies 

Library in New York remains staple, but Anthony Kruzas’s general treatment 

of the history of business and industrial libraries is badly in need of 

updating. 80 So is Ada Winfred Johns’s work on special libraries in general. 

81 Larry McCrank’s Mt. Angel Abbey covers a century of existence of 

an Oregon monastery and its library. 82 The history of state library agencies 

is poorly covered, as I discovered when I was asked more than a 

decade ago to contribute the lead article to an anthology on state library 

agencies. 83 Nonetheless, readers will still find useful chronicles on state 

libraries in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and especially New York. 84 

School Libraries 

As of this writing there are nearly 100,000 school libraries in the 

United States, yet no adequate general history exists to contextualize 

their origins to a larger world of elementary and secondary education.

Henry L. Cecil and Willard A. Heaps’s School Library Service is a useful 

starting point. 85 Margaret I. Rufsvold’s History of School Libraries in the 

South is also helpful but badly dated. 86 So is Frederic D. Aldrich’s School 

Library in Ohio. 87 Harriet Long covers the history of public library service 

to schools; a smattering of scholarly articles helps fill in a few gaps. 88 

Expertise 

Under this heading I include literature that covers the history of cataloging 

and classification, public services (including reference), collection 

development, and library appliances and technology. Most of the literature 

lacks cultural context; little of it draws from relevant conclusions 

that emanate from the secondary literature of social and intellectual 

American history. 

Cataloging and classification have the richest historical literature 

in the area of library expertise. Staple fare includes the works of 

W. C. Berwick Sayers and Leo Montagne, which in part laid the groundwork 

for John Comaromi’s landmark study The Eighteen Editions of the 

Dewey Decimal Classification. 89 But Comaromi’s work was not definitive; 

debate about the origins of Dewey’s classification continues. 90 Historians 

of classification will also find useful two sourcebooks, one on cataloging, 

the other on subject analysis. 91 Fran Miksa’s monumental Subject in the 

Dictionary Catalog from Cutter to the Present updates Julia Pettee’s Subject 

Headings and should be the definitive history on that subject for some 

time to come. 92 Miksa also covers the development of the Library of 

Congress classification scheme in a briefer piece. 93 Donald Lehnus and 

John Comaromi analyze book numbers in separate works, while Jim Ranz 

chronicles the history of the printed book catalog in eighteenth- and 

nineteenth-century American libraries. 94 No area in the practice of 

librarianship has been more affected by automation than cataloging and 

classification, and no organization has had a greater impact on this area 

of library expertise in the past quarter century than OCLC. For a 

historical discussion documenting this impact, OCLC, 1967–1997 is 

helpful. 95 

Sam Rothstein’s Development of Reference Services through Academic 

Traditions superseded Louis Kaplan’s Growth of Reference Service in the United 

States from 1876 to 1891, but both are now badly in need of updating. 96 So 

is Scott Adams’s Medical Bibliography in an Age of Discontinuity, which 

covers a literature whose format and organization have changed rapidly 

in the last decades of the twentieth century. 97 Klaus Musmann provides 

an anecdotal history of technological innovations in library services 

between 1860 and 1960; Barbra Higginbotham adequately covers the history 

of library preservation between 1876 and 1910. 98 

17


Library Education 

No area of American library history literature has been more consistently 

critical and analytical than coverage of professional library education. 

Readers should start with Sarah Vann’s The Williamson Report: A 

Study and follow it with Carl White’s Historical Introduction to Library 

Education. 99 Vann’s Training for Librarianship before 1923 is a helpful chronicle; 

so is Charles Churchwell’s Shaping of American Library Education and 

C. Edward Carroll’s Professionalization of Education for Librarianship. 100 More 

interpretive essays can be found in the 1986 issues of Library Trends and 

the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, both of which 

commemorate the centennial of formal library education in the United 

States in 1986. 101 More recently, Bob Martin and Lee Shiflett analyzed 

the ALA’s role in the library education of African Americans between 

1925 and 1941. 102 Several individual library schools have received historical 

treatment, including Columbia, Case Western Reserve, Illinois, 

North Carolina Central, and Chicago. 103 The last, authored by John 

Richardson, is clearly the best of the lot. Ironically, all but Illinois and 

NCU have closed. Margaret Stieg’s Change and Challenge in Library Science 

Education includes some historical perspective. 104 

Library Associations 

Understandably, the American Library Association—the world’s oldest 

and largest—has received most historical treatment. In 1976 the ALA’s 

centennial celebration occasioned too much celebratory literature, 

including Dennis Thomison’s work on the association’s history through 

1972, which is uneven and underresearched. 105 Much better is Ed 

Holley’s Raking the Historic Coals, which reprints primary documents generated 

by organizers of the 1876 meeting at which the ALA organized. 106 

My own Politics of an Emerging Profession uses many primary source materials 

not previously consulted to construct the ALA’s story from that 

date through World War I. 107 Art Young does an excellent job of covering 

the association’s participation in the war effort. 108 Gary Kraske analyzes 

the association’s role in U.S. cultural diplomacy between 1938 and 1949, 

but much more analytical and contextualized is Louise Robbins’s 

Censorship and the American Library, which builds from Evelyn Geller’s work 

to look at the ALA’s response to intellectual freedom threats between 

1939 and 1969 within a paradigm of cultural pluralism. 109 

Several other library associations also have histories. Don Davis covers 

the Association of American Library Schools (now the Association for 

Library and Information Science Education) through the late 1960s. 110 

Alma C. Mitchell has edited a series of essays on the first fifty years of

the Special Libraries Association, but more analytical is Elin B. 

Christianson’s Daniel Nash Handy and the Special Library Movement. 111 Irene 

Farkas-Conn’s work on the history of the American Society for 

Information Science is also helpful. 112 Abbreviated histories of other professional 

associations can be found scattered throughout the scholarly 

periodical literature. 113 

General Historical Studies of the Profession and Its Activities 

Scores of good American library history books published in the last 

half century exist that cross the categories of literature I list above. Here 

I mention either the best or the most useful, because at the time of this 

writing, American library history lacked anything better. In the area of 

censorship, I have already mentioned Geller and Robbins, but readers 

should also consult Marjorie Fiske’s germinal Book Selection and Censorship, 

which analyzes censoring practices of California school and public librarians 

in the 1950s. 114 L. B. Woods demonstrates that censorship imposed 

from outside the profession is every bit as effective as censorship effected 

from the inside. 115 Pam Richards’s analysis of the World War II Allied- 

German rivalry for scientific information is a model case study of comparative 

history. 116 Dave Kaser covers a different war, a different time, as 

do I with An Active Instrument for Propaganda, which looks at public library 

activity on behalf of the state during World War I. 117 Kathleen Molz 

addresses National Planning for Library Service, 1935–1975, while Fred 

Stielow and Mary Lee Bundy have edited a series of essays covering 

Activism in American Librarianship, 1962–1973. 118 Ed Holley and Bob 

Schremser contribute a series of interviews with members of the nation’s 

library community who were integral to the passage of the Library 

Services and Construction Act of 1964, which has had a significant 

impact on the practice of librarianship ever since. 119 

Several works cover the library as a profession and selectively draw 

upon its history for evidence to support conclusions. Works by Lloyd J. 

Houser and Alvin Schrader, George E. Bennett, and Michael F. Winter 

are worthwhile; so is Mike Harris and Stan Hannah’s Into the Future: The 

Foundations of Library and Information Services in the Post-Industrial Era. 120 The 

best of the set, however, is Andrew Abbott’s System of Professions, which 

uses the concept of professional jurisdiction to compare the history of 

librarianship with several other professions. 121 

Print Culture History 

As I prepared this essay I had occasion to read an article entitled “The 

Business of Reading in Nineteenth-Century America: The New York 

19


Mercantile Library” in the June 1998 issue of American Quarterly. It’s written 

by Thomas Augst, whom I had met in November 1997 shortly after 

he had finished his American studies dissertation at Harvard, from which 

the AQ article is taken. 122 In it Tom demonstrates how the Mercantile 

Library’s users commodified their reading into categorizations like “useful 

knowledge” and “rational amusement,” how the largely middle-class 

males who constituted its patrons then used the act of reading as an 

agent to manifest their “character,” and finally how in the process of 

adapting to these interests the managers of the Mercantile Library articulated 

a new rationale for understanding these new dynamics for reading 

to justify it as a civic enterprise worthy of private and public support. In 

short, Tom’s work demonstrates how one nineteenth-century library 

crafted a socially acceptable philosophy to justify and perpetuate the services 

it provided to its users. The article is unique in American library 

history because it views the institution through the eyes of the people 

who used it, not through the eyes of the people who ran it. 

The perspective Tom takes is characteristic of a rapidly growing literature 

that is often referred to as print culture studies or print culture 

history, a large part of which attempts to look at the act of reading from 

the reader’s viewpoint, then to determine how readers appropriated 

what they read for their own needs. 123 Tom’s endnotes are loaded with 

citations to this literature, including Steven Mailloux’s Interpretative 

Conventions: The Reader in the Study of American Fiction, Jane Tompkins’s 

Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860, Cathy 

Davidson’s Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America, Ron 

Zboray’s A Fictive People: Antebellum Economic Development and the American 

Reading Public, Michael Denning’s Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and 

Working-Class Culture in America, and Jan Radway’s Reading the Romance: 

Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. 124 

Much of print culture studies itself is built on close readings of critical 

theorists like Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Antonio Gramsci, 

Barbara Hernnstein Smith, and Michel de Certeau, who argue that 

people construct their own reality and that within that reality they evolve 

particular value systems evident in unique “languages” in which words 

take on coded deep meanings generally understood best by group members 

heavily invested in using them. 125 The literature of print culture history 

is also built on the work of reception theorists like Wolfgang Iser, 

Stanley Fish, Benedict Anderson, and Janice Radway, who argue that for 

most readers, meaning in a text—whether it be print, visual, audio, or 

electronic—is important not just as an object to be described but also as 

an effect to be experienced. 126 They argue that readers actively search 

for meaning in the texts they select and often “poach” to re-create meanings 

unique to their own lives.

I think most of what these print culture scholars say about their subject 

matter has direct relevance for the study of American library history. 

Unfortunately, however, Tom’s perspective is largely absent in American 

library history literature. 127 In fact, in his article Tom could cite only 

Shera, Ditzion, Kruzas, and a 1978 doctoral dissertation by William Boyd 

as secondary works that contain data relevant to his subject. 128 His 

inability to find a larger literature within American library history that 

spoke to his perspective points, I think, to American library history’s 

greatest shortcoming. On the one hand, it concentrates too much on the 

library from the inside out and focuses too much on the institution, the 

people who practice librarianship within that institution, and the expertise 

used by the people within the institution itself. On the other hand, it 

does not concentrate enough on the library from the outside in, nor does 

it focus sufficiently on people who used (or did not use) the institution, 

why they used (or did not use) it, and whether the expertise honed 

within that institution mirrored a particular “language” that was inclusive 

for some, exclusive for others. My Wisconsin colleague Doug Zweizig 

has a useful way to characterize this dichotomy. For too long, he argues, 

our profession has “looked at the user in the life of the library, rather 

than the library in the life of the user.” 129 And for the past half century, 

I would argue, the literature of American library history has largely been 

servant to the former. 

Even those few times when library historians have approached the act 

of reading, they have been unwilling to explore its greater significance 

for American library history. For example, when the University of 

Chicago’s Graduate Library School faculty began “scientific” investigations 

of reading in the 1930s, they generally overlooked fiction, thus 

ignoring the types of reading the vast majority of users obtained from 

their libraries. 130 In 1965 and 1985 Esther Jane Carrier published two 

volumes on Fiction in Public Libraries. 131 Both adequately documented the 

profession’s anxieties about popular fiction reading between 1850 and 

1950. Neither, however, attempted to analyze cultural reasons for these 

anxieties; neither tried to do what Tom Augst has done with the New 

York Mercantile Library. 

Perhaps it’s time for a change. Perhaps what we need at the beginning 

of the twenty-first century is a shift like the one Mike Harris occasioned 

in 1973 when he used theoretical perspectives developed outside the profession 

to explain some of the problems enveloping it at that time. 

Perhaps what we need to do is import some new theoretical perspectives 

that we can then apply to questions contemporary to our own generation. 

I am convinced that the theoreticians cited above (most of whom cannot 

now be found in the notes of current American library history research) 

provide the valuable frameworks necessary to address these broader 

21


kinds of questions, the answers to which would better help contemporary 

librarians understand what the role of the library currently is before they 

plan a future for the institution based solely on localized knowledge and 

expertise and the rosy predictions of a vocal group of information technology 

evangelists who have a vested interest in predicting a particular 

future as if it were a certainty. 

After twenty-five years I am still convinced that the purpose of studying 

history is to augment understanding of the present, and one of the 

best ways American library historians can do this at the beginning of 

the twenty-first century is to concentrate much more attention on how 

people use (and have used) the texts libraries provide (and have provided) 

them. Partnering with print culture scholars would vastly accelerate 

the enterprise and increase the relevance of American library history 

to the profession at large. And just as contemporary libraries are excellent 

sites for the study of the use of texts, so American library history is 

an excellent site for the study of print culture history. The theorists cited 

by print culture scholars can easily provide excellent frameworks for augmenting 

our understanding of how the millions of people that thousands 

of American libraries have served for more than three centuries have 

used the information resources made available to them. 

We’ve come a long way in the past half century and have built a substantial 

literature. Since 1973 this literature certainly has increased in 

diversity, although not significantly in theoretical perspective. And over 

the years American library history has benefited substantially from 

annual LHRT programs, quinquennial Library History Seminars, the 

pages of Libraries & Culture and Library Quarterly, and the willingness of 

Scarecrow, Greenwood, Libraries Unlimited, and the American Library 

Association to publish its monographs. But to make our craft more relevant 

to our profession at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we 

now have to take it to another level, one at which we use the ideas critical 

theorists have articulated to examine a social construction of reality 

and the process of cultural consumption; we also have to learn from the 

social and cultural historians around us who have applied these ideas to 

the environments in which the libraries, librarians, and librarianship 

that we study existed in given times and given places. Print culture 

studies has demonstrated the potential; American library historians need 

only to seize the opportunity. 

I hope that when the Library History Round Table celebrates its centennial 

in 2047, my successor can report that the beginning of the 

twenty-first century ushered in significant theoretical diversity that 

substantially assisted the library profession to understand historically 

not just the user in the life of the library but also the library in the life 

of the user.

Notes 

1. Michael H. Harris, “The Purpose of the American Public Library: A 

Revisionist Interpretation of History,” Library Journal 98 (September 1973): 

2509–14. 

2. Jesse Shera, Foundations of the Public Library: The Origins of the Public Library 

Movement in New England, 1629–1855 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949). 

Quotation taken from p. 248. 

3. Sidney Ditzion, Arsenals of a Democratic Culture: A Social History of the 

American Public Library Movement in New England and the Middle Atlantic States from 

1850 to 1900 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1947). 

4. Laurel A. Grotzinger, The Power and the Dignity: Librarianship and Katharine 

Sharp (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1966). 

5. Dee Garrison, Apostles of Culture: The Public Librarian and American Society, 

1876–1920 (New York: Free Press, 1979). 

6. Phyllis Dain, The New York Public Library: A History of Its Founding and Early 

Years (New York: New York Public Library, 1972). 

7. This project is discussed in Kenneth E. Carpenter, Readers and Libraries: 

Toward a History of Libraries and Culture in America (Washington, D.C.: Library of 

Congress, 1996); and Wayne A. Wiegand, “Tunnel Vision and Blind Spots: What 

the Past Tells Us about the Present: Reflections on the Twentieth-Century 

History of American Librarianship,” Library Quarterly 69 (January 1999): 1–32. 

8. Michael H. Harris, “The Year’s Work in American Library History, 1967,” 

Journal of Library History 3 (October 1968): 342–52; Edward A. Goedeken, “The 

Literature of American Library History, 1995–1996,” Libraries & Culture 33 (Fall 

1998): 407–45. 

9. Michael H. Harris and Donald G. Davis, Jr., American Library History: A 

Bibliography (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978); Donald G. Davis, Jr., and 

John Mark Tucker, American Library History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature 

(Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1989). 

10. Michael H. Harris, A Guide to Research in American Library History, 2d ed. 

(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974); Arthur P. Young, American Library History: 

A Bibliography of Dissertations and Theses, 3d ed., rev. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow 

Press, 1988). 

11. Larry J. Barr, Haynes McMullen, and Steven G. Leach, Libraries in 

American Periodicals before 1876: A Bibliography with Abstracts and an Index (Jefferson, 

N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1983); Robert G. Winans, A Descriptive Checklist of Book 

Catalogues Separately Printed in America, 1693–1800 (Worcester, Mass.: American 

Antiquarian Society, 1981); Robert L. Singerman, American Library Book 

Catalogues, 1801–1875: A National Bibliography (Urbana: University of Illinois 

Graduate School of Library and Information Science Occasional Papers Nos. 

203, 204, April 1996). 

12. Robert Wedgeworth, ed., World Encyclopedia of Library and Information 

Services (Chicago: American Library Association, 1993); Wayne A. Wiegand and 

Donald G. Davis, Jr., Encyclopedia of Library History (New York: Garland Publishing, 

1994). 

13. John Feather and Paul Sturges, International Encyclopedia of Information and 

Library Science (London: Routledge, 1997); Encyclopedia of Library and Information 

Science (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1968–). 

14. Latest in a long line is Michael H. Harris, History of Libraries in the Western 

World, 4th ed. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995). 

23


15. Elizabeth W. Stone, American Library Development, 1600–1899 (New York: 

H. W. Wilson Company, 1977). 

16. Bohdan S. Wynar, ed., Dictionary of American Library Biography (Littleton, 

Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1978); Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Supplement to the 

Dictionary of American Library Biography (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 

1990). 

17. Allen Johnson, ed., Dictionary of American Biography, 26 vols. (New York: 

Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964); John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., 

American National Biography, 24 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 

18. Joseph Borome, Charles Coffin Jewett (1816–68) (Chicago: American Library 

Association, 1951); Emily M. Danton, ed., Pioneering Leaders in Librarianship 

(Chicago: American Library Association, 1953). 

19. Michael H. Harris, ed., The Age of Jewett: Charles Coffin Jewett and American 

Librarianship, 1841–1868 (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1975); John Y. 

Cole, ed., Ainsworth Rand Spofford: Bookman and Librarian (Littleton, Colo.: 

Libraries Unlimited, 1975); Francis L. Miksa, ed., Charles Ammi Cutter: Library 

Systematizer (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1977); Sarah S. Vann, ed., 

Melvil Dewey: His Enduring Presence in Librarianship (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries 

Unlimited, 1978); and Wayne Cutler and Michael H. Harris, eds., Justin Winsor: 

Scholar Librarian (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1980). 

20. Edward G. Holley, Charles Evans: American Bibliographer (Urbana: 

University of Illinois Press, 1963); William L. Williamson, William Frederick Poole 

and the Modern Library Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963). 

21. E. M. Fleming, R. R. Bowker: Militant Liberal (Norman: University of 

Oklahoma Press, 1952). 

22. Peggy A. Sullivan, Carl H. Milam and the American Library Association (New 

York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1976); Marion Casey, Charles McCarthy, Librarianship 

and Reform (Chicago: American Library Association, 1981); John V. Richardson, 

Jr., The Gospel of Scholarship: Pierce Butler and a Critique of American Librarianship 

(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1992); Orvin Lee Shiflett, Louis Shores: Defining 

Educational Librarianship (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996). 

23. Grosvenor Dawe, Melvil Dewey: Seer, Inspirer, Doer (Lake Placid, N.Y.: Lake 

Placid Club, 1932); Fremont Rider, Melvil Dewey (Chicago: American Library 

Association, 1944); Gordon Stevenson and Judith Kramer-Greene, eds., Melvil 

Dewey: The Man and the Classification (Albany, N.Y.: Forest Press, 1983); Wayne A. 

Wiegand, Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey (Chicago: American 

Library Association, 1996). 

24. Charles H. Compton, Memories of a Librarian (St. Louis: St. Louis Public 

Library, 1954). 

25. Lawrence Clark Powell, Fortune and Friendship: An Autobiography (New York: 

R. R. Bowker, 1968), and Life Goes On: Twenty More Years of Fortune and Friendship 

(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1986); Keyes De Witt Metcalf, Random 

Recollections of an Anachronism, or Seventy-Five Years of Library Work (New York: 

Readex Books, 1980), and My Harvard Library Years, 1937–1955: A Sequel to Random 

Recollections of an Anachronism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Library, 1988); 

Ralph E. Ellsworth, Ellsworth on Ellsworth: An Unchronological, Mostly True Account of 

Some Moments of Contact between “Library Science” and Me, since Our Confluence in 1931, 

with Appropriate Sidelights (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1980); Robert B. 

Downs, Perspectives on the Past: An Autobiography (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 

1984); William R. Eschelman, No Silence!: A Library Life (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow 

Press, 1997).

26. Edith Guerrier, An Independent Woman: The Autobiography of Edith Guerrier 

(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992); Annie L. McPheeters, 

Library Service in Black and White: Some Personal Recollections, 1921–1980 (Metuchen, 

N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988); Mary Virginia Gaver, A Braided Cord: Memoirs of a 

School Librarian (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988). 

27. Jane Pejsa, Gratia Countryman: Her Life, Her Loves, and Her Library 

(Minneapolis: Nodin Press, 1995). 

28. K. R. Lundy, ed., Women View Librarianship: Nine Perspectives (Chicago: 

American Library Association, 1980). 

29. Margaret A. Corwin, “An Investigation of Female Leadership in State 

Library Organizations and Local Library Associations, 1876–1923,” Library 

Quarterly 44 (April 1974): 133–44. 

30. Kathleen Weibel and Kathleen M. Heim, eds., The Role of Women in 

Librarianship, 1876–1976: The Entry, Advancement, and Struggle for Equalization in One 

Profession (Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1979); Kathleen M. Heim, ed., The Status of Women 

in Librarianship: Historical, Sociological, and Economic Issues (New York: Neal- 

Schuman, 1983). 

31. The fall 1983 issue of the Journal of Library History (vol. 18) contains most 

of these essays. See, for example, Laurel A. Grotzinger, “Biographical Research: 

Recognition Denied” (372–81); Suzanne Hildenbrand, “Some Theoretical 

Considerations on Women in Library History” (382–90); Barbara E. Brand, 

“Librarianship and Other Female-Intensive Professions” (391–406); and Phyllis 

Dain, “Women’s Studies in American Library History: Some Critical Reflections” 

(450–63). See also Roma Harris, Librarianship: The Erosion of a Woman’s Profession 

(Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1992). 

32. Joanne E. Passet, Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West, 

1900–1917 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994); Alison M. 

Parker, Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform, and Pro-Censorship Activities, 

1873–1933 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997). 

33. Suzanne Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past: Writing the 

Women In (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishers, 1996). 

34. Frances C. Sayers, Anne Carroll Moore: A Biography (New York: 

Atheneum, 1972); Miriam Braverman, Youth, Society, and the Public Library 

(Chicago: American Library Association, 1979); Anne Scott MacLeod, American 

Childhood: Essays on Children’s Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 

(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994); Christine Jenkins, “‘Since So 

Many of Today’s Librarians Are Women . . . ’: Women and Intellectual 

Freedom in U.S. Librarianship, 1890–1990,” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the 

American Library Past, 221–49, and “From Queer to Gay and Back Again: Young 

Adult Novels with Gay/Lesbian/Queer Content, 1969–1997,” Library Quarterly 

68 (July 1998): 298–334; Anne Lundin, “Anne Carroll Moore: ‘I Have Spun 

Out a Long Thread,’” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past, 

187–204, and “Victorian Horizons: The Reception of Children’s Books 

in England and America, 1880–1900,” Library Quarterly 64 (January 1994): 

30–59. 

35. Karen Patricia Smith, ed., “Imagination and Scholarship: The 

Contributions of Women to American Youth Services and Literature,” Library 

Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 679–895. 

36. See E. J. Josey, ed., The Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.: 

Scarecrow Press, 1970), and The Black Librarian in America Revisited (Metuchen, 

N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994). 

25


37. Ismail Abdullahi, ed., E. J. Josey: An Activist Librarian (Metuchen, N.J.: 

Scarecrow Press, 1992). 

38. See Glendora Johnson-Cooper, “African-American Historical Continuity: 

Jean Blackwell Hutson and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black 

Culture,” and Helen H. Britton, “Dorothy Porter Wesley: Bibliographer, Curator, 

Scholar,” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past, 25–51, 163–83. 

39. Jessie Carney Smith, “Sweet Sixteen: Black Women Librarians, 

1892–1992,” in Stanton F. Biddle, ed., Culture Keepers: Enlightening and Empowering 

Our Communities, Proceedings of the First National Conference of African American 

Librarians, Sept. 4–6, 1992 (Westwood, Mass.: Faxon Col, 1993), 118–26; Stephanie 

J. Shaw, What a Woman Ought to Be and Do: Black Professional Women Workers during the 

Jim Crow Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 

40. Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Schomburg, Black Bibliophile and Collector: 

A Biography (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989). 

41. James V. Carmichael, Jr., Daring to Find Their Names: The Search for Lesbigay 

Library History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998). 

42. Louis B. Wright, The Cultural Life of the American Colonies, 1607–1763 (New 

York: Harper, 1957); Samuel Eliot Morison, The Intellectual Life of Colonial New 

England (New York: New York University Press, 1965); Richard Beale Davis, 

Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585–1763, 3 vols. (Knoxville: University of 

Tennessee Press, 1978); Richard Beale Davis, A Colonial Southern Bookshelf: Reading 

in the Eighteenth Century (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979). 

43. Kevin J. Hayes, A Colonial Woman’s Bookshelf (Knoxville: University of 

Tennessee Press, 1996). 

44. Alan D. Gribben, ed., Mark Twain’s Library: A Reconstruction, 2 vols. (Boston: 

G. K. Hall, 1980); Arthur F. Kinney, ed., Flannery O’Connor’s Library: Resources of 

Being (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985); Leon Edel and Adeline R. 

Tintner, eds., The Library of Henry James (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 

1987); Robert A. Gross, Books and Libraries in Thoreau’s Concord (Charlottesville: 

University of Virginia Press, 1988). 

45. Kevin J. Hayes, The Library of William Byrd of Westover (Madison, Wis.: 

Madison House, 1994). 

46. David Kaser, A Book for a Sixpence: The Circulating Library in America 

(Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1980); Haynes McMullen, The Founding of the Social and 

Public Libraries in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois through 1850 (Urbana: University of 

Illinois Graduate School of Library Science, Occasional Paper No. 51, 1958), 

“Social Libraries in Antebellum Kentucky,” Register of the Kentucky State Historical 

Society 58 (April 1960): 97–128, and “The Founding of Social Libraries in 

Pennsylvania, 1731–1876,” Pennsylvania History 32 (April 1965): 130–52; Edward 

Stevens, “Relationships of Social Library Membership, Wealth, and Literary 

Culture in Early Ohio,” Journal of Library History 16 (Fall 1981): 574–94. 

47. Charles T. Laugher, Thomas Bray’s Grand Design (Chicago: American 

Library Association, 1973); Joe W. Kraus, “Libraries of the Young Men’s 

Christian Association in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Library History 10 

(January 1975): 3–21; Charles S. Thompson, Evolution of the American Public Library, 

1653–1876 (Washington, D.C.: Scarecrow Press, 1952). 

48. Walter Whitehill, Boston Public Library: A Centennial History, 1854–1954 

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956); Frank B. Woodford, 

Parnassus on Main Street: A History of the Detroit Public Library (Detroit: Wayne State 

University Press, 1965); Dain, New York Public Library; Clarence Cramer, Open 

Shelves and Open Minds: A History of the Cleveland Public Library (Cleveland: Western

Reserve University Press, 1972); Bruce Benidt, The Library Book: Centennial History 

of the Minneapolis Public Library (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Public Library and 

Information Center, 1984); and Joseph B. Rounds, The Time Was Right: A History of 

the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, 1940–1975 (Buffalo, N.Y.: Grosvenor 

Society, 1985). The history of hundreds of other public libraries can be found in 

master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, the vast majority of which can be 

accessed through the bibliographies in Davis and Tucker, American Library History, 

and Young, American Library History. 

49. Robert E. Lee, Continuing Education for Adults through the American Public 

Library, 1833–1934 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1966); Margaret E. 

Monroe, The Library Adult Education: Biography of an Idea (New York: Scarecrow 

Press, 1963); and L. E. Birge, Serving Adult Learners: A Public Library Tradition 


50. George Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries: Their History and Impact on American 

Public Library Development (Chicago: American Library Association, 1969); Joseph 

Frazier Wall, Andrew Carnegie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). 

51. David I. Macleod, Carnegie Libraries in Wisconsin (Madison: State Historical 

Society of Wisconsin, 1968). See also Raymond Bial and Linda LaPuma Bial, The 

Carnegie Library in Illinois (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), and 

Theodore Jones, Carnegie Libraries across America (New York: John Wiley, 1997), 

both of which lack the critical perspective contained in works cited in the next 

two notes. On the history of public library architecture, see also Kenneth A. 

Breisch, Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America: A Study in 

Typology (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997); Patricia W. Belding, Where the 

Books Are: The History and Architecture of Vermont’s Public Library (Barre, Vt.: Potash 

Brook, 1996); and Donald E. Oehlerts, Books and Blueprints: Building America’s 

Public Libraries (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991). 

52. Robert Sidney Martin, ed., Carnegie Denied: Communities Rejecting Carnegie 

Library Construction Grants, 1898–1925 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993). 

53. Abigail A. Van Slyck, Free to All: Carnegie Libraries & American Culture, 

1890–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); Ellen Condliffe 

Lagemann, The Politics of Knowledge: The Carnegie Corporation, Philanthropy, and Public 

Polity (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1989). 

54. Rosemary Ruhig Du Mont, Reform and Reaction: The Big City Public Library 

in American Life (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977). 

55. Evelyn Geller, Forbidden Books in American Public Libraries, 1876–1939: A 

Study in Cultural Change (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984); Deanna B. 

Marcum, Good Books in a Country Home: The Public Library as Cultural Force in 

Hagerstown, Maryland, 1878–1920 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994); 

Douglas Raber, Librarianship and Legitimacy: The Ideology of the Public Library Inquiry 

(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997). 

56. Bernard Berelson and Lester E. Asheim, The Library’s Public: A Report of 

the Public Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949); Oliver 

Garceau, The Public Library in the Political Process (New York: Columbia University 

Press, 1949); Robert D. Leigh, The Public Library in the United States: The General 

Report of the Public library Inquiry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950); 

and Alice Bryan, The Public Librarian (New York: Columbia University Press, 

1952). 

57. Kenneth J. Brough, Scholar’s Workshop: Evolving Conceptions of Library Service 

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1953); Arthur T. Hamlin, The University 

Library in the United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981); 

27


Orvin Lee Shiflett, Origins of American Academic Librarianship (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex 

Publishing, 1981). 

58. Robin Winks, Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939–1961 (New 

York: William Morrow and Co., 1987); Ellen W. Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: 

McCarthyism & the Universities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 

59. Roger L. Geiger, Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Universities since 

World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 

60. Thomas S. Harding, College Literary Societies: Their Contribution to Higher 

Education in the United States, 1815–1876 (Brooklyn: Pageant-Poseidon, 1971). 

61. Neil A. Radford, The Carnegie Corporation and the Development of American 

College Libraries, 1928–1941 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1984); 

Roland Conrad Person, A New Path: Undergraduate Libraries at United States and 

Canadian Universities, 1949–1987 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988); 

Charles B. Osburn, Academic Research and Library Resources: Changing Patterns in 

America (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979); David Kaser, The Evolution of 

the American Academic Library Building (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1997); 

Richard D. Johnson, ed., Libraries for Teaching, Libraries for Research: Essays for a 

Century (Chicago: American Library Association, 1977). 

62. Jessie Carney Smith, Black Academic Libraries and Research Collections: An 

Historical Survey (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977). 

63. Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Leaders in American Academic Librarianship, 

1925–1975 (Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1983). 

64. Kenneth G. Peterson, The University of California Library at Berkeley, 

1900–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970); Charles R. Schultz, 

Making Something Happen: Texas A&M University Libraries, 1876–1976 (College 

Station: Texas A&M University Libraries, 1979); William S. Dix, The Princeton 

University Library in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University 

Press, 1978); Ellsworth Mason, The University of Colorado Library and Its Makers, 

1876–1972 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994); Douglas Ernest, Agricultural 

Frontier to Electronic Frontier: A History of Colorado State University Libraries, 1870–1995 

(Fort Collins: Colorado State University, 1996); Roscoe Rouse, Jr., A History of the 

Oklahoma State University Library (Stillwater: Oklahoma State University Press, 

1991); Betty I. Young, The Library of the Women’s College, Duke University, 1930–1972 

(Durham, N.C.: Regulator Press, 1978); William Betinck-Smith, Building a Great 

Library: The Coolidge Years at Harvard (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 

1976). 

65. Mark Olsen and Louis-Georges Harvey, “Reading in Revolutionary 

Times: Book Borrowing from the Harvard College Library, 1773–1782,” Harvard 

Library Bulletin n.s. 4 (Fall 1993): 57–72. 

66. Phyllis Dain and John Y. Cole, eds., Libraries and Scholarly Communication in 

the United States: The Historical Dimension (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 

1990). 

67. David C. Mearns, The Story Up to Now: The Library of Congress, 1800–1946 

(Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1947); Charles A. Goodrum, The Library 

of Congress (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974). 

68. Jane Aikin Rosenberg, The Nation’s Great Library: Herbert Putnam and the 

Library of Congress, 1899–1939 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993). 

69. Scott Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish: An American Life (Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin, 1992). Other biographical sketches can be found in Librarians of Congress, 

1802–1974 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1977).

70. Donald R. McCoy, The National Archives: America’s Ministry of Documents, 

1934–1968 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978); Herman 

Viola, The National Archives of the United States (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984); 

U.S. National Agricultural Library Associates, The National Agricultural Library: A 

Chronology of Its Leadership and Attainments, 1839–1973 (Beltsville, Md.: Associates of 

the National Agricultural Library, 1974); W. D. Miles, A History of the National 

Library of Medicine: The Nation’s Treasury of Medical Knowledge (Bethesda, Md.: 

National Library of Medicine, 1982). 

71. Kenneth Hafertepe, America’s Castle: The Evolution of the Smithsonian 

Building and Its Institution, 1840–1878 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 

1984). 

72. Burton K. Adkinson, Two Centuries of Federal Information (Stroudsburg, Pa.: 

Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, 1978). See also John V. Richardson, Jr., Government 

Information Education and Research, 1928–1986 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 

1987). 

73. Fritz Veit, Presidential Libraries and Collections (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood 

Press, 1987). 

74. Pamela Spence Richards, Scholars and Gentlemen: The Library of the New-York 

Historical Society, 1804–1982 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1984). 

75. Doris C. Dale, The United Nations Library: Its Origins and Development 


76. Murphy D. Smith, Oak from an Acorn: A History of the American Philosophical 

Society Library, 1770–1803 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1976); H. L. 

Carson, A History of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: 

Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1940); Edwin Wolf, “At the Instance of Benjamin 

Franklin”: A Brief History of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1731–1976 

(Philadelphia: Library Company of Philadelphia, 1976). 

77. William H. Whitehill, A Boston Atheneum Anthology, 1807–1972: Selected from 

His Annual Reports (Boston: Boston Atheneum, 1973); S. T. Riley, The Massachusetts 

Historical Society, 1791–1959 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1959); Jay 

Christian Bay, The John Crerar Library, 1895–1944: An Historical Report (Chicago: 

John Crerar Library, 1945); Rolf Achilles, ed., Humanities Mirror: Reading at the 

Newberry, 1887–1987 (Chicago: Newberry Library, 1987). See also Paul Finkelman, 

“Class and Culture in Late Nineteenth-Century Chicago: The Founding of the 

Newberry Library,” American Studies 16 (Spring 1975): 5–22. 

78. Donald C. Dickinson, Henry E. Huntington’s Library of Libraries (San Marino, 

Calif.: Huntington Library, 1995); J. E. Pomfret, The Henry E. Huntington Library 

and Art Gallery: From Its Beginnings to 1969 (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 

1969); Peter Duignan, ed., The Library of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and 

Peace (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1985). 

79. A. H. MacCormick, A Brief History of Libraries in American Correctional 

Institutions (Chicago: American Library Association, 1970); Rudolph Engelbarts, 

Books in Stir: A Bibliographic Essay about Prison Libraries and about Books Written by 

Prisoners and Prison Employees (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1971). 

80. Ellis E. Mount, Ahead of Its Time: The Engineering Societies Library, 1913–1980 

(Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books, 1982); Anthony T. Kruzas, Business and Industrial 

Libraries in the United States, 1820–1940 (New York: Special Libraries Association, 

1965). 

81. Ada Winfred Johns, Special Libraries: Development of the Concept, Their 

Organization, and Their Services (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1968). 

29


82. Lawrence J. McCrank, Mt. Angel Abbey: A Centennial History of a Benedictine 

Community and Its Library, 1882–1984 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 

1983). 

83. Wayne A. Wiegand, “The Historical Development of State Library 

Agencies,” in Charles R. McClure, ed., State Library Services and Issues: Facing Future 

Challenges (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1986), 1–16. 

84. Michigan State Library, Michigan State Library, 1828–1928: One Hundred 

Years (Lansing: Michigan State Library, 1928); R. P. Bliss, A History of the 

Pennsylvania State Library (Harrisburg: Printed for the Pennsylvania Library 

Association by the Telegraph Press, 1937); A Gift from the State to Oregonians: A 

Half Century of Reading in Oregon, 1905–1955 (Salem: Oregon State Library, 1955); 

Cecil R. Roseberry, A History of the New York State Library (Albany: New York State 

Library, 1970). 

85. Henry L. Cecil and Willard A. Heaps, School Library Service in the United 

States: An Interpretive Survey (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1940). 

86. Margaret I. Rufsvold, History of School Libraries in the South (Nashville, 

Tenn.: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1934). 

87. Frederic D. Aldrich, The School Library in Ohio, with Special Emphasis on Its 

Legislative History (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1959). 

88. Harriet G. Long, Public Library Service to Children: Foundation and 

Development (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1969); Sara I. Fenwick, “Library 

Service to Children and Young People,” Library Trends 25 (July 1976): 329–60; 

K. L. Donelson, “Shoddy and Pernicious Books and Youthful Purity: Literary and 

Moral Censorship, Then and Now,” Library Quarterly 51 (January 1981): 4–19; 

G. P. Sorenson, “Removal of Books from School Libraries, 1972–1982: Board of 

Education v. Pico and Its Antecedents,” Journal of Law and Education 12 (July 1983): 

417–41; Robert S. Martin, “Louis Round Wilson and the Library Standards of the 

Southern Association, 1926–1929,” Journal of Library History 19 (Spring 1984): 

259–81. 

89. W. C. Berwick Sayers, A Manual of Classification for Librarians and 

Bibliographers, 3d ed., rev. (London: A. Deutsch, 1959); Leo Montagne, American 

Library Classification, with Special Reference to the Library of Congress (Hamden, Conn.: 

Shoe String Press, 1961); John Phillip Comaromi, The Eighteen Editions of the Dewey 

Decimal Classification (Albany, N.Y.: Forest Press, 1976). 

90. See my “‘Amherst Method’: The Origins of the Dewey Decimal 

Classification,” Libraries & Culture 33 (Spring 1998): 175–94. 

91. Michael Carpenter and Elaine Svenonius, eds., Foundations of Cataloging: A 

Sourcebook (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1985); Lois M. Chan, Phyllis A. 

Richmond, and Elaine Svenonius, eds., Theory of Subject Analysis: A Sourcebook 

(Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1985). See also Donald J. Lehnus, 

Milestones in Cataloging: Famous Catalogers and Their Writings, 1835–1969 (Littleton, 

Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1974). 

92. Francis L. Miksa, The Subject in the Dictionary Catalog from Cutter to the Present 

(Chicago: American Library Association, 1983). See also Julia Pettee, Subject 

Headings: The History and Theory of the Alphabetical Subject Approach to Books (New 

York: H. W. Wilson, 1946). 

93. Francis L. Miksa, The Development of Classification at the Library of Congress 

(Urbana: University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information 

Science, Occasional Paper No. 164, 1984). 

94. Donald J. Lehnus, Book Numbers: History, Principles, and Application 

(Chicago: American Library Association, 1980); John Phillip Comaromi, Book

Numbers: A Historical Study and Practical Guide to Their Use (Littleton, Colo.: 

Libraries Unlimited, 1981); James Ranz, The Printed Book Catalogue in American 

Libraries, 1723–1900 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1964). 

95. K. Wayne Smith, ed., OCLC, 1967–1997: Thirty Years of Furthering Access to 

the World’s Information (New York: Haworth Press, 1998). See also Kathleen L. 

Maciusko, OCLC: A Decade of Development, 1967–1977 (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries 

Unlimited, 1984). 

96. Samuel Rothstein, The Development of Reference Services through Academic 

Traditions, Public Library Practice, and Special Librarianship (Chicago: American 

Library Association, 1955); Louis Kaplan, The Growth of Reference Service in the 

United States from 1876 to 1891 (Chicago: Association of College and Research 

Libraries, 1952). 

97. Scott Adams, Medical Bibliography in an Age of Discontinuity (Chicago: 

Medical Library Association, 1981). 

98. Klaus Musmann, Technological Innovations in Libraries, 1860–1960: An 

Anecdotal History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993); Barbra Buckner 

Higginbotham, Our Past Preserved: A History of American Library Preservation, 

1876–1910 (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990). 

99. Sarah K. Vann, The Williamson Reports: A Study (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow 

Press, 1971), and The Williamson Reports of 1921 and 1923 (Metuchen, N.J.: 

Scarecrow Press, 1971); Carl H. White, A Historical Introduction to Library Education: 

Problems and Progress to 1951 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1976). 

100. Sarah K. Vann, Training for Librarianship before 1923: Education for 

Librarianship Prior to the Publication of Williamson’s Report on Training for Library Service 

(Chicago: American Library Association, 1961); Charles D. Churchwell, The 

Shaping of American Library Education (Chicago: American Library Association, 

1975); C. Edward Carroll, The Professionalization of Education for Librarianship, with 

Special Reference to the Years 1940–1960 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1970). 

101. Donald G. Davis, Jr., and Phyllis Dain, eds., “History of Library and 

Information Science,” Library Trends 34 (Winter 1986): 357–531; “Centennial 

Issue—I & II,” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 26 

(Winter–Spring 1986): 139–81, 211–80. 

102. Robert Sidney Martin and Orvin Lee Shiflett, “Hampton, Fisk, and 

Atlanta: The Foundations, the American Library Association, and Library 

Education for Blacks, 1925–1941,” Libraries & Culture 31 (Spring 1996): 299–325. 

103. Ray Trautman, History of the School of Library Service, Columbia University 

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1954); see also chap. 4 in my Irrepressible 

Reformer; C. H. Cramer, The School of Library Science at Case Western Reserve 

University: Seventy-Five Years, 1904–1979 (Cleveland: School of Library Science, 

Case Western Reserve University, 1979); Walter C. Allen and Robert F. Delzell, 

eds., Ideals and Standards: The History of the University of Illinois Graduate School 

of Library and Information Science, 1893–1993 (Urbana: University of Illinois 

Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 1992); Benjamin F. 

Speller, Jr., ed., Educating Black Librarians: Papers from the Fiftieth Anniversary 

Celebration of the School of Library and Information Sciences (Jefferson, N.C.: 

McFarland & Co., 1991); John Richardson, Jr., The Spirit of Inquiry: The Graduate 

Library School at Chicago, 1921–51 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1982). 

104. Margaret F. Stieg, Change and Challenge in Library Science Education 


105. Dennis Thomison, A History of the American Library Association, 1876–1972 


31


106. Edward G. Holley, ed., Raking the Historic Coals: The ALA Scrapbook of 1876 

(Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1967). 

107. Wayne A. Wiegand, The Politics of an Emerging Profession: The American 

Library Association, 1876–1917 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986). 

108. Arthur P. Young, Books for Sammies: The American Library Association and 

World War I (Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1981). 

109. Gary E. Kraske, Missionaries of the Book: The American Library Profession and 

the Origins of United States Cultural Diplomacy (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 

1985); Louise S. Robbins, Censorship and the American Library: The American Library 

Association’s Response to Threats to Intellectual Freedom, 1939–1969 (Westport, Conn.: 

Greenwood Press, 1996). 

110. Donald G. Davis, Jr., The Association of American Library Schools, 1915–1968: 

An Analytical History (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974). 

111. Alma C. Mitchell, ed., Special Libraries Association: Its First Fifty Years, 

1909–1959 (New York: Special Libraries Association, 1959); Elin B. Christianson, 

Daniel Nash Handy and the Special Library Movement (New York: Special Libraries 

Association, 1980). 

112. Irene S. Farkas-Conn, From Documentation to Information Science: The 

Beginnings and Early Development of the American Documentation Institute–American 

Society for Information Science (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990). 

113. See, for example, Carolyn J. Bradley, “The Music Library Association: 

The Founding Generation and Its Work,” Music Library Association Notes 37 (1981): 

763–822; Stephen A. McCarthy, “The ARL at Fifty,” Advances in Library 

Administration and Organization 3 (1984): 277–85; Wayne A. Wiegand, “Library 

Politics and the Organization of the Bibliographical Society of America,” Journal 

of Library History 21 (Winter 1986): 131–57; and J. M. Edelstein, “The 

Bibliographical Society of America, 1904–1974,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society 

of America 73 (October–December 1979): 389–433. 

114. Marjorie Fiske, Book Selection and Censorship: A Study of School and Public 

Libraries in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959). 

115. L. B. Woods, A Decade of Censorship in America: The Threat to Classrooms and 

Libraries, 1966–1975 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1979). 

116. Pamela Spence Richards, Scientific Information in Wartime: The Allied-German 

Rivalry, 1939–1945 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994). 

117. David Kaser, Books and Libraries in Camp and Battle: The Civil War Experience 

(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984); Wayne A. Wiegand, “An Active 

Instrument for Propaganda”: The American Public Library during World War I (Westport, 

Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989). 

118. Redmond Kathleen Molz, National Planning for Library Service, 1935–1975 

(Chicago: American Library Association, 1984); Mary Lee Bundy and Frederick J. 

Stielow, eds., Activism in American Librarianship, 1962–1973 (Westport, Conn.: 


119. Edward G. Holley and Robert F. Schremser, eds., The Library Services and 

Construction Act: An Historical Overview from the Viewpoint of Major Participants 

(Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1983). 

120. Lloyd J. Houser and Alvin M. Schrader, The Search for a Scientific Profession: 

Library Science Education in the U.S. and Canada (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 

1978); George E. Bennett, Librarians in Search of Science and Identity: The Elusive 

Profession (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988); Michael F. Winter, The Culture 

of Control and Expertise: Toward a Sociological Understanding of Librarianship (Westport, 

Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988); Michael H. Harris and Stan A. Hannah, Into the

Future: The Foundations of Library and Information Services in the Post-Industrial Era 

(Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1993). 

121. Andrew Abbott, The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert 

Labor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 

122. Thomas Augst, “The Business of Reading in Nineteenth-Century 

America: The New York Mercantile Library,” American Quarterly 50 (June 1998): 

267–305. 

123. I review this literature in “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Why Don’t We 

Have Any Schools of Library and Reading Studies?” Journal of Education for Library 

and Information Science 38 (Fall 1997): 314–26, and “Theoretical Foundations for 

Analyzing Print Culture as Agency and Practice in a Diverse Modern America,” 

in James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse America 

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 1–13. 

124. Steven Mailloux, Interpretative Conventions: The Reader in the Study of American 

Fiction (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982); Jane Tompkins, Sensational 

Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860 (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 1986); Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the 

Novel in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Ronald J. Zboray, A 

Fictive People: Antebellum Economic Development and the American Reading Public (New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Michael Denning, Mechanic Accents: Dime 

Novels and Working-Class Culture in America (New York: Verso, 1987); Janice Radway, 

Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 1991). 

125. Michel Foucault, Archeology of Knowledge and the Discourse of Language 

(New York: Pantheon, 1972); Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communication 

Action, vol. 1, Reason and the Rationalization of Society (Boston: Beacon, 1984); 

Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 

1992); Barbara Hernnstein Smith, Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for 

Critical Theory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Michel de 

Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 

1984). 

126. Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore: 

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? 

The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University 

Press, 1980); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and 

Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1991); Janice A. Radway, A Feeling for Books: 

The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire (Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 1997). See also Jonathan Boyarin, ed., The 

Ethnography of Reading (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). 

127. Notable exceptions include Catherine S. Ross, “‘If They Read Nancy 

Drew, So What?’: Series Book Readers Talk Back,” Library and Information Science 

Research 17 (Summer 1995): 201–36; Christine Pawley, “Better Than Billiards: 

Reading and the Public Library in Osage, Iowa, 1890–1895,” in Danky and 

Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse America, 173–99; Larry E. Sullivan and 

Lydia C. Schurman, eds., Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes: Dime Novels, 

Series Books, and Paperbacks (New York: Haworth Press, 1996); Cheryl Knott 

Malone, “Reconstituting the Public Library Users of the Past: An Exploration of 

Nominal Record Linkage Methodology,” Journal of Education for Library and 

Information Science 39 (Fall 1998): 282–90. 

128. William Boyd, Jr., “Books for Young Businessmen: Mercantile Libraries in 

the United States, 1820–1865” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1975). 

33


129. Douglas L. Zweizig, “Predicting Amount of Library Use: An Empirical 

Study of the Role of the Public Library in the Life of the Adult Public” (Ph.D. 

diss., Syracuse University, 1973), 15. 

130. See, for example, Douglas Waples and Ralph W. Tyler, What People Want to 

Read About: A Study of Group Interests and Survey Problems in Adult Reading (Chicago: 

American Library Association, 1931); Louis Round Wilson, The Geography of 

Reading: A Study of the Distribution and Status of Libraries in the United States 

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938). 

131. Esther Jane Carrier, Fiction in Public Libraries, 1876–1900 (New York: 

Scarecrow Press, 1965); Fiction in Public Libraries, 1900–1950 (Littleton, Colo.: 

Libraries Unlimited, 1985). See also Stephen Karetzky, Reading Research and 

Librarianship: A History and Analysis (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).

Louis Shores and Library History 

Lee Shiflett 

Together with Wayne Shirley, Louis Shores began the American Library 

History Round Table in 1947. With the addition of N. Orwin Rush and John 

David Marshall, they dominated its proceedings for the first two decades. 

When Shores and Shirley turned over the control of the Round Table to 

Shore’s appointed successor, Michael H. Harris, and his democratically 

elected successors in 1972, the four founders left an organization that, 

though small, was popular and had focused the agenda of library history. 

The two keynote papers of the American Library History Round Table 

(ALHRT), those delivered by Louis Shores in San Francisco in 1947 and 

Stanley Pargellis at ALA Midwinter in Chicago in 1948, differ in details 

but share a common vision for the new round table. It should construct a 

history that could elevate the professional consciousness of librarians. 

For Shores it was “the chronicling of our professional achievement as 

manifested in the ever increasing dissemination of good ideas through 

libraries.” 1 To Pargellis it was the possibility that “librarians can take 

inspiration from the lives and achievements of the great librarians of the 

past.” 2 Shores and Pargellis shared a common perspective on history—a 

conservative position that both, in their original statements, directly contrasted 

to history as a social science. For them, the purpose of library history 

was to impress upon librarians the greatness of the profession’s past 

leaders and to celebrate the importance of libraries in American society. 

Facts, dates, and data were not the materials from which history and 

libraries derived meaning. They called for a history that commemorated 

rather than criticized and that inspired rather than informed. To be fair, 

it must be added that Pargellis allowed for “room in Clio’s pastures for 

every kind of animal, even social scientist’s history,” and Shores himself, 

while refusing to allow that degree of liberality, never insisted on any 

orthodoxy among the participants in the meetings of the ALHRT. It was 

sufficient that they shared his enthusiasm for history and libraries. 

Indeed, through the first twenty-five years of the ALHRT, Shores took 

delight in presentations that focused on the foibles and failures of the 

great librarians and always took greater delight in a well-told tale than 

in an appropriate moral. 



36 L&C/Louis Shores and Library History 

Pargellis had been drafted for the duty and had no continuing involvement 

in the ALHRT. Shores, as its founder, did. From 1947 until 1970 he 

served as secretary of the new Round Table with his close friend, Wayne 

Shirley, as chairman. It was an informal organization at best. Apparently, 

for the first two decades of the Round Table’s existence, there were no 

by-laws governing the operations of the group. When asked about them 

in 1971 by ALA’s Flora Colton, N. Orwin Rush reported that Shores 

“seems to think that something was drawn up but is not sure,” and 

Wayne Shirley had no idea. 3 There was never an official membership 

list—Shirley and Shores and, later, Rush and John David Marshall simply 

passed around a pad of paper among the people attending the programs, 

and anyone signing the list was considered to be a member. There were 

no dues to be paid, and there was no business meeting following the program. 

Life was simple. At each annual conference of the ALA, there was 

only the annual program meeting, usually arranged and orchestrated by 

Louis Shores himself. 

The papers delivered at the early meetings to a great extent followed 

the charge laid out by Shores and Pargellis. They tended to exalt, to celebrate, 

and to promote the cause rather than to address significant 

issues of the profession, but this seems more a function of the informality 

of the ALHRT than a philosophical principle of its founder and major 

officer. Many of the papers of the early Round Table were published in 

the Wilson Library Bulletin and other library publications, but many others 

were lost—they were simply discourses of the moment. Shores spent 

much more of his time trying to find people who could be cajoled into 

sharing their ideas and work with the frequently large audiences the 

Round Table meetings attracted than evaluating papers submitted for 

presentation. To this end, Shores tapped on his colleagues, his friends, 

his students, the friends of colleagues, the friends of friends, and the 

friends of students to fill the programs. In 1950 he had Hazel Pulling, 

who had served as assistant dean of the library school at Florida State 

University under Shores, and Carl Vitz, who had hired Shores as a page 

in the 1920s at the Toledo Public Library, on the program. Marian 

Manley, whom Shores knew from ALA committee work, spoke in 1952 

and again in 1954. David Berninghausen, chair of the ALA’s Intellectual 

Freedom Committee, of which Shores was a member, talked about the 

history of the committee in 1953, and Robert Lester of the Carnegie 

Foundation and Ben Powell, both of whom Shores had known well since 

the 1930s, shared the program in 1956. And, of course, Wayne Shirley 

was ever ready to step in when no suitable presentation could be found, 

as he did in 1959 and again in 1964. The list goes on but is probably not 

important, as Shores knew practically everyone in the library business by 

that time. Coincidence, of course, probably played a major role. Ellen

Schrecker, who delivered the paper at the morning session of the ALHRT 

on 27 June, 1998, was the daughter of the main speaker at the 1955 

meeting of the Round Table, Edwin Wolf II, who delivered an excellent 

paper on the Library Company of Philadelphia. 4 Wolf’s paper was exceptional, 

though. The number of presentations at ALHRT meetings that 

approached the quality of his effort were few. When Ed Holley reviewed 

John David Marshall’s 1961 compilation of the papers read before the 

ALHRT, An American Library History Reader, he noted the unevenness of the 

formal presentations and gave the clear impression that more of them 

should have been lost. 5 

While the meetings of the ALHRT were well attended, the impact of 

the Round Table on the ALA itself was negligible. The published proceedings 

of the ALA conferences that summarized the round table meetings 

for the 1950s and 1960s frequently enough ignored the ALHRT, 

probably because Shores as secretary neglected to send in a report, and, 

when the proceedings did summarize the Round Table meetings, they 

often simply called ALHRT the “American History Round Table.” 

Though there had been a high level of interest in its programs, the 

ALHRT was looked upon by ALA staff members and those librarians who 

proudly “look to the future rather than the past” as, at best, a harmless 

hobby and, at worst, a waste of effort and time. 

It is quite obvious from the bibliographic work of Michael Harris that 

the ALHRT was not responsible for the renaissance in library history 

that Shores hoped for in the twenty-five years he controlled it. 6 Library 

history was being produced independently and without regard for the 

ALHRT, which remained, ultimately, an informal forum that perhaps 

delivered its greatest value to the ALA by providing intellectual entertainment 

in the midst of the dreary array of utilitarianism that fills an 

ALA annual conference. 

In 1968 the ALA Committee on Reorganization called for the regularization 

of the Round Table. The demand was that the ALHRT establish 

a formal membership with dues and by-laws and provide for the formal 

election of officers. Since the ALHRT had no real membership and never 

held business meetings, Shores and Shirley were in a quandary. Both 

were amenable to the reforms proposed by the ALA but were uncertain 

how to effect them, particularly since there was no mechanism by which 

someone could officially join the Round Table. 

In response to the ALA demand that the ALHRT conduct itself more 

as an ALA unit, Shores developed an elaborate justification of library history 

that, while failing to answer the questions posed by the ALA about 

the Round Table, did provide something of an agenda for the ALHRT 

when he detailed what the Round Table could do for ALA. He called for 

the writing of a history of the ALA, the publication of a directory of 

37


librarians who had been assigned the duties of official historians of their 

own libraries, the development of support for libraries to deal with their 

own archives, an ongoing bibliography of library history publications and 

works in progress, and support of oral history projects. He did not deal 

with the issues raised by the ALA for by-laws and a membership list and 

ignored the demands for organizational accountability. 7 

These ideas were not new for Shores. Since 1961 he had been trying to 

negotiate a grant from Crowell-Collier, publishers of Collier’s Encyclopedia, 

for which Shores served as editor-in-chief, to fund these and other projects 

through the ALA. It was an effort that Shores approached with his 

customary enthusiasm and pursued with vigor and one that, like too 

many of his projects and plans, achieved no results. 8 

While Shores thought his formal response to the demand that the 

ALHRT regularize its activities adequate, the ALA kept pressing. Shores 

and Shirley, both of whom were at that time faced with the prospect of 

retiring soon, realized that a new generation needed to take over. While 

Shirley wished to continue the organization as it had operated since 

1947, he realized the impossibility of that course, and in 1969 N. Orwin 

Rush and John David Marshall took over as ALHRT officers, largely at 

the suggestion of Shirley, who wanted them as interim officers until the 

question of an official membership could be resolved. 9 They continued to 

serve unopposed until 1972, when what many considered a coup 

occurred, and Michael Harris was elected chair with David C. Libbey as 

secretary. Harris was a Marxist revisionist to whom the notion that history 

was to be in the service of the profession was absurd. Harris represented 

a new generation of library historians for whom the ideals of 

historical research were more compelling than pious hagiography and 

who seriously attempted to make sense of the historical record. For 

many, it was nothing less than the storming of the citadel. 

Harris’s election, however, was only a natural extension of Shores’s 

concern with the Round Table. Shores had known Harris for years and 

had been a mentor to the young librarian, encouraging him in his writings 

and his doctoral work. In March 1968 Shores had written Harris, who was 

then a doctoral student in the library school at Indiana University, to 

thank him for sending him an autographed copy of Harris’s Guide to 

Research in American Library History. Shores suggested to Harris that there 

were several research projects that he would like to see Harris undertake, 

all involving the significance of library history: “One of the jobs I’d 

like to see you do, because I think you could probably do it better than 

anybody else, is to study the impact on library history since World War II 

created by at least three, and possibly four, forces.” Shores went on to 

specify the ALHRT, the Library History Seminar Series, and the Journal 

of Library History as the first three. The fourth area was vague for Shores

ut had as its focus the relationship of library history to history as practiced 

in departments of history in colleges and universities. He wrote 

Harris: “It is my dream and hope that not only will history and historians 

influence the writing of library history, but I think there is a possibility 

that we who write library history may yet introduce a new dimension into 

historiography, provided we don’t tiptoe as we have with science and the 

scientific method.” With that, Shores, who had just retired as dean of the 

library school at Florida State University, passed the bucket to Harris, 

telling him, “I believe the new generation, of which you are a fine representative, 

will have the courage to stop being ancillary.” 10 

When it became inescapable that a real election had to be held, it was 

Shores who took Harris aside and told him what to do. Before the nominations 

could be closed, with the names of Rush and Marshall entered as 

the only people standing for election, Harris thrust his conference badge 

in front of Peggy Sullivan, the main speaker of that session, and asked 

her to submit his name. She did, and Harris was elected. 

The Round Table itself, it might be argued, did little more than provide 

entertainment for ALA conference attenders, but it did keep the cause of 

library history alive and formed a sort of public advertisement for the 

more serious concerns of library historians. The ALHRT and its leader, 

Louis Shores, were directly responsible for the establishment of the 

Journal of Library History ( JLH) and the Library History Seminar series, 

both of which have become significant in the dissemination of research in 

library history. The JLH and the seminars were, from the beginning, 

designed as a forum for scholarly research and not for the informal displays 

of enthusiasm for history that the ALHRT programs had become. 

Indeed, Shores considered the JLH to have been his most significant contribution 

to library history. As its two founders prepared to turn over the 

forum to the next generation, Wayne Shirley felt the need to evaluate the 

contributions of the Round Table when he wrote Shores in 1968 about the 

future of the ALHRT: 

For 21 years we have provided programs at each Conference; nor 

have we asked for anything from ALA save a place to meet and a 

program announcement. In return we have, with the aid of John 

David Marshall, provided library school students with a much better 

knowledge than we had. All library schools buy the Marshall 

titles, and I was pleased the other day to note that Marshall, 

Shirley & Shores is still in print. 11 I feel also that in our own persons 

we have provided a sense of history as between us we have 

heard Dewey, Bowker, E. C. Williams and Putnam, and we have 

even had a speaker who knew Poole! We got out the list of founding 

fathers which LJ printed. Again and again our papers have 

39


appeared in LB [sic for LJ], WLB & ALA BULLETIN. . . . So I feel 

we have much more than repaid ALA for what they have done for us. 12 

Shirley was right. He, Shores, Marshall, and Rush kept the cause of 

historical studies before the library community through a period of 

increasing emphasis on technological change in libraries and through a 

period where research in library and information science was increasingly 

dominated by models derived from the social sciences. But the 

demands of the ALA for accountability and the movement of the library 

community for democratization within the confines of the ALA forced 

the opening of the ALHRT to a new generation of librarians, and, with 

the election of Harris in 1972, the rest is history. 

Notes 

1. Louis Shores, “The Importance of Library History,” in John David 

Marshall, comp., An American Library History Reader: Contributions to Library 

Literature (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961), 5. 

2. Stanley Pargellis, “Long Life to the Library History Round Table,” in ibid., 

9–10. 

3. N. Orwin Rush to Flora Colton, 27 August 1971, 40/1/6-1 (20-2), American 

Library Association Archives, University of Illinois Archives, University of 

Illinois, Urbana. 

4. Ellen Schrecker, “A Lost Opportunity: Intellectual Freedom in Early Cold 

War America” (paper presented at the ALHRT, Washinton, D.C., 1998). 

5. Edward G. Holley, review of John David Marshall, An American Library 

History Reader (1961), College and Research Libraries 23 (July 1962): 349–50. 

6. Michael Harris, A Guide to Research in American Library History (Metuchen, 

N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1968), and Michael Harris, Fugitive Literature in Library 

Science (Albany: State University of New York, 1968). 

7. Louis Shores to Ruth Warneke, June 15, 1969, JA-4, Shores Papers, Florida 

State University, School of Information Studies, Tallahassee. 

8. Lee Shiflett, Louis Shores: Defining Educational Librarianship (Metuchen, N.J.: 

Scarecrow Press, 1996), 191–92. 

9. Wayne Shirley to Louis Shores, 18 July 1968, JA-4, Shores Papers. 

10. Louis Shores to Michael Harris, 27 March 1968, copy supplied by Michael 

Harris. 

11. Books, Libraries, Librarians: Contributions to Library Literature selected by John 

David Marshall, Wayne Shirley, and Louis Shores (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 

1955). 

12. Shirley to Shores, March 27, 1968, copy supplied by Michael Harris.

The Library History Round Table’s First 

Twenty-five Years: Reminiscences and Remarks 

on Recent Research 

John David Marshall 

This is a personal reminiscence of the first twenty-five years (1947–1972) 

of the Library History Round Table of the American Library Association. 

The lives of the two founders of the round table—Louis Shores and Wayne 

Shirley—are presented and then followed by a historical look at the founding 

and subsequent years of the organization. 

We cannot say “the past is past” without surrendering the future. 

Sir Winston Churchill 

First of all, let me say that I was not present at the creation of the American 

Library History Round Table (ALHRT) or at the 1972 meeting when 

the Wayne Shirley/Louis Shores era came to an end. I attended my first 

ALHRT meeting in 1956 during the American Library Association’s Miami 

conference, gave a paper at the 1961 meeting in Cleveland during ALA, and 

served as secretary, with N. Orwin Rush as chairman, from 1969 to 1972. 

The Pioneers 

For its first twenty-five years (1947–72), the ALHRT was Wayne Shirley and 

Louis Shores. For most of those years Shirley was chairman and Shores was 

secretary. I knew both Shores and Shirley well, the former for more than a 

quarter of a century, the latter for almost two decades. These reminiscences 

are a mix derived from reading and some research as well as recollection, 

observation, and reflection. Let me begin by discussing the two founders of 

this round table, and then let me review some of its early history. 

Louis Shores 

I first knew Louis Shores when I was his student (1950–51) at the Florida 

State University Library School, of which he was the founding dean. In 



42 L&C/The LHRT’s First Twenty-five Years 

time I came to know him as a friend and colleague, fellow writer and editor. 

I became his bibliographer in 1964 and again in 1979, and I edited 

the first collection of his shorter writings published by Shoe String Press 

as Mark Hopkins’ Log and Other Essays by Louis Shores (1965). 

In any list of important librarians of the twentieth century Louis 

Shores (1904–81) would be in the top ten. For his teaching, his deanships 

(Peabody College Library School in Nashville, Florida State University 

Library School in Tallahassee), his Fulbright year (1951–52) in the 

United Kingdom, his editorship of Collier’s Encyclopedia, his contributions 

to library literature, his passion for libraries as central to the educational 

process, his commitment to books, ideas, and people, librarians and readers, 

the world of librarianship owes much to Louis Shores. Few other 

librarians in this century have contributed so much to their profession. 

His enthusiasm for library history surfaced early on when he wrote his 

doctoral dissertation, “The Origins of the American College Library, 

1638–1800,” at Peabody College. First published in book form in 1934 by 

George Peabody College for Teachers, this classic study in the history of 

the American academic library was then published in 1935 by Barnes and 

Noble. It was reprinted in 1966 by Shoe String Press and in 1972 by 

Gregg Press. It remains today a landmark in the literature of library history, 

American or otherwise. 

Somewhat small of stature and with snow-white hair when I knew him, 

Shores spoke softly but had a great stage presence when he lectured. A 

Yankee by birth, he became the quintessential Southerner, spending the 

major part of his professional career in Tennessee and Florida. He was a 

man of great charisma, with wide-ranging and varying interests. 

It has been said that to be great in a profession one must first be a 

great human being. Louis Shores was a great librarian and teacher, a 

great human being. I cherish his memory, and I am very proud of the fact 

that he was my teacher and my friend. 

Wayne Shirley 

I first knew Wayne Shirley when he became one of the two co-editors 

(Louis Shores was the other) of my first book, titled Books-Libraries- 

Librarians, an anthology of library literature that the Shoe String Press 

issued in 1955. Shirley (1900–73) was born in Franklin, New Hampshire. 

His father died when Wayne was six years old. Shortly thereafter, his 

mother, left with three small children to support, was appointed librarian 

of the Franklin Public Library. She held this position for thirty-five years. 

Although he did not receive a degree in library science until age twentyeight, 

Wayne liked to recall in later years that he had begun his library 

career by stamping books at the age of seven in his mother’s library.

Wayne attended Phillips Academy, Andover (class of 1918), and 

received the bachelor of science degree from Dartmouth College in 1922. 

Following graduation from college, he pursued a career in the business 

world for some five or six years. In 1928 he received the bachelor of library 

science degree from Pratt Institute Library School, Brooklyn, where one 

of his teachers was Josephine Adams Rathbone (ALA president, 

1931–32). 

After working at the New York Public Library (1928–29, 1932–34), the 

University of New Hampshire (1929–32), and the Pratt Institute Library 

(1934–38), Wayne Shirley became dean of the Pratt Institute Library 

School, a position he held for seventeen years (1938–55). He succeeded 

Josephine Adams Rathbone, whose life and career he would consider in a 

paper given before the ALHRT in 1959. From Pratt he went to Finch 

College in New York City as librarian (1955–62). In 1962 he moved to 

Durham, New Hampshire, and commuted to Boston, where he was 

librarian of the Wentworth Institute Library for seven years (1962–69). 

He retired in 1969 and was elected to the New Hampshire legislature for 

the 1969–70 term. He died suddenly on 25 December 1973. His ashes 

were scattered on the New Hampshire land he loved so well. 

Wayne was a friendly, sociable individual with a New England accent 

that was to this native Southerner a delight to hear. He wrote to the 

library press from time to time. His letters to the editor were thoughtful, 

often witty, never dull. 1 

One of his essays, “An American Librarian’s Heritage,” was written for 

delivery on 4 May 1953, as a public lecture at Florida State University. It 

was published first in Challenges to Librarianship, edited by Louis Shores 

(1953), and was reprinted with minor changes in Books-Libraries-Librarians 

(1955). What Wayne Shirley had to say about our professional and 

American heritage in 1953 is as valid today as it was then. It is a solid 

contribution to the literature of American library history. 

A bookman in the old-fashioned and best sense of that word, Wayne 

Shirley was a librarian with a keen wit and pawky sense of humor. He is 

remembered by his fellow librarians, students, and friends as a source of 

encouragement and sound advice. 2 Louis Shores wrote of his long-time 

friend that Shirley would be best remembered for “his courageous commitment 

to constants in an age of perpetual celebration of change.” 3 

The Founding 

The official program of the 1946 midwinter conference of the ALA lists 

“a discussion meeting to encourage study of the history of the library 

movement.” In Shores’s essay “The Library and Society,” he recalls that he 

and Wayne Shirley “went to Carl Milam some time during the summer 

43


of 1946 to plead for a library history meeting somewhere on the ALA 

convention program.” The ALA executive secretary “not only listened to 

[us] but provoked us to action.” 4 

It was at the sixty-sixth annual ALA conference in San Francisco (29 

June to 5 July 1947) that Benjamin E. Powell (Duke University Library) 

presented to the council a petition with the signatures of fifty ALA members, 

the number required to organize a round table. Powell moved that 

the proposal to establish a library history round table be approved. 5 The 

motion was passed without debate because, as Wayne Shirley frequently 

recounted, “it was made at about 6 PM when matters go through 

quickly.” 6 Thus did the ALHRT become an official unit of the ALA. 

The first meeting of the ALHRT was held on 30 June 1947, during that 

San Francisco conference. Both cofounders presented papers. Shirley 

spoke on “The Decline and Fall of Adult Education.” His paper was later 

published in the Library Journal with the title “What Happened to Our 

Adult Education Hopes?” Shores spoke on “The Importance of Library 

History.” This landmark essay was published for the first time fourteen 

years later in my American Library History Reader. 

At the 1948 ALA midwinter meeting in Chicago, Stanley Pargellis 

(librarian of the Newberry Library) presented a paper titled “Long Life 

to the Library History Round Table.” This paper was published in the 

Wilson Library Bulletin and was reprinted in An American Library History 

Reader. The Library History Round Table (LHRT)—as it is called today 

after a name change in 1979—can be very proud of the fact that Shores’s 

and Pargellis’s papers, both frequently cited, were given before the 

ALHRT at its first and second meetings. 

As already noted, I attended my first ALHRT meeting in 1956. Three 

papers were given at this meeting: “Southern University Libraries in the 

Civil War” by Benjamin E. Powell; “Contributions of Louis Round Wilson 

to American Librarianship” by Maurice F. Tauber; and “The Carnegie 

Corporation and the Library Renaissance in the South” by Robert M. 

Lester. 

In 1959 I attended the ALA conference in Washington, D.C., and the 

ALHRT meeting held during that conference. Shirley presided and 

Shores served as secretary. Two papers were read at the meeting: “Mr. 

ALA: Carl Hastings Milam” by Emily Miller Danton and “Josephine 

Adams Rathbone” by Wayne Shirley. Both papers are reprinted in An 

American Library History Reader. Shores was scheduled to give a paper titled 

“My Favorite Library School Teachers”; he did not give this paper for 

some reason, and so far as I know he never gave it at any library conference, 

ALHRT or otherwise. 

My American Library History Reader—with a foreword by Wayne Shirley 

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 

the ALHRT meeting in Cleveland on 12 July 1961, when the annual ALA 

conference would be in progress. I was first on the program and was followed 

by Gerald D. McDonald (New York Public Library), who first 

described the Erastus Brooks Library, which had inspired two musical 

compositions. Following this part of McDonald’s presentation, Ralph 

Smith (New York Public Library) played the two compositions on the 

piano, to the delight of the audience. McDonald then proceeded with an 

account of “The Astor Library Ghost.” Jackson E. Towne (librarian emeritus, 

Michigan State University at East Lansing) was the third speaker 

with a paper on the life and career of the well-known book historian, 

Douglas C. McMurtrie (1888–1944). 

Wayne Shirley presided at the meeting. In the absence of secretary 

Louis Shores, who was spending the summer in England, Shirley drafted 

me to serve as secretary pro tempore with responsibility for preparing a 

report of the meeting to be published in the proceedings of the 

Cleveland conference. This report records that about a hundred individuals 

attended the meeting; in fact, 102 attended. 7 I still have the 

three-page “attendance roll” that attendees signed. 

The American Library History Round Table meetings during the 

Shirley/Shores years were always devoted entirely to a program—no minutes 

were read, no committee reports were given, no dues were collected. 

Unusual? Yes, but herein lay for many the appeal of the ALHRT: learn 

some library history and hear something “of those who were truly 

great”—or perhaps only near great. Any expenses the Round Table may 

have had (stamps, stationery, envelopes, telephone calls) were paid for by 

either Shirley or Shores. Shirley usually presided, opening the meetings 

with the greeting “Welcome, friends of American Library History.” 

Shores passed out a sheet or two of paper for those attending the meeting 

to sign. This document became the ALHRT membership roll. The 

Shirley/Shores style of conducting Round Table meetings can perhaps 

best be described as a kind of formal informality. 

The Rush/Marshall Years 

When Shirley gave up the chairmanship in 1968, N. Orwin Rush 

(Florida State University) became chairman and continued to conduct 

meetings much in the Shirley manner. When Shores gave up the office of 

secretary, he appointed me to be his replacement. I held this office for 

some four years (1969–72). The Round Table during the Rush/Marshall 

years differed very little from the Shirley/Shores years. I do not recall 

whether Rush and I were both ever present at Round Table meetings. 

When Rush was absent I assumed his responsibilities, and he assumed 

45


mine when I was not present. Two ALHRT meetings from our tenure 

merit comment here. 

In 1970 the ALHRT met during the ALA conference in Detroit from 

28 June to 4 July. Two papers on “The American Library in Paris” were 

given. Foster Mohrhardt (program officer for the Council on Library 

Resources) dealt with the history of the American Library in Paris from 

1960 to 1970. Theodore Waller of the Grolier Educational Corporation 

spoke on the future of the American library. 

Attendance at this meeting was modest, exceedingly modest. No more 

than ten or twelve ALA folk attended. Among those few were Sir Frank 

Francis (director emeritus of the British Museum) and Lady Francis. 

Since N. Orwin Rush did not attend the 1970 meeting, I presided and 

introduced the speakers. For me the highlight of this meeting was the 

opportunity I had to meet and talk (however briefly) with Sir Frank and 

his wife. 8 

In 1972 the ALHRT observed its twenty-fifth anniversary. Louis Shores 

spoke on “The Library and Society.” In this paper he reminisced about the 

first twenty-five years of ALHRT, and you can read his paper in the 

July–October 1973 issue of the Journal of Library History. I did not attend 

this meeting, and I doubt that Wayne Shirley attended, since he had been 

retired by this time for a number of years. He died in December 1973. 

Contested Version 

Lee Shiflett describes the 1972 meeting in detail in his carefully 

researched, eminently readable Louis Shores: Defining Educational 

Librarianship. This account appears to have been based in large measure 

on Shiflett’s interview with Michael Harris in Washington, D.C., on 

4 January 1989. This account, in my view, cannot be characterized as 

accurate, in the “extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of 

terminological inexactitude,” 9 to use the words spoken by Winston 

Churchill in an address to the House of Commons on 22 February l906, 

to describe a great inaccuracy in a very different context. 10 According to 

Shiflett’s account, I was present at the meeting and was scheduled to 

nominate N. Orwin Rush to continue as chairman. I was to close the 

nominations immediately. However, as I have already noted, I was not at 

this meeting. 

The ALA officials had for some years not been too happy with the 

informal manner in which the ALHRT conducted its affairs. Louis Shores 

was aware of the ALA’s concerns and knew “the round table needed to 

have an actual election and that Rush and Marshall had no intention of 

actually holding one.” Shores, according to Shiflett, wanted Michael 

Harris to be the next chairman of the ALHRT and had so indicated to

Harris, but “to be considered meant that he [Harris] had to be nominated 

in the moment between Marshall’s official request for other names 

and his closing of the nominations.” 

From this account the reader of Shiflett’s Louis Shores can—and probably 

will—infer that Shores was attempting to manipulate the ALHRT election. 

Louis Shores was not a manipulator. Manipulation was simply not 

his style and was completely foreign to his manner of getting something 

accomplished. 

Shiflett records that Harris was nominated by Peggy Sullivan, that he 

was “narrowly elected and Shores, Shirley, Rush, and Marshall retired 

gracefully from the ALHRT.” 11 If by “retiring” from the ALHRT Shiflett 

means that I would no longer be active in the ALHRT, that is certainly 

true, for after the 1972 meeting I had no official role in the Round Table. 

In fact, my “retirement” from the ALHRT really came at the end of the 

1970 meeting in Detroit. When, however, I have attended ALA conferences, 

which has not been often in the years since 1970, I have attended 

ALHRT meetings, and I well remember the 1976 meeting in Chicago 

during the observance of the ALA centennial. That the ALHRT meeting 

was devoted to “Historical Writings: Editorial Problems and 

Pleasures,” with George S. Bobinski and Howard W. Winger as speakers. 

Bobinski was serving on the editorial board of the Dictionary of 

American Library Biography, which was published in 1978. Winger was 

editing the July 1976 library history issue of Library Trends. Godfrey 

Dewey conveyed his best wishes to the ALA centennial conference via 

a tape-recorded greeting, symbolic of the Melvil Dewey presence at the 

1876 Conference of Librarians at which the ALA was founded. The 

venue chosen by Melvil Dewey’s son for this greeting was, appropriately, 

the ALHRT meeting. 12 

ALHRT “First Cousins” 

As an ALHRT cofounder and longtime officer, Louis Shores could and 

did involve the Round Table in the cosponsorship of the Library History 

Seminar. The venue for the first three seminars (1961, 1963, 1968) was 

the School of Library Science at Florida State University. After the third 

seminar, various institutions, usually with library schools, have served as 

host for the seminar. 

In 1966 Shores founded the Journal of Library History and published it at 

Florida State University. He served as editor for the first two volumes 

(1966, 1967) and then became editor emeritus from 1968 to 1976. In 

1976 the journal moved to the University of Texas in Austin and in time 

became Libraries & Culture: A Journal of Library History. Shore’s editorial 

and advisory boards included several librarians who were identified with 

47


the ALHRT. Current members of the LHRT serve on the editorial board 

of Libraries & Culture. 

The LHRT at Fifty 

The observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the 

LHRT is indeed a time to celebrate. Both Louis Shores and Wayne 

Shirley would be pleased that their Round Table has enjoyed a halfcentury 

of life. The Round Table through these many years has provided, 

directly and indirectly, a forum for the presentation and discussion of a 

variety of topics in the history of libraries and librarianship. Perhaps 

more importantly, the Round Table has provided library history with a 

kind of visibility that would not be possible without it. 

The past is frequently more interesting than the present or the future. 

If we claim that “the past is past,” we surrender the future. A profession 

that neglects, forgets, or ignores its past is a profession that has no 

future. The LHRT is one way of saying that library history is, as we enter 

a new century and a new millennium, alive and well. The LHRT insures 

that we do not say, “The past is past.” 

In 1998 the LHRT began the second half-century of its life. As library 

history aficionados celebrate the first fifty years, they, and those who 

come after them, can look forward with great interest to the Round 

Table’s next fifty years and beyond. In these years library history will 

inevitably change, and the topics to which the Round Table turns its 

attention will be different in many ways. But the enduring value of 

recalling our past and remembering those who came before us will 

never change. 

Let there continue to be long life for the LHRT. And may Libraries & 

Culture enjoy a very long life with it. May it never, never, be available only 

on a CD-ROM or only in an electronic format! 

Notes 

l. A good example of Shirley’s style can be found in his letter to the editor in 

the Wilson Library Bulletin (February 1966) written in response to some less-thankind 

comments Jesse Shera had made in his WLB column (November 1965) 

about the ALHRT and the Journal of Library History, the first issue of which was 

published in January 1966. 

2. Marshall, “William Wayne Shirley.” 

3. Shores, “Wayne Shirley: In Memorium,” 291. 

4. Shores, “The Library and Society,” 143. 

5. ALA Bulletin 41 (15 September 1947): P–18. 

6. Marshall, ed., An American Library History Reader, xiii. 

7. American Library Association 80th Annual Conference Proceedings, 107. 

8. MTSU Librarian 43 (July 1970): 2. The MTSU Librarian (July 1967–August 

1976) was an in-house newsletter published on a regularly irregular schedule for

the Library Faculty and Staff of Todd Library, Middle Tennessee State University, 

Murfreesboro. It ceased publication with number 118. 

9. Churchill, “South Africa (Chinese Labour),” 88. 

10. There are some other inexactitudes in the Shiflett biography that were 

missed when the manuscript was copyedited or proofread: Resources and Adult 

Services Division (p. 272) should be Reference and Adult Services Division; Isadora 

Gilbert Mudge (p. 275) should be Isadore Gilbert Mudge. The new FSU library 

school building was dedicated on 21 November 1981; it was not, as Shiflett states 

(p. 273), named for Louis Shores at the dedication. The building was named for 

him on 15 October 1983. Shiflett states in his biographical sketch of Shores published 

in the supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography that the 

library school building was named for Shores in 1985. As something of a footnote 

to this note, let me record that Mrs. Shores died on 24 September 1983. She did 

know that the library school building was to be named for her husband. 

11. Shiflett, Louis Shores, 261–62. 

12. MTSU Librarian 117 (July 1976): 2. 

References 

American Library Association 80th Annual Conference Proceedings, Cleveland, Ohio, July 

9–15, 1961. Chicago: American Library Association, [1961]. 

Churchill, Winston S. “South Africa (Chinese Labour), February, 22, 1906.” In 

Robert Rhodes James, ed., Churchill Speaks . . . Collected Speeches 1897–1963. New 

York: Chelsea House, 1980, 87–91. 

Marshall, John David, ed. An American Library History Reader. Hamden, Conn.: 

Shoe String Press, 1961. 

———. “As I Remember Wayne Shirley.” Journal of Library History 9 (October 

1974): 293. 

———. Louis Shores, Author-Librarian: A Bibliography. Tallahassee: Gamma 

Chapter, Beta Phi Mu, Florida State University School of Library Science, 

1979. 

———. “William Wayne Shirley (1900–1973).” In Bohdan S. Wynar, ed., 

Dictionary of American Library Biography. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 

1978, 484–85. 

Pargellis, Stanley. “Long Life to the Library History Round Table.” In John David 

Marshall, ed., An American Library History Reader. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String 

Press, 1961, 8–14. Also published in Wilson Library Bulletin 22 (April 1948): 

601–3. 

Powell, Lawrence Clark. “Of Those Who Were Truly Great.” Library Journal 87 

(October 1962): 3404. 

Rush, N. Orwin. “Wayne Shirley, 1900–1973: An Appreciation.” Journal of Library 

History 9 (October 1974): 294–95. 

Shera, Jesse. “Without Reserve: A Renaissance in Library History?” Wilson Library 

Bulletin 40 (November 1965): 281. 

Shiflett, Lee. Louis Shores: Defining Educational Librarianship. Lanham, Md.: 

Scarecrow Press, 1996. 

———. “Louis Shores (1904–1981).” In Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Supplement to the 

Dictionary of American Library Biography. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 

1990, 123–29. 

Shirley, Wayne. “An American Librarian’s Heritage.” In John David Marshall, 

Wayne Shirley, and Louis Shores, eds., Books-Libraries-Librarians. Hamden, 

Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1955, 278–91. 

49


———. “Letters to the Editor.” Wilson Library Bulletin 40 (February 1966): 500. 

———. “What Happened to Our Adult Education Hopes?” Library Journal 

(November 1947): 1503–7. 

Shores, Louis. “The Importance of Library History.” In John David Marshall, ed., 

An American Library History Reader. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961, 

3–7. Also published in Mark Hopkins’ Log and Other Essays by Louis Shores. Selected 

by John David Marshall. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1964, 50–55. 

———. “The Library and Society.” Journal of Library History 8 (July–October 

1973): 143–49. 

———. Quiet World . . . The Professional Autobiography of Louis Shores. Hamden, 

Conn.: Linet Books/Shoe String Press, 1975. 

———. “Wayne Shirley: In Memorium.” Journal of Library History 9 (October 

1974): 291–92.

Library Feminism and Library Women’s History: 

Activism and Scholarship, Equity and Culture 

Suzanne Hildenbrand 

This essay places the development of library women’s history in the context 

of library feminism and American history. The equity or fairness orientation, 

evident in the earlier years, is today challenged by a cultural 

orientation in both library feminism and library women’s history. 

Women’s history has its roots in feminist activism, and library women’s 

history is similarly rooted in library feminist activism. While the national 

political context and its vagaries influence feminists and historians of 

women and their library counterparts, library feminists and library 

women’s historians must also contend with the professional context of a 

female-intensive occupation. In that context it is conventional wisdom 

that women are responsible for the problems facing the profession, 

including low status and salaries. This view inhibits both feminist 

activism and scholarship on women. 1 An additional feature of the library 

context in recent years has been the threat of a takeover of librarianship 

by information science (IS), which may signal an end to historical studies. 

Despite these obstacles, library women’s history flourishes, though it 

increasingly reflects the conservatism of the age. 

This essay begins with a view of the relationship between the status of 

women and the place of women in library history during the earliest 

years of the half-century that the American Library History Round Table 

(ALHRT) celebrates in this issue. It will move on to a review of the links 

between library feminism from the equity orientation of the liberal 1960s 

to the cultural emphasis of the conservative 1990s. In addition, it will 

relate library women’s history to professional or internal politics. 

Consensus: The Aftermath of World War II and the Cold War 

As the nation focused on the threat by actual or potential enemies 

from outside its borders, schisms within and tensions between internal 

groups were overlooked. Cold War culture is frequently described as one 

of complacency and conservatism, emphasizing traditional domestic 



52 L&C/Library Feminism 

roles. Historians have given the label “consensus” to the history written 

during this period, reflecting the lack of conflict. While this period is 

undergoing reassessment among historians, two features significant to 

library feminism and to the writing of library women’s history can be 

noted. First, while educated American women were breaking records for 

births, they were also increasingly holding jobs outside the home both 

before and after marriage and motherhood. Most of the jobs held by the 

latter were part-time, some in libraries. Part-time employment for 

women, mothers especially, was a pressing need. Second, the role of the 

federal government, in expansion since the 1930s, grew ever more 

rapidly. The fifties and sixties, which some have called the “Golden Age” 

of librarianship, brought libraries a bonanza in federal support for construction 

and development. Libraries seemingly became more important, 

due primarily to the large youth population attending school and needing 

libraries. Calls for more men to enter the profession, particularly to fill 

administrative positions, became common. 

A review of the library literature of the period reveals contradictory 

trends: a gradual accumulation of data documenting the second-class 

place of women in the profession and the growth of a library history 

oblivious to that place. Alice Bryan’s study clearly identified the position 

of women in the profession and exposed the “dual career structure,” with 

women in lower-level positions earning less than men. 2 This finding came 

to be cited often, although it was generally ignored by the reviewers of 

the study, most of whom were men. Scattered periodical articles also 

attacked the recruitment of men, especially for leadership roles. Boldest 

of these was Ralph Munn’s 1949 warning against the growing trend of 

hiring men, regardless of their qualifications. 3 The gender imbalance 

among librarians in Who’s Who in America was even noted. 4 

Yet in the major library history monograph of this period, Sidney H. 

Ditzion congratulated librarianship for its inclusion of women “on an 

equal basis with men.” 5 Employing a typical consensus approach, Ditzion 

ignored long-standing gender stratification in the profession justified by 

early leaders like Dewey. Instead, he stressed how the supposedly equal 

place of women in American libraries impressed travelers from abroad. 

That is, women’s place in librarianship became an occasion for professional 

and patriotic puffery. 

There is only scattered historical literature on women, most of it biographical, 

in this period. Martha Boaz wrote a sentimental life of Althea 

Warren, director of the Los Angeles Public Library and her longtime 

friend. 6 If there was a paucity of historical literature in the period on 

white women in the profession, the situation for women of color was generally 

worse. One notable, though brief, piece detailed the life of Sadie 

Delaney, an African-American librarian who developed bibliotherapy

while working with African-American veterans in a segregated Veterans 

Administration hospital. 7 

Approaching the crucible of the sixties, library women lacked an accurate 

place in professional history. Their role was misrepresented as evidence 

of professional egalitarianism. A meager foundation was available 

upon which to build a feminist consciousness that would demand a new 

library history. 

Equity Issues: The Sixties and Beyond 

The sixties were a turbulent age, remembered for protests, riots, 

demonstrations, and assassinations. Demands from a wide variety of 

groups for equity, or justice and fairness, fueled the passage of numerous 

reforms. Betty Friedan’s 1963 publication of The Feminine Mystique is generally 

thought of as marking a rebirth in feminism, often called the “second 

wave” to distinguish it from the first, which began in the nineteenth 

century. 8 

The rebirth of feminism stimulated a desire for greater academic 

study of women and for recognition that women were largely invisible or 

hidden in traditional history. Without a role in history, women were 

denied a vital tool for contemporary and future attainment. Historical 

studies were, therefore, linked to a reform agenda. Library feminism 

developed, but slowly, as library women were burdened with their supposed 

responsibility for the problems of the profession. Library feminists 

noted early how few of their predecessors had made it into biographical 

reference tools or histories of the field and related this to the state of 

contemporary library women. 

The upsurge in library feminism in this period is attested to by the creation 

within the American Library Association (ALA) of the Feminist 

Task Force (FTF) in 1970, followed by the independent Women Library 

Workers (WLW) in 1975. The Committee on the Status of Women in 

Librarianship (COSWL) was formed in 1976. Professional journals 

devoted special issues to the status of women. In addition, ALA programs 

began to reflect a feminist influence; for example, Wilma Scott Heide of 

the National Organization for Women spoke at the 1973 annual conference. 

The declining status of women, due at least partially to the policy 

of recruiting men for top jobs, was noted. A news item in the Library 

Journal announced: “Losses in Directorships for Women Pegged.” 9 In 

addition, there were increasing protests about the unsatisfactory professional 

climate for women who had domestic responsibilities as wives and 

mothers. 

At least two important works confronted the meaning of feminization 

squarely, one clearly historical and one drawing heavily on historical 

53


background. Sharon B. Wells provided a historical study of feminization 

in her 1967 master’s thesis at the University of Chicago. 10 She offered a 

careful description of the process of feminization, noting that it accompanied 

rapid growth in the number and size of libraries. She detailed the 

inferior status of women in the profession during the period examined. 

Anita Schiller showed that the case against women was so weak that it 

could be turned on its head. 11 That is, it was impossible to determine 

whether the low salaries were responsible for the presence of all the 

women or whether women were responsible for the low salaries, as had 

been claimed for so long. With more opportunities for employment, men 

generally refused to work for the salaries libraries could pay, and women, 

with fewer opportunities, took these jobs. In addition, she provided an 

overview of the research on her subject, going back to the first employment 

of women in libraries and stressing how little study had been done. 

Kathleen Weibel and Kathleen Heim, feminist activists, edited a documentary 

history of women, primarily in American libraries, that illustrated 

well what women had faced within librarianship. 12 The 

publication of this collection provided a major boost to library women’s 

history as it has served as the starting point for much subsequent 

research. It stimulated commitment to an ongoing bibliographic project 

that issues On Account of Sex, an annotated bibliography, every five years. 13 

Elfrieda B. McCauley’s dissertation at the School of Library Service at 

Columbia University studied a group of mill girls and their role in the 

development of early New England libraries. Her approach would be 

influential even though, as with Wells’s work, it was not published in 

book form. 14 

Not surprisingly, since leadership had been emphasized both by those 

insisting that male leaders would bring higher status and by feminists 

demanding more women leaders, biographies of women leaders in the 

past became a major subject of research. Laurel Grotzinger’s study of 

Katharine Sharp, based on her dissertation at the University of Illinois, 

was an outstanding early work that remains a classic. 15 It foreshadowed 

Grotzinger’s further work in biography. “Women in the Past as Leaders” 

was the theme of the first ALHRT program on women’s issues held in 1974 

with Grotzinger and Patricia Brown Pond participating. Ina Coolbrith, 

California poet laureate and librarian, was described in the full-length 

work by Josephine deWitt Rhodehmel and Raymund Francis Wood. 16 

Some early library women sought collective solutions to professional 

problems. The topic of women and library unionization was explored by 

James T. Milden. 17 

Little was published on women in children’s services or on women of 

color. A brief article by Margo Sasse noted some prominent pioneers in 

children’s services, while a School Library Journal editorial entitled “A

Monumental Checkup” described some founders of children’s services. 18 

One collection contained brief memoirs by outstanding librarians of 

color, including Augusta Baker, who was known primarily for her work in 

children’s services and who was the first black administrator in the New 

York Public Library. 19 Virginia Lacy Jones recalled the racism she 

encountered while pursuing her library degree in Illinois, while Jessie 

Carney Smith recalled the preference shown for male directors. 20 Among 

others are Binnie Tate, Louise Moses, and Vivian Davidson Hewitt. 21 

Yet it is important to remember that throughout this reform period, 

with feminism evidently flourishing and talk of “liberation” and “sisterhood” 

seemingly everywhere, library women continued to find themselves 

blamed for the low status, and consequent low salaries, of the profession. 

Still Blaming Library Women 

Library leaders interested in professionalizing librarianship organized a 

University of Chicago conference on the topic. Several sociologists of note 

took part, including Peter Rossi, who observed that “women depress the 

status of an occupation.” He recommended masculinization, particularly 

at the top. 22 That is, further inequity or discrimination against women was 

offered as the solution to the problems of the profession during this 

reform age, and there appears to have been no protest in response. 

The work of Rutgers University social historian Dee Garrison on librarianship 

and gender appeared during the 1970s. A 1973 journal article 

foreshadowed the thesis of her 1979 monograph Apostles of Culture: The 

Public Librarian and American Society, 1876–1920. 23 Garrison accepted 

unquestioningly the conventional wisdom regarding the low status of 

librarianship in the professional world. According to Garrison, “female 

dominance of librarianship did much to shape the inferior and precarious 

status of the public library as a cultural resource.” 24 The response in 

library literature was generally very positive. The reviewers in professional 

journals gave almost uniformly good reviews. Garrison was 

rewarded by being asked to participate in the 1976 centenary anniversary 

program and on the Committee on Accreditation. 

Garrison’s version of library history and the role of women in it is 

widely accepted and has become the standard history of the topic for 

those outside the profession. Most recently, women librarians have been 

linked to “purity” crusades on the basis of her work. 25 

Expansion and Evolution: The Eighties 

As the eighties dawned both feminist activism and library women’s history 

flourished and expanded. Many projects begun earlier came to 

55


fruition. Affirmative Action and pay equity were major issues. In 

response, the ALA produced a detailed statistical study entitled The 

Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Composition of Library Staff in Academic and Public 

Libraries in 1981. 26 The first volume in the bibliographic series On Account 

of Sex appeared in 1984. The ALA Yearbook, from its first volume in 1976, 

carried articles on the status of women in the profession. 27 Data for the 

comparison of female and male earnings were increasingly available. The 

ALA Equality Award was established in 1984. Betty Jo Irvine’s important 

study Sex Segregation in Librarianship: Demographic and Career Patterns of 

Academic Library Administrators illustrated the importance of Affirmative 

Action in improving women’s representation in the administration of the 

Association of Research Libraries. 28 Blaming library women for the profession’s 

woes was considerably muted. 

Library women’s history flourished; there were two ALHRT programs 

on women’s library history. Their titles show the feminist roots of 

women’s library history: “Women in Library History: Liberating Our 

Past” (1982) and “The Creation of the Patriarchy: Its Implications for 

Librarianship” (1988). The latter featured Gerda Lerner, the dean of 

women’s historians. The comparative method, long important in 

women’s studies, was featured in the former in a paper by Barbara Brand 

that compared librarianship with other female-intensive professions. 29 

Grotzinger presented a paper on the consequences to women of their 

omission from biographical reference tools in librarianship. 30 

Other important papers of the period included Brand’s analysis of sex 

typing in occupations and Nancy O’Brien’s examination of the policy of 

recruiting men following World War II. 31 Mary Niles Maack, in a piece on 

women in library education, showed how reforms for the good of the profession 

had worked against women. 32 Mary Biggs, perhaps stung by the 

Garrison thesis, analyzed the conservatism on women’s issues that has 

characterized the profession. 33 I also presented a critique of the Garrison 

book. 34 

Although biographical studies were still popular, a newer, more sophisticated 

methodology had emerged. Groups of librarians were examined 

using a common set of variables, permitting greater generalizations than 

does the study of a single life. James Carmichael examined Atlanta’s public 

librarians, and Joanne Passet examined a group of midwestern women 

academic librarians. 35 Two autobiographies of leaders were published 

during this period. Mary Gaver’s autobiography shed considerable light on 

the career of a prominent school librarian, and Martha Boaz, librarian and 

library educator, detailed her own life and career. 36 Lesbian life in librarianship 

has been difficult to study due to the subject’s need for security. 

Edith Guerrier’s autobiography, published years after her death, did little 

to illuminate the career or personal life of a lesbian but detailed instead 

her involvement in the cultural life of her times. 37

Library women were vulnerable, as were others in women’s studies, to 

charges that they wrote primarily about middle-class white women. Lelia 

G. Rhodes reviewed her oral history research on outstanding African- 

American women librarians, including Eliza Gleason and Dorothy 

Porter. 38 Annette Phinazee edited the papers given at a colloquium on 

black librarians in the Southeast. 39 The papers offer brief identification 

of some noteworthy women. Work was begun in 1988 on an oral history 

of women of color in librarianship, although the collection was not published 

until 1999. 40 

While scholarship on library women’s history, firmly rooted in the 

equity tradition, continued to gain momentum, depth, and breadth during 

this period, changes in the political context fostered new challenges. 

The Ambiguous Nineties 

The nineties presented many paradoxes and contrasts for women’s 

studies in general and library women’s history in particular. The conservative 

political climate was characterized by a turning away from equity 

issues, as evidenced by assaults on Affirmative Action and pay equity. 

There was a growing gap between academic women and activist women 

in the community as the former turned increasingly to theoretical studies. 

These theoretical studies often emphasized female-male difference 

and appeared to support a demand for recognition of traditional female 

roles rather than a reform agenda. This made them suitable in conservative 

times, when the role of government was increasingly challenged. In 

librarianship, the emphasis on IS has seemed to some members of the 

library history community to mean the end of historical study, yet IS has 

been developing its own history. This new IS history will have few women 

and almost no people of color in it, however. Feminist activism within 

librarianship, so crucial to the writing of library women’s history, has 

seemed to be diminishing, as the declining activities of the COSWL and 

FTF attest. 41 There has also been a decline in data needed to assess relative 

positions of men and women. 42 In addition, there has been a reappearance 

of the old “blame the women” theme in the official organ of the 

ALA. 43 Much current writing on library women’s history has a weak link 

at best to equity and emphasizes instead women’s culture, celebrating 

ideas and modes of behavior that the authors clearly admire and that 

they attribute to women. 

Yet despite the evidently negative context, an extensive and vibrant 

library women’s history is being written today. The best works from both 

equity and culture streams will be noted, along with others less clearly 

aligned. 

Undoubtedly, the outstanding work of the period is Passet’s monograph 

on western women librarians from 1900 to 1917. 44 Passet, drawing 

57


on a database she created that listed variables for the women, was able 

to make generalizations about age, education, and other factors. She 

added personal history material from letters and diaries to bring these 

women to life. Many of the women experienced a sharp contrast between 

the “library spirit” they had imbibed in training and the realities of 

their positions. The poor financial support for libraries meant low 

salaries and condemned many to lives of misery and disillusionment. A 

prolific writer, Passet has published several studies of interesting groups 

of early librarians. 45 

Two other monographs of considerable interest, though not focused on 

women, offer much valuable information and analysis of library women’s 

history. These are Deanna B. Marcum’s study of the public library as a 

cultural force in Hagerstown, Maryland, from 1878 to 1920 and Abigail 

Van Slyck’s study of Carnegie libraries from 1890 to 1920. 46 The former 

illustrates the struggles and eventual disillusionment of the librarian 

charged with running the Hagerstown library. In addition to discouragement 

over the role of libraries, she felt that newer professional standards 

repudiated women like herself who lacked academic degrees. Van Slyck, 

an architectural historian, illustrates the gender wars over the placement 

of Carnegie libraries and the ways women librarians reorganized 

the interior space of these libraries to defy the gender conventions 

adhered to by the architects and library boards. 

Numerous brief articles detail the gendered nature of early modern 

librarianship. Among the best of these are Brand’s analysis of the use of 

professionalism to handicap women, Cheryl Knott Malone’s analysis of 

the use of unpaid labor in the library, and Catherine Shanley’s study 

of the effort to improve the status of library women by unionization. 47 

Rosalee McReynolds analyzes the view that women are too delicate for 

top slots in librarianship. 48 Christine Jenkins’s study of the challenge to 

the literary choices of female children’s librarians by a variety of men 

who used sexist arguments offers important insights into the history of 

women in children’s services. 49 Jenkins has contributed several other 

pieces of note, including one on women librarians and intellectual freedom. 

50 Carmichael’s article on the impact of the University of Illinois on 

southern librarianship is of special interest because of its sensitivity to a 

range of issues, including not only sexism but racism. 51 

But if the foregoing works are in the enduring equity tradition, a growing 

number have appeared that stress the positive aspects of the culture 

and values that women librarians supposedly shared, emphasizing the 

superiority of such values as collaboration and nurturance, which are 

identified with women. Many of these authors emphasize that women 

display leadership differently from men. This leadership often goes unrecognized 

because it is exerted without titles and in a nonhierarchical

context; personal influence, not bureaucratic authority, characterizes 

many women. Many of the authors writing in this emerging tradition 

have based their writing on the not uncontroversial works of social scientists 

with no reference to the critics of those works. Others appear to be 

reacting to the equity-oriented literature that pictures women librarians 

as victims of discrimination. Works in this cultural tradition contain little 

on the salaries or working conditions of library women and men but much 

on the psychological return that service brings and the kind of power 

that comes from what may be conventionally labeled powerlessness. 

Undoubtedly, the most extreme example of this position is a small 

book by Sydney Chambers and Carolynne Myall based on a presentation 

before a library group. 52 The authors celebrate the selfless service of 

women in founding and staffing libraries and propose the library service 

orientation as a model for other professions such as medicine. Similarly, 

Maack, in a paper on women as change agents, urged the study of the 

“nonpositional” leaders in librarianship. Such women, with their service 

orientation, owe their leadership to persuasion and commitment. 53 

Grotzinger, reacting to a history in which library women are “faceless 

and exploited nonentities,” analyzed the informal bonds through which 

women exercised their influence in an essay on the network of women 

who contributed to the development of modern librarianship at the turn 

of the century. 54 

Several biographies also reflect an equity or a culture commitment, 

although many others do not. Clare Beck examined Adelaide Hasse’s 

career, and her essay clearly shows the problems that a “new woman” 

faced in a bureaucracy run by men who favor the status quo. 55 A cultural 

position is taken by Denise Sallee in another biography. Clearly stung by 

those who based their studies of women in library history on “inequity” 

suffered or exploitation, Sallee emphasized instead the satisfaction 

library work brought to many in her study of Anne Hadden, who enjoyed 

a career in the California county library system. 56 An ALHRT program 

in 1996 revisited the question of women and leadership, stressing 

women’s special qualities. Helen Astin, a psychologist, spoke on 

“women’s power as empowerment.” Dorothy J. Anderson gave a paper on 

Mildred Batchelder, Maack on identifying leaders, and Jenkins on leadership 

among children’s librarians. 

Many other biographies that have enriched the literature on library 

women’s history show no clear alignment. Several of these examine figures 

prominent in children’s services: Ann D. Carlson wrote on Zena 

Sutherland, Karen Patricia Smith described the contributions of Virginia 

Haviland, and Anne Lundin examined the career of Anne Carroll 

Moore. 57 Several articles examine women librarians in the West. Georgia 

Higley contributed a collective study of women librarians in the land 

59


grant colleges of the West, while Clara Sitter described the career of 

Fannie Elizabeth Ratchford of the University of Texas. 58 Linda Lewis 

analyzed the role of Julia Brown Asplund in the growth of New Mexico 

library service. 59 Jane Anne Hannigan offers a kind of history of young 

adult services through the careers of six outstanding women who developed 

the field, and Kay Vandergrift provides a similar piece for children’s 

services. 60 While both cite social scientists who emphasize women’s “harmonious” 

nature, the articles stress achievements more than attitudes. 

Mary Mallory assessed the career of Mary Utopia Rothrock at the 

Tennessee Valley Authority. 61 The autobiography of Zoia Horn, intellectual 

freedom activist, details her numerous struggles. 62 

The nineties produced a richer literature on women of color. For these 

women, the struggle to achieve professional status and a decent salary was 

intimately bound up with the struggle of their people for a life of dignity. 

Glendora Johnson-Cooper describes Jean Blackwell Hutson’s life, emphasizing 

her role in the development of the Schomburg Center for Research 

in Black Culture, a major American repository for the study of the culture 

of people of African descent. 63 Betty Jenkins’s work on the white librarian 

Ernestine Rose, longtime Schomburg librarian, presents a different perspective 

on that collection and its services. 64 Jessie Carney Smith offers 

brief biographical sketches of some important women. 65 Helen H. Britton 

describes the life and contributions of Dorothy Porter Wesley, longtime 

bibliographer and curator at Howard University. 66 Annie L. McPheeters’s 

autobiography offers excellent material on service to African-Americans 

in the segregated South, along with a vivid account of her life and career. 67 

Julio Hernandez-Delgado describes the life and contributions of Pura 

Teresa Belpre, a pioneer Puerto Rican librarian in the New York Public 

Library. 68 Belpre’s name lives on in the award named for her. 

Regardless of emerging divisions, the nineties have seen a rich outpouring 

of library women’s history that will endure. 

Future Prospects 

Several scenarios suggest themselves for future development. There 

may indeed be no more library history, or there may be a replacement 

history in which few women librarians appear. There may be the triumph 

of the cultural approach, mimicking the traditional library history with 

“sheroes” who join the heroes in the professional pantheon and an extension 

of the largely uncritical acceptance of our professional past to the 

women in library history. Perhaps two parallel traditions, one based on 

“male values,” one on “female values,” will co-exist. 

But it may be too soon to write off the equity-oriented approach. 

Recent publications from other disciplines point to a revival of interest in

the inequities women face in their professional and personal lives. 69 A 

new generation of library women, facing the new, harsher economic and 

political realities of the twenty-first century, may turn again to activism. 

This will lead to a rebirth of equity-oriented history as the origins of 

inequity are sought. 

An alternate future, however, can be imagined for our common past, one 

that draws from the best of traditional history and from the work on 

women, African-Americans, other racial and ethnic groups as well as the 

lesbigay community. Before such a history can emerge, however, a new and 

better way of conceptualizing these socially constructed aspects of our 

identity is needed. In any given setting one may take precedence over the 

others, though none is ever totally submerged. And each of us must find his 

or her place in life, professionally and personally, in already existing, 

though continually evolving, social structures in which difference has traditionally 

resulted in dominance and subordination. Gerda Lerner offers 

the example of the pyramid of dominance in the antebellum South. 70 Only 

a small group of white male planters owned slaves, yet most members of 

white society supported the pyramid, though most found themselves in subordinate 

positions based on gender or class. White women of the planter 

class had few rights but had considerable power over the slaves and access 

to their husband’s wealth or class and race privileges. Poorer white men 

and women, with little land and no slaves, enjoyed race privileges. 

How would a history of librarianship look if the interrelatedness of 

these socially constructed categories became central? It might help to 

explain the experiences of Annie L. McPheeters, who, as a small child, was 

ejected from a whites-only library by a truculent white woman librarian 

who was undoubtedly underpaid and overworked and possibly even nurturing 

and compassionate—to some. It might help to explain what motivated 

Edwin Anderson to report Adelaide Hasse to the Secret Service as 

disloyal in the frenzied wartime atmosphere of 1918 and why she is remembered 

as “difficult.” What elements of class, race, and gender privilege 

were at work in these interactions? And how were they supported by the 

traditional structures of libraries and library education? This approach 

offers a way to move beyond celebration and toward explanation. It 

also offers a way to move beyond separate studies of women, people of 

color, and lesbigays in library history and toward a greater synthesis. 

At the hundredth anniversary of the ALHRT we’ll find out which scenario 

was played out! 

Notes 

1. When experts argue that women depress the status of a profession, it is 

difficult for the women practitioners in it to argue for a better place within the 

61


profession or for higher wages. The threat of masculinization has a chilling effect 

on women’s organizing in female-intensive professions. 

2. Alice I. Bryan, The Public Librarian: A Report of the Public Library Inquiry of the 

Social Science Research Council (New York: Columbia University, 1952). 

3. Ralph Munn, “It’s a Mistake to Recruit Men,” Library Journal 74 

(November 1949): 1639–40. 

4. J. Labb, “Librarians in Who’s Who in America,” Wilson Library Bulletin 25 

(September 1950): 54–56. 

5. Sidney H. Ditzion, Arsenals of a Democratic Culture: A Social History of the 

American Public Library in New England and the Middle States from 1850 to 1900 


6. Martha Boaz, Fervent and Full of Gifts: The Life of Althea Warren (New York: 

Scarecrow, 1961). 

7. Clyde H. Cantrell, “Sadie P. Delaney: Bibliotherapist and Librarian,” 

Southeastern Libraries 6 (Fall 1956): 105–9. 

8. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963). 

9. “Losses in Directorships for Women Pegged,” Library Journal 101 (February 

1976): 573. 

10. Sharon B. Wells, “The Feminization of the American Library Profession, 

1876 to 1923” (M.A. thesis, University of Chicago, 1967). 

11. Anita R. Schiller, “Women in Librarianship,” in Advances in Librarianship 

(New York: Academic, 1974), 104–47. 

12. Kathleen Weibel and Kathleen M. Heim, eds., with Dianne J. Ellsworth, 

Women in Librarianship, 1876–1976: The Entry, Advancement and Struggle for 

Equalization in One Profession (Phoenix: Oryx, 1979). 

13. Kathleen Heim and Katharine Phoenix, eds., for the Committee on the 

Status of Women in Librarianship, On Account of Sex: An Annotated Bibliography on 

the Status of Women in Librarianship, 1977–1981 (Chicago: ALA, 1984). 

14. Elfrieda B. McCauley, “The New England Mill Girls: Feminine Influence in 

the Development of Public Libraries in New England, 1820–1860” (D.L.S. diss., 

Columbia University, 1971). 

15. Laurel A. Grotzinger, The Power and the Dignity: Librarianship and Katharine 

Sharp (New York: Scarecrow, 1966). 

16. Josephine deWitt Rhodehmel and Raymund Francis Wood, Ina Coolbrith: 

Librarian and Laureate of California (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 

1973). 

17. James T. Milden, “Women, Public Libraries and Library Unions: The 

Formative Years,” Journal of Library History 12 (Spring 1977): 150–58. 

18. Margo Sasse, “Invisible Women: The Children’s Librarian in America,” 

School Library Journal 19 (January 1973): 213–17; Lillian N. Gerhardt, “Needed: A 

Monumental Checkup,” School Library Journal 22 (January 1976): 5. 

19. Augusta Baker, “My Years As a Children’s Librarian,” in E. J. Josey, ed., 

The Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1970), 117–29. 

20. Virginia Lacy Jones, “A Dean’s Career,” and Jessie Carney Smith, “The 

Four Cultures,” both in ibid., 19–49, 191–204. 

21. Binnie Tate, “Traffic on the Drawbridge,” Louise J. Moses, “The Black 

Librarian: Untapped Resource,” and Vivian Davidson Hewitt, “A Special 

Librarian by Design,” all in ibid., 124–29, 137–41, 253–71. 

22. Peter H. Rossi, “Discussion,” in Philip H. Ennis and Howard W. Winger, 

eds., Seven Questions about the Profession of Librarianship (Chicago: University of 

Chicago Press, 1962), 82–83.

23. Dee Garrison, “Tender Technicians: The Feminization of Public 

Librarianship, 1876–1905,” Journal of Social History 6 (Winter 1972–73): 131–59, 

and Apostles of Culture: The Public Librarian and American Society, 1876–1920 (New 

York: Free Press, 1979). 

24. Garrison, Apostles of Culture, 84. 

25. Alison M. Parker, Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform and Pro-Censorship 

Activism, 1873–1933 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997). 

26. The Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Composition of Library Staff in Academic and Public 

Libraries (Chicago: ALA, 1981). 

27. The ALA Yearbook (Chicago: ALA, 1976–83). 

28. Betty Jo Irvine, Sex Segregation in Librarianship: Demographic and Career Patterns 

of Academic Library Administrators (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1985). 

29. Barbara Brand, “Librarianship and Other Female-Intensive Professions,” 

Journal of Library History, Philosophy, and Comparative Librarianship 18 (Fall 1983): 

391–406. 

30. Laural A. Grotzinger, “Biographical Research: Recognition Denied,” 

Journal of Library History, Philosophy, and Comparative Librarianship 18 (Fall 1983): 

372–81. 

31. Barbara Brand, “Sex-Typing in Education for Librarianship: 1870–1920,” 

and Nancy Patricia O’Brien, “The Recruitment of Men into Librarianship 

Following World War II,” both in Kathleen M. Heim, ed., The Status of Women in 

Librarianship: Historical, Sociological and Economic Issues (New York: Neal-Schuman, 

1983), 29–49, 51–66. 

32. Mary Niles Maack, “Women in Library Education: Down the Up 

Staircase,” Library Trends 34 (Winter 1986): 401–32. 

33. Mary Biggs, “Librarians and the ‘Woman Question’: An Inquiry into 

Conservatism,” Journal of Library History 17 (Fall 1982): 408–28. 

34. Suzanne Hildenbrand, “Revision versus Reality: Women in the History of 

the Public Library Movement, 1876–1920,” in Heim, ed., The Status of Women, 

7–27. 

35. James V. Carmichael, “Atlanta’s Female Librarians, 1883–1915,” Journal of 

Library History, Philosophy, and Comparative Librarianship 21 (Spring 1986): 376–99; 

Joanne Passet, “ ‘The Rule Rather Than the Exception’: Midwest Women as 

Librarians, 1875–1900,” Journal of Library History, Philosophy, and Comparative 

Librarianship 21 (Fall 1986): 673–92. 

36. Virginia Mary Gaver, A Braided Cord: Memoirs of a School Librarian 

(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1988); Martha Boaz, Librarian/Library Educator: An 

Autobiography and Planning for the Future (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1987). 

37. Edith Guerrier, An Independent Woman: The Autobiography of Edith Guerrier 

(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992). 

38. Lelia Gaston Rhodes, “Profiles of the Careers of Selected Black Female 

Librarians,” in Heim, ed., The Status of Women, 191–205. 

39. Annette L. Phinazee, The Black Librarian in the Southeast: Reminiscences, 

Activities, Challenges (Durham: North Carolina Central University School of 

Library Science, 1980). 

40. Kathleen de la Pena McCook, ed., Women of Color in Librarianship: An Oral 

History (Chicago: American Library Association, 1999). 

41. Ruth Ann Canfield, “The ALA Committee on the Status of Women in 

Librarianship: An Examination of Its History and Impact” (master’s thesis, 

School of Information and Library Science of the University of North Carolina at 

Chapel Hill, 1993). 

63


42. The Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Composition publication has shrunk over the 

years. The first edition was thirty-nine pages of text and ten pages of appendixes. 

The most recent was only twelve pages in length. Although scheduled to be 

issued every five years, it has not appeared since 1991. The most recent title is 

Academic and Public Librarians: Data by Race, Ethnicity and Sex. 

43. Carol Combs Hole, “Click! The Feminization of the Public Library and 

Attitudes Make the Men the Great Unserved,” American Libraries 21 (December 

1990): 1076–79. 

44. Joanne E. Passet, Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West, 

1900–1917 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994). 

45. Joanne Passet, “Entering the Professions: Women Library Educators and 

the Placement of Female Students, 1887–1912,” History of Education Quarterly 31 

(Summer 1991): 207–28. 

46. Deanna B. Marcum, Good Books in a Country Home: The Public Library as a 

Cultural Force in Hagerstown, Maryland, 1878–1920 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 

1994); Abigail A. Van Slyck, Free to All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture, 

1890–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). 

47. Barbara Brand, “Pratt Institute Library School: The Perils of 

Professionalism,” and Cheryl Knott Malone, “Women’s Unpaid Work in 

Libraries: Change and Continuity,” both in Suzanne Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming 

the American Library Past: Writing the Women In (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1996), 

251–78, 279–99; Catherine Shanley, “The Library Employees’ Union of Greater 

New York; First Union of Public Library Workers in the United States,” Libraries 

& Culture 30 (Summer 1995): 235–64. 

48. Rosalee McReynolds, “The Sexual Politics of Illness in Turn of the Century 

Libraries,” Libraries & Culture 25 (Spring 1990): 194–217. 

49. Christine Jenkins, “Women of ALA Youth Services and Professional 

Jurisdiction: Of Nightingales, Newberies, Realism, and the Right Books, 

1937–1945,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 813–39. 

50. Christine Jenkins, “‘Since So Many of Today’s Librarians Are Women 

. . . ’: Women and Intellectual Freedom in U.S. Librarianship,” in 

Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past, 221–49. 

51. James V. Carmichael, Jr., “Southerners in the North and Northerners in 

the South: The Impact of the Library School of the University of Illinois on 

Southern Librarianship,” in Women’s Work: Vision and Change in Librarianship: Papers 

in Honor of the Centennial of the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and 

Information Science (Urbana: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 

1994), 27–104. 

52. Sydney Chambers and Carolynne Myall, Women and the Values of American 

Librarianship (Las Colinas, Tex.: Ide House, 1994). 

53. Mary Niles Maack, “Women As Visionaries, Mentors, and Agents of 

Change,” in Women’s Work, 105–30. 

54. Laurel A. Grotzinger, “Invisible, Indestructible Network: Women and the 

Diffusion of Librarianship at the Turn of the Century,” in ibid., 7–26. 

55. Clare Beck, “Adelaide Hasse: The New Woman As Librarian,” in 


56. Denise Sallee, “Reconceptualizing Women’s History: Anne Hadden and 

the California County Library System,” Libraries & Culture 27 (Fall 1992): 351–77. 

57. Ann D. Carlson, “Zena Sutherland: Reviewer, Teacher, and Author,” and 

Karen Patricia Smith, “Initiative and Influence: The Contributions of Virginia 

Haviland to Children’s Services, Research and Writing,” both in Karen Patricia

Smith, ed., Imagination and Scholarship: The Contributions of Women to American Youth 

Services and Literature (Urbana: Graduate School of Library and Information 

Science, 1996), 776–93, 736–54; Anne Lundin, “Anne Carroll Moore: ‘I Have 

Spun Out a Long Thread,’” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library 

Past, 187–204. 

58. Georgia Higley, “College, Community and Librarianship: Women 

Librarians at the Western Landgrant Colleges,” and Clara Sitter, “Librarian, 

Literary Detective and Scholar: Fannie Elizabeth Ratchford,” both in ibid., 

53–98, 135–61. 

59. Linda K. Lewis, “Julia Brown Asplund and New Mexico Library Service,” 

in ibid., 121–34. 

60. Jane Anne Hannigan, “A Feminist Analysis of the Voices for Advocacy in 

Young Adult Services,” and Kay E. Vandergrift, “Female Advocacy and 

Harmonious Voices: A History of Public Library Services and Publishing for 

Children in the United States,” both in Smith, ed., Imagination and Scholarship, 

851–74, 683–718. 

61. Mary Mallory, “The Rare Vision of Mary Utopia Rothrock: Organizing 

Regional Library Services in the Tennessee Valley,” Library Quarterly 65 (January 

1995): 62–88. 

62. Zoia Horn, Zoia! Memoirs of Zoia Horn, Battler for the People’s Right to Know 

(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1995). 

63. Glendora Johnson-Cooper, “African-American Historical Continuity: Jean 

Blackwell Hutson and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,” in 


64. Betty Jenkins, “A White Librarian in Black Harlem,” Library Quarterly 60 

(July 1990): 216–31. 

65. Jessie Carney Smith, “Sweet Sixteen: Black Women Librarians, 

1882–1992,” in Culture Keepers, National Conference of African American Librarians 

(Columbus, Ohio, 1992), 118–26 (reprint Newark, N.J.: Black Caucus of the ALA, 

1993). 

66. Helen H. Britton, “Dorothy Porter Wesley: Bibliographer, Curator and 

Scholar,” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past, 163–86. 

67. Annie L. McPheeters, Library Service in Black and White: Some Personal 

Recollections, 1921–1980 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1998). 

68. Julio Hernandez-Delgado, “Pura Teresa Belpre: Storyteller and Pioneer 

Puerto Rican Librarian,” Library Quarterly 62 (October 1992): 425–40. 

69. See, for example, two recent works: Deborah L. Rhode, Speaking of Sex: The 

Denial of Gender Inequality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997) 

and Virginia Valian, Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women (Cambridge, Mass.: 

MIT Press, 1998). 

70. Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters: Life and Thought (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 1997). 

65

International Dimensions of Library History: 

Leadership and Scholarship, 1978–1998 

Mary Niles Maack 

This essay sketches the growth of internationalism in library history 

since 1978, when the members of the American Library History Round 

Table (ALHRT) voted to drop the word “American” from its name in 

acknowledgment of the growing importance of international scholarship in 

the field. Major conferences and publications on international themes are 

discussed, as is the role of the LHRT and its members in extending international 

research on the history of books, reading, and libraries. 

The Library History Round Table Emerges from the AHLRT 

As I reflected on my own involvement with the Library History Round 

Table over the past twenty years, one theme that particularly stood out 

was the LHRT’s commitment to internationalism within the domain of 

library history. It therefore came as a surprise when I discovered that its 

original name was the “American Library History Round Table.” Only 

then did I realize that the main focus of the group during its first three 

decades had indeed been on the study of American libraries and librarianship. 

Since the name change seemed to indicate a wider scope of concerns 

and activities, I became intrigued as to how and when this 

occurred. Looking back over the ALA yearbooks, I found that in 1978 the 

broadened interest of the ALHRT was recognized by the removal of 

“American” from the round table’s mission statement, and a proposal 

was also introduced to drop “American” from the name. The following 

year the ALA executive committee authorized a vote of the ALHRT 

membership to delete “American” from the round table’s name. 

Because Donald G. Davis, Jr., was serving as ALHRT’s chair in 

1978–79, I naturally assumed that he was instrumental in the name 

change. When I inquired about this, he replied that his two goals as chair 

were to organize a program featuring Ian Willison, a distinguished 

scholar from Britain, and to change the name of the round table to 

reflect the growing international interests of its members. However, in a 

more pragmatic vein, he wrote: 



As for the name change, I think that many within the RT felt that 

the former name suggested that the group was concerned only about 

American library history, rather than being Americans interested in 

all library history. Some, however, felt that American library history 

had been so understudied in the past that we should concentrate primarily 

on that subject. The argument that won was that no other RT 

had the word “American” in its title and that all RTs were under the 

aegis of the AMERICAN Library Association. In short, the name 

change represented reality rather than ideology—though I have 

some sympathy with those who feel that our own history should 

have some primacy for our Association connections. 1 

While a great deal of Donald Davis’s own work has been on American 

library history, I also know him to be a committed internationalist who 

has probably done more than anyone else within LHRT to promote the 

international exchange of scholarship. Although he himself has traveled, 

lived, and worked abroad on a number of occasions, his first opportunity 

to officially represent the Round Table at an international event occurred 

when he and Bud Gambee (the 1977–78 chair of ALHRT) attended the 

centenary celebration of the British Library Association in 1977. Their 

report back to the membership is still a pleasure to read and conveys 

some of the excitement that surrounded this historic celebration of the 

one hundredth birthday of our younger sister association. It was also in 

1977 that Donald Davis assumed the editorship of the Journal of Library 

History, which moved from Florida to the University of Texas Press. 

During his tenure as editor of the journal, Davis has consistently 

enriched our understanding of library history abroad through the publication 

of work by American and foreign scholars whose interests represent 

a wildly eclectic range of topics and world areas. Articles over the 

last twenty years include historical studies on Britain, China, Finland, 

Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Senegal, and South 

Africa. In addition, there have been two single-country special issues of 

the journal that have been devoted to France and Italy. 2 

Awards, Programs, and Library History Seminars 

Inaugurated at a time when the LHRT was extending its interest to 

international topics, the Justin Winsor Prize Essay Contest has always 

been open to library historians who conduct their research abroad. The 

first Winsor prize for a study done outside the United States was 

awarded in 1981 to a paper entitled “First Generation of Women 

Librarians in France” by Mary Niles Maack. The following year the 

Winsor prize was given to two essays dealing with international library 

67

68 L&C/International Dimensions 

history or library history abroad; these were “Aryan Librarianship: 

Academic and Research Libraries under Hitler” by Pamela Spence 

Richards and “British Propaganda in American Public Libraries, 

1914–1917” by Wayne A. Wiegand. More recently, in 1991 Margaret Stieg 

won the award for a paper entitled “The Postwar Purge of German 

Public Libraries, Democracy and the American Reaction.” Counting the 

prize given to an international relations historical study by Brother 

Thomas O’Connor entitled “Library Service to the American Commission 

to Negotiate Peace and to the Preparatory Inquiry, 1917–1919,” 

a total of five (or one third of all the Justin Winsor essay prizes as of 

1998) have gone to scholars working abroad or writing on international 

topics. 

During the past two decades a number of LHRT programs have featured 

prominent speakers from abroad as well as Canadian and American 

scholars known for their international research. One particularly memorable 

talk was presented in 1979 by Ian Willison, then head of the Rare 

Book Collections at the British Library. Willison’s magisterial address on 

the history of libraries and scholarship was attended by two hundred people 

at the LHRT annual meeting. Cosponsored by LHRT and the Center 

for the Book, this lecture was subsequently published as part of the 

Viewpoint Series. 3 Two years later, in 1981, the LHRT sponsored two programs 

devoted to libraries under Communism. The first session featured 

a paper entitled “The Historical Development of Soviet Librarianship, 

1917–1980” by Boris Raymond of Dalhousie University, who is especially 

known for his study of Krupskaia. The second session featured a paper 

entitled “Chinese Libraries and Library Education, 1949–1980: Truth and 

Myth in the People’s Republic of China” by Lee-hsia Ting of Western 

Illinois University. Adding special excitement to this program was the 

attendance of a delegation from the People’s Republic of China. 

Like the ALA conference programming, the ongoing series of Library 

History Seminars has also demonstrated the international interests of 

the LHRT members. Held in 1976 in Philadelphia, exactly one hundred 

years after the founding of ALA, Library History Seminar V featured 

only papers related to American libraries and librarianship. However, at 

the Library History Seminar VI, “Libraries and Culture” (which was held 

in Austin, Texas, in 1980), four of the six sessions were on international 

topics; these presentations included “Libraries and Antiquity,” “Early 

Modern European Libraries,” “Notable Bibliographers,” and “French 

Libraries—France and Its African Colonies.” The succeeding Library 

History Seminars (held in 1985, 1990, and 1995) have all featured 

numerous panels dealing with libraries in other parts of the world, and 

typically at least half of the panels have presented research done outside 

of the United States (see the Chronology). Cosponsored by the LHRT,

the Center for the Book, and various host institutions, these conferences 

have reflected growing interest in international library history and have 

attracted scholars from France, China, Finland, Britain, and Canada as 

well as featuring presentations by a number of American scholars who 

have done all or part of their research overseas. 

International Conferences 

In addition to participating in these American-based seminars, LHRT 

members with international interests have had opportunities to take part 

in several European conferences focusing on library history. In most 

cases, these conferences have been cosponsored by institutions in the 

host country and have benefited from the support of the International 

Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). 4 One of the 

first of the international meetings of library historians held outside of an 

IFLA congress was a seminar on “Libraries and Cultural Change,” organized 

by the Library History Group of the Library Association of the 

United Kingdom. This important seminar featured many papers dealing 

with librarianship as a profession, including one by Wayne A. Wiegand, 

who attended the conference as the LHRT chair for 1987–88 and gave a 

presentation on “The Development of Librarianship in the United 

States.” The following year, an international symposium was held in the 

Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. These sessions 

focused on “Library History Research in the International Context.” 

Organized by the Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis für Bibliotheksgeschichte, 

this conference was also attended by Wayne A. Wiegand, who presented 

a paper entitled “Library History Research in the United States.” Edited 

by Paul Kaegbein and Paul Sturges, the proceedings provide a fascinating 

view of the emergence of library history as a discipline in countries as 

diverse as Britain, Australia, Estonia, Sweden, and Israel. 5 

More recently, two stimulating international library history conferences 

have been organized thanks to the enthusiasm and the tireless 

efforts of LHRT member Pamela Spence Richards. The first of these was 

the 1996 conference in Vologda, Russia, which focused on the “History of 

Books and Reading in the United States and Russia.” 6 American participants 

included Librarian of Congress James H. Billington in addition to 

several LHRT members. In her introduction to the special issue of 

Libraries & Culture (Winter 1998), Richards notes that this was a meeting 

of “two divergent traditions of scholarship.” However, she observes that 

both the American and Russian papers had a number of themes in common, 

including “the great differences that can exist in times of cultural 

crisis between the actual (as opposed to the official) function of libraries 

and texts; the challenge that mass literature can offer to ‘high culture’ 

69


or the officially condoned canon; and the complexity of the library’s role 

in a pluralistic, multicultural, multiracial society.” 7 

Partly as a result of the interest generated by this conference, Pamela 

Richards and Martine Poulain (at that time editor of the Bulletin de 

Bibliothèques de France) decided to convene a conference on “Libraries, 

Reading, and Publishing in the Cold War.” At these meetings, which took 

place in Paris, France, in June 1998, LHRT was ably represented by our 

chair, Louise Robbins; other LHRT members also presented papers or 

chaired sessions, including John Y. Cole, Donald G. Davis, Jr., Christine 

Jenkins, and Priscilla Yu. 8 Having had the opportunity to participate in 

this conference in Paris, I would like to share with you some of the 

excitement generated by papers given by Russian and Eastern European 

library historians for whom the Cold War had a profound, visible, and 

ever-present impact on their professional lives. All aspects of librarianship 

were affected, and some participants openly expressed their frustration 

over the previous restrictions on intellectual exchange with 

foreign researchers and colleagues. Presentations on Russia also dealt 

with the pervasive role of state censorship, which resulted in the development 

of “special collections” of works forbidden to most readers. 

While American speakers at the colloquium eloquently described the 

ways the ALA and American librarians had struggled to ensure freedom 

of access to works threatened with censorship during the McCarthy era, 

their papers shed light on events that were far different from those experienced 

by our European colleagues, both in Communist bloc countries 

and in multiparty states such as France where political ideology also took 

on a significant role in regard to the dissemination of information. 

As the conference ended, we all came away with a new and deeper 

understanding of a difficult era that has so recently ended. Exchanges 

with colleagues at these very stimulating meetings reaffirmed the importance 

of cross-cultural comparisons as a means for “shaking hypotheses 

free from particular sets of cultural entanglements and for catching 

strategic variables in new ranges.” 9 A greater awareness of the history of 

library development abroad likewise helps us appreciate the ways our 

own culture has defined the nature and extent of library service as well 

as shaping the philosophy and ideology surrounding such practices as 

classification, open access, and collection development. 

During the past decade the growing number of international opportunities 

for scholarly exchange among library historians in the United 

States has resulted in two complementary trends. On the one hand, 

there has been an international expansion of interest in library history; 

on the other hand, there has been a broadening of focus to include the 

history of reading, books, and scholarship as well as libraries. Research in 

all these domains has been greatly enhanced by the creation of the Society

for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP), an 

international association that was founded in the United States in 1991 

“to provide a global network for book historians, who until then had usually 

worked in isolation.” 10 A number of LHRT members regularly participate 

in SHARP meetings, and an official liaison from the Round Table is 

designated. As part of the interdisciplinary book history research presented 

at SHARP conferences, scholars discuss literacy and readership as 

well as the social context of publishing and authorship. Such work not only 

provides an enriched context for our study of libraries, but it also extends 

our understanding of the complex role libraries have had in the intellectual 

development of countries with a long tradition of print culture. 

Libraries as repositories have of course been greatly affected by 

changes in the form and format of all kinds of recorded communication. 

As the new scholarship has influenced our understanding of books and 

libraries in the United States and abroad, we have also become more 

aware that change has become a constant in institutions formerly characterized 

by their stability and their mission to conserve the records of 

the past. In a stimulating work entitled The Electronic Word: Democracy, 

Technology and the Arts, Richard A. Lanham notes: “Profound changes in 

expressive medium always ask a fundamental question: What does this 

medium do for us? We ask this in a deep way only when the new medium 

reveals what profound effects the old one has had on us.” 11 While 

Lanham’s questions focus on media rather than institutions, his ideas 

have significant implications for the library, which, as a social agency, has 

for almost all its history been associated with a place, a building, and a 

collection of physical materials. As we enter the twenty-first century, we 

are already experiencing the issue of dealing with digital records that 

can be simultaneously accessed from many locations, and we are being 

forced to ask some deep questions about what libraries have been in the 

past, what they have done for us, and what profound effects they have 

had on scholarship and on society. 12 In attempting to understand the past 

in different cultural and political contexts, we as historians can also contribute 

to intelligent reflection on the future of reading, books, scholarship, 

and libraries. As the LHRT begins its second half century on the 

eve of a new millennium, the challenges and opportunities before us 

more than ever require that we seek an understanding that goes beyond 

national, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. 

Chronology of Events and Publications Relating to the 

International Dimensions of Library History 

1962 The Library History Group (LHG) of the Library Association of 

the United Kingdom is founded. It is one of the Library 

71


Association’s oldest special interest groups and is the only group 

in the U.K. specifically devoted to the history of libraries and 

librarianship. 

1966 Library historians support the creation of a new scholarly journal 

with the title Journal of Library History Philosophy and 

Comparative Librarianship. From the beginning the journal has had 

an international editorial board with representatives from 

Europe, the Soviet Union, Asia, Africa, and Australia as well as 

North America. 

1975 A round table on the History of the Book is held at the Herzog 

August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. 

1977 Library Association Centennial is held in London. Donald G. 

Davis, Jr., and Bud Gambee represent ALHRT; some travel support 

is provided by the Round Table. 

The Journal of Library History and Comparative Librarianship 

moves to the University of Texas Press, where it is edited by 

Donald G. Davis, Jr.; the journal’s international focus is continued 

and is enhanced by the publication of international 

symposia as well as special country issues. The Round Table 

continues to have a liaison to the journal. 

The Center for the Book is created within the Library of 

Congress “to heighten public interest in the role of books and 

printing in the diffusion of knowledge.” Directed by John Y. 

Cole, the center soon becomes an important source of support 

for library history conferences, both in the United States and 

abroad. 

At the fiftieth IFLA conference in Brussels the Standing 

Committee of the Section on Library Theory and Research 

establishes a working group on library history within the section. 

1978 The ALHRT program has an international focus with the presentation 

of a talk by Arthur Young on the “Global Book 

Crusade: The American Library Association and World War I.” 

The broadened interest of ALHRT was marked by the 

removal of “American” from the official scope of the Round 

Table’s missions in its constitution; a proposal was introduced to 

also drop “American” from the Round Table’s name. 

The inaugural meeting of the IFLA Working Group on Library 

History is held at the 1978 IFLA Congress in Strbske Pleso with 

fifteen representatives. 

1979 The ALA Executive Committee authorizes a vote of the membership 

to delete “American” from the Round Table’s name; this 

action had been a major goal of Donald G. Davis, Jr., who served 

as Round Table chair in 1978–79.

Ian Willison, head of the Rare Book Collections at the British 

Library, delivers a major address attended by two hundred people 

at the LHRT annual meeting; his lecture is cosponsored by the 

Center for the Book, which subsequently publishes his lecture. 

The Round Table on Library History is established at the 

Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany 

(Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis für Bibliotheksgeschichte). 

1980 At the Library History Seminar VI, “Libraries and Culture,” 

which was held in Austin, Texas, in March, four of the six 

sessions are on international topics; these sessions include 

“Libraries and Antiquity,” “Early Modern European Libraries,” 

“Notable Bibliographers,” and “French Libraries—France and 

Its African Colonies.” Papers are published in the Journal of 

Library History 16, no. 1 (Winter 1981). 

1981 The LHRT features two programs devoted to international 

issues: “The Historical Development of Soviet Librarianship, 

1917–1980,” delivered by Boris Raymond of Dalhousie University, 

and “Chinese Libraries and Library Education, 1949–1980: 

Truth and Myth in the People’s Republic of China” by Lee-hsia 

Ting of Western Illinois University; a delegation from the 

People’s Republic of China attends. 

The Justin Winsor Award is given to Mary Niles Maack for her 

study entitled “Women Librarians in France: The First 

Generation,” subsequently published in the Journal of Library 

History 18, no. 4 (Fall 1983): 407–49. 

1982 The Justin Winsor Award is given to two essays dealing with 

international library history or library history abroad: “Aryan 

Librarianship: Academic and Research Libraries under Hitler” 

by Pamela Spence Richards and “British Propaganda in 

American Public Libraries, 1914–1917” by Wayne A. Wiegand. 

1983 The LHRT program session at the Los Angeles conference is 

addressed by Peter Hoare, head librarian at the University of 

Nottingham and a founding member of the Library History 

Group of the Library Association. His lecture is entitled “‘So 

Good and Worth a Designe’: Archbishop Tennison’s Library and 

Public Library Provision in England, 1660–1715.” 

1985 The Library History Seminar VII, “Libraries, Books and 

Culture,” which is held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 

March, featured John Feather from the University of 

Loughborough, England, who addresses the first plenary session, 

speaking on “The Book in History and the History of the Book.” 

In addition, six of the twelve panels are devoted to international 

topics; these sessions included “The Early Use of Printed Books 

73


in Europe and America” and “Western Influences in the South 

Asian World of Books” (East Indies and India); “The Role of the 

Library in Two Cultural Contexts”; “The Influence of Private 

Libraries”; “Books and Libraries in Twentieth-century France 

and the Soviet Union”; and “Reports of Current Library 

Historiography Abroad” (Canada and Germany). 

1987 International Seminar on “Libraries and Cultural Change” is 

organized by the Library History Group of the (British) Library 

Association with support from the IFLA Round Table on Library 

History; Wayne A. Wiegand presents a paper on “The 

Development of Librarianship in the United States.” The proceedings, 

edited by Peter Hoare, are published in Libraries & 

Culture 24, no. 1 (Winter 1989). 

The Justin Winsor Award is given to Brother Thomas O’Connor 

for his essay “Library Service to the American Commission to 

Negotiate Peace and to the Preparatory Inquiry, 1917–1919.” 

1988 International symposium held in the Herzog August Bibliothek 

in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, on “Library History Research in the 

International Context,” organized by the Wolfenbütteler 

Arbeitskreis für Bibliotheksgeschichte with support from the 

IFLA Round Table on Library History. 

1989 The Center for the Book at the Library of Congress sponsors a 

symposium entitled “Publishing and Readership in Revolutionary 

France”; among the speakers are Henri-Jean Martin from the 

Ecole des Chartes in Paris, France. 

1990 The LHRT program features Bernhard Fabian of Münster 

University, Federal Republic of Germany, who spoke on the 

“Future of Humanistic Scholarship.” 

Library History Seminar VII, “Libraries, Books & Culture,” is 

held in Bloomington, Indiana; six panels out of twelve are 

devoted to international topics. These include “In Search of 

Professional Roots: Two Perspectives” (Europe); “Information 

Control: Two Perspectives” (Republican Rome and the Soviet 

Union); “Attitudes toward Literacy: Two Historical Perspectives” 

(Switzerland and the United States); “To Serve a Purpose: The 

Establishment of Two European Libraries in the Seventeenth 

Century”; “Chinese Library History”; and “Libraries and 

Scholarly Communication under National Socialism.” The proceedings 

are published in Libraries & Culture 26, nos. 1 & 2 

(Winter–Spring 1991). 

1991 The Justin Winsor Award is given to Margaret Stieg for an essay 

entitled “The Postwar Purge of German Public Libraries, 

Democracy and the American Reaction.”

The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and 

Publishing (SHARP) was created in 1991 “to provide a global 

network for book historians, who until then had usually worked 

in isolation.” LHRT members participate in SHARP meetings, 

and an official representative from the Round Table is later designated. 

1995 Library History Seminar VII, “Libraries & Philanthropy,” was held 

in Tuscaloosa at the University of Alabama. Of the twelve sessions, 

seven dealt with international topics: “Library Philanthropy in 

India and Ancient Greece”; “Rockefeller Philanthropy: Library 

Volunteers in Canada”; “Children’s Books and Scholarly 

Communication in the Cold War”; “Libraries, Beer and Tobacco”; 

“Carnegie Philanthropy” (Europe and the Commonwealth); 

“Public Libraries in Finland and Germany”; and “Libraries and 

Literacy in France and the United States.” The proceedings are 

published in Libraries & Culture 31, nos. 1 & 2 (Winter–Spring 

1996). 

1996 International conference in Vologda, Russia, on the “History of 

Books and Reading in the United States and Russia,” is organized 

by the IFLA Round Table on Library History and Research 

in Reading. American participants included James H. Billington, 

Mariana Tax Choldin, John Y. Cole, Donald G. Davis, Jr., Mary 

Niles Maack, Pamela Spence Richards, Jonathan Rose, Larry 

Sullivan, and Wayne A. Wiegand. The proceedings were edited 

by Pamela Spence Richards and published in Libraries & Culture 

33, no. 1 (Winter 1998). 

1998 International conference is held in Paris on “Libraries, Reading 

and Publishing in the Cold War,” organized by the IFLA Round 

Table on Library History and Research in Reading. American 

participants included John Y. Cole, Donald G. Davis, Jr., 

Christine Jenkins, Mary Niles Maack, Pamela Spence Richards, 

Louise Robbins, and Priscilla Yu. 

Notes 

1. Donald G. Davis, personal email communication, 17 June 1998. 

2. William V. Jackson and Benjamin Whitten, eds., “Library and Information 

Science in France: A 1983 Overview,” Journal of Library History 19, no. 1 (Winter 

1984); Maria X. Wells and Luigi Crocetti, eds., “Libraries and Librarianship in 

Italy,” Libraries & Culture 25, no. 3 (Summer 1990). 

3. Ian R. Willison, On the History of Libraries and Scholarship. A Paper Presented 

before the Library History Round Table (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 

Center for the Book, 1980). 

4. The IFLA Round Table on Library History was founded in 1977 at the fiftieth 

IFLA conference in Brussels when the Standing Committee of the Section on 

75


Library Theory and Research established a working group on library history 

within the section. 

5. For a discussion of the symposium, see the introduction to “Library History 

Research in the International Context” by Paul Kaegbein and Paul Sturges, 

Libraries & Culture 25, no. 1 (Winter 1990). 

6. These papers appeared in Libraries & Culture 33, no. 1 (Winter 1998) in a 

special issue edited by Pamela Spence Richards; in 1996 the proceedings were 

published in both Russian and English by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian 

Federation. 

7. Pamela Spence Richards, “Introduction to the Special Issue,” Libraries & 

Culture 33, no. 1 (Winter 1998): 1–2. 

8. The papers were published in Livres, éditions, bibliothèques, lectures durant la 

guerre froide (Villeurbanne, France: l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences de 

l’Information et les Bibliothèques, 1998). 

9. E. G. Devereux, W. Bronfenbrenner, and G. H. Suci, “Patterns of Parent 

Behavior in the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany: 

A Cross-National Comparison,” Social Science Journal 14 (1962): 48. 

10. See the SHARP webpage at http:www.indiana.edu/~ sharp/intro.html (23 

February 1999). 

11. Richard A. Lanham, The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology and the Arts 

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), xii. 

12. According to Robert Darnton, “The New York Public Library dispenses so 

much information electronically to readers all over the world that it reports ten 

million hits on its computer system each month as opposed to 50,000 books dispensed 

in its reading room at 42nd Street.” See “The New Age of the Book,” New 

York Review of Books, 18 March 1999: 1. Webpage http://www.nybooks.com/nyreview 

(5 April 1999).

Toward a Multicultural American Public 

Library History 

Cheryl Knott Malone 

A recent interpretive shift in library history posits public libraries as 

institutions that advance the dominant culture’s ideology. Complicating 

the research questions that arise from such an interpretive stance is the 

multicultural society in which libraries in the United States operate. This 

article reviews selected books and articles, particularly those related to 

African-American experiences in and around libraries, and suggests possible 

ways to move toward a more inclusive American public library history. 

In the first fifty years of the Library History Round Table’s existence, 

the literature of library history has expanded to include a diversity of 

topics, methods, and interpretations. Particularly in regard to the 

American public library, interpretation shifted during that time from a 

model of the public library as a natural outgrowth of democratic society 

to one of the public library as an instrument of social control. 1 More 

recently, interpretation has shifted again, this time to a more nuanced 

view of the institution as supporting the hegemony of the dominant culture. 

This more recent view of libraries relies on Antonio Gramsci’s theories 

regarding the role intellectuals have played in securing the consent 

of the masses to their own subordination. 2 As Wayne Wiegand has 

pointed out, public librarians and library trustees could speak of their 

institutions as advancing democratic ideals at the same time that they 

shaped collections to serve elite interests. 3 

Such an interpretive stance calls into question the assertion of 

libraries’ marginality. Phyllis Dain has argued explicitly against the topdown 

view of libraries as instruments of social control, noting: “Partly by 

virtue of its own powerlessness and relative insignificance, the library can 

find room to maneuver, to experiment, to offer the chance for people to 

get from it the means to power.” 4 But can we find evidence of counterhegemonic 

efforts aimed at repositioning public libraries as servants of 

the subordinate, rather than the dominant, classes? 

Complicating such interpretive dilemmas is the multicultural society 

in which libraries in the United States operate. Specifically, interpretive 



78 L&C/Multicultural Public Library History 

complications arise out of the need to understand how hegemonic influence 

actually works in a multicultural nation. Despite the rhetoric of 

open access and intellectual freedom that developed over the course of 

the twentieth century, library collections reflected the knowledge (as well 

as the ignorance) and values of the largely Caucasian/Anglo middle-class 

librarians who dominated the profession. 5 Merely telling the stories of 

libraries and their progress and librarians and their accomplishments 

results in an overemphasis on “the profession” at the expense of insight 

into clients served, underserved, and unserved. 

Although definitions of multiculturalism vary, they generally include 

notions of tolerance for difference and appreciation of diversity. Yet, as 

Donald G. Davis, Jr., has pointed out, multicultural perspectives can contribute 

to divisiveness rather than dialogue. 6 Lorna Peterson has argued 

that definitions of multiculturalism can be so extreme in their celebration 

of difference and their ignorance of history that they are misleading 

and counterproductive. 7 The tendency in such cases is toward essentialism 

rather than toward an understanding of the social and historical construction 

of gender, race, and ethnicity. 8 At their best, definitions of 

multiculturalism suggest an agenda for action that aids understanding. 

At its best, multicultural history can aid the understanding that should 

underlie any agenda for effective action. In multicultural history multiple 

voices from many standpoints are heard—so many, in fact, that 

notions of centrality and marginality are called into question. 

An influential work in this area has been Ronald Takaki’s A Different 

Mirror. Takaki asserts that only by recovering different pasts, told from 

divergent perspectives, can a full appreciation of the complexity of 

United States history be reached. Ideally, all of the ethnic, racial, religious, 

and other distinctive cultural groups relevant to a topic should be 

included in historical studies of that topic. But that often is not practical. 

Students of history are left with isolated group-by-group studies to synthesize 

on their own. Nevertheless, such studies have much to contribute 

to the literature of history and to a richer understanding of the legacy of 

a diverse society. 9 

At the same time, it is important to recognize the constructedness and 

fluidity of group identity. As historian Jacques Barzun argued in the 

1930s, the use of “race” as a signifier of immutable and biologically 

determined difference is outdated and destructive. 10 As historian Mark 

Poster argued in the 1990s, multiculturalism can be construed as a 

dynamic process in which group identities are constituted and reconstituted, 

a process that can harness new communication and information 

technologies to “struggle against restrictions of systematic inequalities, 

hierarchies and asymmetries.” 11 If historians choose to see libraries as 

earlier forms of communication and information technologies, then it

might be possible to look for ways in which libraries and their constituents 

engaged in similar struggles against restrictions, sometimes on 

the same side and sometimes not. 

Although articles, books, and dissertations in library history have 

addressed issues of race, ethnicity, religion, and other aspects of multiculturalism, 

more remains to be done, including synthesis of secondary 

sources. Much of the published literature that can contribute to a more 

inclusive history has focused on African-American librarians and on 

libraries serving historically black institutions and neighborhoods. In this 

brief review I consider these and other selected books and articles and 

suggest ways to move toward a multicultural approach. 

Biography and Autobiography 

For its first several years, the Library History Round Table (LHRT) 

focused on “leaders.” 12 Papers presented at LHRT meetings recapped 

the careers of William Brett, Arthur Bostwick, Herbert Putnam, H. W. 

Wilson, and similar luminaries. Apparently, the first biographical 

sketch of a nonwhite librarian presented before the LHRT occurred in 

1968, when E. J. Josey reported on the working life and accomplishments 

of Edward Christopher Williams. 13 The presentation was as 

much a political act as a historical one, for Josey intended to resurrect 

Williams from oblivion. In a thirty-year-long career during which 

Williams built collections at Western Reserve and Howard 

Universities, contributed to library science education, helped establish 

a state library association, and encouraged other African-Americans to 

pursue the profession of librarianship, Williams had not received any 

official recognition from the American Library Association for his 

achievements. Consequently, Josey’s biographical study can be seen as 

a kind of compensatory history that argues for the inclusion of an elite 

black librarian in the panoply of elite white librarians. 14 Josey went on 

to produce a number of volumes that restored to history and memory 

the contributions and perspectives of many African-American librarians. 

15 Josey understood that the obscure remain so only as long as their 

biographies go unwritten. 

Yet many of the biographical sketches of members of various cultural 

groups who labored on behalf of libraries can be categorized as compensatory 

rather than explanatory. For instance, much of the published 

material on black librarians has concentrated on those among the elite 

who have left a documentary trail of publications and who have worked 

in college, university, and research libraries and/or as educators. 

Although such work is important for filling in gaps in historical understanding, 

it cannot tell the whole story of blacks’ involvement in libraries. 

79


An exception to this pattern appears in the state-by-state accounts of 

African-American librarians’ accomplishments in The Black Librarian in 

the Southeast. These essays introduce many librarians otherwise lost to 

history through the lack of archival and manuscript collections and of 

oral history recordings and transcripts. 16 Autobiographical memoirs of 

African-American librarians who served as educators and as professionals 

in public, academic, and special libraries offer provocative material in 

The Black Librarian in America. 17 In Library Service in Black and White, Annie 

McPheeters shares her memories of life as a black librarian in Atlanta 

before and after Jim Crow. 18 Particularly useful for the historian in 

search of library-community interactions are McPheeters’s accounts of 

outreach efforts. Such works broaden our understanding of the library 

profession’s past and expand our definition and representation of leadership. 

More importantly, they outline the ways in which black librarians 

struggled against racist policies and practices, on their own behalf and 

for their various clienteles. 

Areas for further research are apparent in biographical material about 

other “minority” librarians who, unlike many African-American librarians 

for much of the twentieth century, worked in settings with ethnically 

diverse staff members. Examples include Alfred Kaiming Chiu of 

Harvard. 19 Similarly, an article about the New York Public Library’s first 

Puerto Rican librarian, Pura Belpré, offers a long-overdue account of her 

accomplishments. 20 But more information is needed regarding her work 

with the culturally diverse group of coworkers she encountered at the 

135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library. There, in the 1920s, 

white librarian Ernestine Rose was determined to prove that an integrated 

staff would foster greater appreciation for cultural diversity and 

better services for patrons, including immigrants from Puerto Rico and the 

West Indies and migrants from the South. 21 

Other Approaches 

Works that address the reciprocal relationships of libraries and immigrants 

have added divergent views to library history. Haynes McMullen 

has reported on the American Library Association’s Committee on Work 

with the Foreign Born, which in the 1920s published pamphlets about 

Polish, Italian, Greek, and German immigrants and suggested books and 

periodicals for their use. 22 In their article on public library branches that 

served Polish neighborhoods in Buffalo, New York, Walter Drzewieniecki 

and Joanna Drzewieniecki-Abugattas offer an account of the interaction 

of library staff and library users and of the changing patterns of use over 

time. 23 The authors make clear the influence of the library in the Polish 

community and the influence of Polish library users on the collections,

staff, and services. In a similar vein, Nelson Beck notes that Jewish culture 

encouraged Russian-Jewish immigrants to use libraries and other cultural 

agencies. Beck argues explicitly against the social-control thesis. It 

is clear in Beck’s interpretation that the newcomers had an impact on 

libraries as librarians learned about their native cultures and then 

designed programs and built collections to serve immigrants’ interests 

and needs. 24 Librarians proclaimed their role in Americanizing immigrants, 

but their efforts must be interpreted in light of the evidence of 

immigrants’ own willing propulsion “not just into America,” as Elaine 

Fain has expressed it, “but into wider worlds.” 25 

Less attention has been given to Native Americans, but a recent example 

suggests there is much to be done in this arena. Bonnie Biggs and 

David Whitehorse provide a brief history of tribal libraries in San Diego 

County, with emphasis on the role of federal policy and county library 

assistance, especially since the 1980s. They note the difficulty of maintaining 

autonomous tribal libraries when those institutions rely on others 

in the “American macro-culture” for aid that waxes and wanes, depending 

on the political and economic climate. 26 

More in-depth work has been done on white-black relations. In the 

area of education, Robert Martin and Lee Shiflett sketch the role of the 

American Library Association and philanthropic organizations in establishing 

library schools for African-Americans. 27 In the area of bibliography, 

Sibyl Moses traces the support Monroe Nathan Work received from 

philanthropic agencies for his Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America. 28 

In a monograph on Arthur Schomburg, Elinor Sinnette recounts the life 

and work of the bibliophile whose collection Ernestine Rose acquired with 

Carnegie Corporation funding for the New York Public Library. 29 Cheryl 

Knott Malone interprets the creation of the Louisville Free Public 

Library’s two branches for African-Americans in terms of both black 

activism and white acquiescence. 30 A. P. Marshall reports on the historical 

development of library collections and services for African-Americans 

and recounts African-Americans’ efforts to secure access to libraries. 31 

Rosemary Ruhig Du Mont covers similar territory in an article focusing 

on white librarians’ attitudes regarding race. 32 She extends her analysis 

to include the attitudes of educators in a related essay. 33 Louise Robbins 

traces the firing of a white Oklahoma librarian in 1950 to both her rejection 

of racial discrimination and her commitment to intellectual freedom. 

34 Mary Lee Bundy and Frederick Stielow examine librarians’ 

activism in a collection of essays on the 1960s. In that volume, Helen E. 

Williams offers results of her survey of black students who attended predominately 

white library schools during the era of desegregation. As both 

observer and participant, E. J. Josey surveys civil rights activism in connection 

with libraries and librarians’ professional organizations, and 

81


Roberto Haro describes the development of collections and programs to 

serve Hispanics and Latinos. 35 

Essays in John Mark Tucker’s anthology Untold Stories range widely, 

construing library history broadly. Examples include Marilyn Pettit’s 

report on early-nineteenth-century Sunday schools for young African- 

American women intent on acquiring literacy and Donald Franklin 

Joyce’s brief study of three black publishers. The volume also includes 

accounts of libraries established outside the mainstream to ensure access 

to information, such as the Faith Cabin Libraries Dan Lee writes about 

and the Freedom Summer Project collections Donald G. Davis, Jr., and 

Cheryl Knott Malone describe. 36 

Another recent anthology, Print Culture in a Diverse America, edited by 

Wayne Wiegand and James Danky, is broader still. 37 Among the essays 

included are Rudolph Vecoli’s study of a fragmented Italian immigrant 

press struggling for ideological hegemony among factious individuals 

who made their own meanings out of what they read, and Elizabeth 

McHenry’s recovery of African-American literary societies as sites of 

democratic participation and protest. Most closely linked to library history 

is Christine Pawley’s use of state census records and library circulation 

and accession registers to re-create the reading habits of the 

inhabitants of Osage, Iowa, in the late nineteenth century. The authors 

of these articles are careful to avoid both top-down and bottom-up perspectives, 

instead drawing more complex pictures of the interactions of 

institutions, groups, and individuals engaged in creating, acquiring, distributing, 

and interpreting literature and information. 

Toward Multiculturalism 

U.S. library history has tended to take the top-down perspective. 

Biographical studies have focused more on the leaders than on the rank 

and file, more on the educators and administrators than on the frontline 

service providers. Institutional studies have told the stories of libraries 

from librarians’ perspectives, as agencies collecting and disseminating 

reading materials. Particularly because the leaders have been predominately 

Caucasian/Anglo, the biographical bent toward those leaders necessarily 

shortchanges multicultural representations. And since libraries 

have been largely the products and promoters of mainstream middleclass 

practices and values, institutional histories tell only half the story, 

that of delivery but not that of reception. The focus on leaders and 

administration is not surprising, given the history of library history as a 

pursuit of LIS faculty and practicing librarians; clearly, library history 

has intended to serve the library profession (and perhaps its dominant 

ideology). In the information age, however, wider scholarly interest in the

history of all manner of information-related agencies and agents is 

apparent. Library historians have much to contribute to a newly invigorated 

scholarship that ranges from print culture to electronic communication 

and information technologies. One significant contribution can be 

the development of a multicultural approach to understanding the institutions 

and agents of information access as they operated in the past. 

What would creating a multicultural library history involve? First, it 

would involve addressing theories about the purposes and roles of 

libraries in American history. Second, a multicultural library history 

might serve to complicate notions about dominance and resistance, 

focusing on use and users. Third, it would involve a rethinking of ideas 

about centrality and marginality. Since both libraries and the vast majority 

of librarians have been considered marginal, it would be a useful exercise 

to decenter the library in library history to allow consideration of 

other (competing) cultural entities and other viewpoints (of nonusers, 

for instance). And fourth, it would involve some questioning of the role 

of the historian, especially when that historian is also responsible for 

socializing students into the library and information professions. Library 

historians might consider abandoning a presentation of themselves as 

objective observers reconstructing the past and instead adopt a situated 

standpoint from which to construct their narratives. In any case, the creation 

of a multicultural library history would require library historians to 

draw on a rich, multidisciplinary literature of history and theory that 

reaches beyond the confines of our own literature. 

For example, recent theoretical and empirical work on readers’ 

responses to and uses of texts suggests that the processes and practices 

associated with reading are creative, idiosyncratic, and unpredictable. 38 

Might not the same be true of the processes and practices associated 

with using libraries, some of which processes and practices do not involve 

reading at all? Library history cannot become multicultural merely by 

focusing more attention on diverse librarians and collections, although 

such work contributes to the goal. More broadly, a multicultural library 

history should interpret research on the extent to which diverse communities, 

groups, and individuals interacted with or avoided libraries and 

librarians in different times and places. Such inclusions may help illuminate 

when and where libraries were marginal and when and where librarians 

accepted or resisted hegemonic influence by constructing the 

histories of library-campus, library-corporation, and library-community 

interactions. In the works reviewed here, it is possible to catch glimpses 

of libraries and librarians as they shaped and were shaped by readers and 

information seekers. 

But it is intriguing to imagine more. One case, for purposes of illustration 

and inspiration, would be a multicultural history of the Chicago 

83


Public Library. Such an effort would move beyond the standard institutional 

history to take into account Chicago’s Irish, German, Jewish, 

Italian, Greek, Hispanic/Latino, and African-American enclaves and the 

dramatic demographic shifts that attended immigration and internal 

migration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In such a setting it 

would be important to consider the machine politics of city government, 

of which the library was only one agency. It would be advisable to 

acknowledge and explore the impact of a prestigious library school in the 

same city and its training of diverse students for careers in libraries and 

in library science research and education. Similarly, it would be necessary 

to evaluate the public library in the context of the availability of several 

special, academic, and research libraries nearby. The voluminous secondary 

literature on Chicago’s history and the collections of extant primary 

materials would provide the necessary documentary evidence. 

Chicago is only one example, and Houston, Los Angeles, and other 

locales offer many more. Such projects can contribute to the creation of 

a multicultural library history, one that aids understanding of how 

libraries have both supported and stymied the dominant culture’s influence 

on diverse groups and individuals and one that explores how those 

groups and individuals attempted, and sometimes succeeded, in turning 

libraries to their own counterhegemonic purposes. 

Notes 

1. For the former, see Sidney Ditzion, Arsenals of a Democratic Culture (Chicago: 

American Library Association, 1947); for the latter, see Michael H. Harris, The 

Purpose of the American Public Library in Historical Perspective (Bethesda, Md.: ERIC 

Document Reproduction Service, ED 071 668, 1972), “The Purpose of the 

American Public Library: A Revisionist Interpretation of History,” Library Journal 

98 (September 1973): 2509–14, and “Externalist or Internalist Frameworks for 

the Interpretation of American Library History—The Continuing Debate,” 

Journal of Library History 10 (April 1975): 106–10. 

2. Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, vol. 1, ed. with an introduction by Joseph 

A. Buttigieg, trans. Joseph A. Buttigieg and Antonio Callari (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 1992). 

3. Wayne A. Wiegand, “Main Street Public Library: The Availability of 

Controversial Materials in the Rural Heartland, 1890–1956,” Libraries & Culture 31 

(Winter 1998): 131–32; see Wiegand’s note 10 for additional Gramsci material. 

4. Phyllis Dain, “Ambivalence and Paradox: The Social Bonds of the Public 

Library,” Library Journal 100 (February 1975): 266. 

5. On U.S. librarians as predominately white, see Edward A. Goedeken, 

“‘The Rainbow Survivors of Some Vanished Grey Moment of Reality’: A 

Prosopographical Study of the Dictionary of American Library Biography and Its 

Supplement,” Libraries & Culture 30 (Spring 1995): 155. On public library collections, 

see Wiegand, “Main Street Public Library,” 131–32, and Christine J. 

Pawley, “Reading on the Middle Border: The Culture of Print in Osage, Iowa, 

1870–1900” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1996), esp. 231–51.

6. Donald G. Davis, Jr., “Wars in American Libraries: Ideological Battles in 

the Selection of Materials,” Libraries & Culture 33 (Winter 1998): 40–46. 

7. Lorna Peterson, “Multiculturalism: Affirmative or Negative Action?” 

Library Journal (July 1995): 30–33. 

8. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality 

(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966). 

9. Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (Boston: 

Little, Brown, 1993), 1–17. 

10. Jacques Barzun, Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (New York: Harcourt, 

Brace, 1937); reprinted as Race: A Study in Superstition (New York: Harper and 

Row, 1965). 

11. Mark Poster, “Postmodern Virtualities,” chap. 2 of The Second Media Age 

(Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995), available at http://www.hnet.uci.edu/ 

mposter/writings/internet.html. 

12. I am grateful to Andrew Wertheimer for providing a chronology of LHRT 

presentations. 

13. The presentation was later published as E. J. Josey, “Edward Christopher 

Williams: A Librarian’s Librarian,” Journal of Library History 4 (April 1969): 

106–22. Josey was not the first African American to present at an LHRT session; 

in 1965, when the meeting was in Detroit, Virginia Lacy Jones of Atlanta 

University gave a paper entitled “Libraries, Librarianship, and the Negro.” 

14. “Compensatory history” appears in Gerda Lerner, “Placing Women in 

History: Definitions and Challenges,” Feminist Studies 3 (1975): 5. 

15. Various perspectives on Josey’s accomplishments and a bibliography of 

works by and about him appear in Ismail Abdullahi, ed., E. J. Josey: An Activist 

Librarian (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1992). 

16. Annette L. Phinazee, ed., The Black Librarian in the Southeast: Reminiscences, 

Activities, Challenges (Durham: North Carolina Central University School of 

Library Science, 1980). 

17. E. J. Josey, ed., The Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow 

Press, 1970). Josey’s follow-up edition two decades later, The Black Librarian in 

America Revisited (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994), focuses more on the 

issues and problems involved in ensuring equitable access to libraries and information, 

and many of the essayists include some historical information about 

their topics. 

18. Annie L. McPheeters, Library Service in Black and White (Metuchen, N.J.: 


19. William Sheh Wong, “Alfred Kaiming Chiu and Chinese American 

Librarianship,” College and Research Libraries 39 (September 1978): 384–88. 

20. Julio L. Hernández-Delgado, “Pura Teresa Belpré, Storyteller and Pioneer 

Puerto Rican Librarian,” Library Quarterly 62 (1992): 425–40. 

21. Betty L. Jenkins, “A White Librarian in Black Harlem,” Library Quarterly 60 

(1990): 216–31. Further discussion of Rose appears in Lorna Peterson, 

“Alternative Perspectives in Library and Information Science: Issues of Race,” 

Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 37 (Spring 1996): 163–74. 

22. Haynes McMullen, “Service to Ethnic Minorities Other than Afro- 

Americans and American Indians,” in Sidney L. Jackson, Eleanor B. Herling, and 

E. J. Josey, eds., A Century of Service: Librarianship in the United States and Canada 

(Chicago: American Library Association, 1976), 42–61. 

23. Walter M. Drzewieniecki and Joanna E. Drzewieniecki-Abugattas, “Public 

Library Service to American Ethnics: The Polish Community on the Niagara 

Frontier, New York,” Journal of Library History 9 (April 1974): 120–37. 

85


24. Nelson R. Beck, “The Use of Library and Educational Facilities by Russian- 

Jewish Immigrants in New York City, 1880–1914: The Impact of Culture,” Journal 

of Library History 12 (Spring 1977): 128–49. 

25. Ellen Fain, “Books for New Citizens: Public Libraries and Americanization 

Programs, 1900–1925,” in Ralph M. Aderman, ed., The Quest for Social Justice: The 

Morris Fromkin Memorial Lectures, 1970–1980 (Madison: University of Wisconsin 

Press, 1983), 272. 

26. Bonnie Biggs and David Whitehorse, “Sovereignty, Collaboration and 

Continuing Challenge: A History of Tribal Libraries in San Diego County,” 

Special Libraries 86 (Fall 1995): 279–91. 

27. Robert Sidney Martin and Orvin Lee Shiflett, “Hampton, Fisk, and 

Atlanta: The Foundations, the American Library Association, and Library 

Education for Blacks, 1925–1941,” Libraries & Culture 31 (Spring 1996): 299–325. 

28. Sibyl E. Moses, “The Influence of Philanthropic Agencies on the 

Development of Monroe Nathan Work’s Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and 

America,” Libraries & Culture 31 (Spring 1996): 326–41. 

29. Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and 

Collector (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989). 

30. Cheryl Knott Malone, “Louisville Free Public Library’s Racially 

Segregated Branches, 1905–35,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 93, no. 2 

(Spring 1995): 159–79. 

31. A. P. Marshall, “Service to Afro-Americans,” in Jackson, Herling, and Josey, 

eds., A Century of Service, 62–78. 

32. Rosemary Ruhig Du Mont, “Race in American Librarianship: Attitudes of 

the Library Profession,” Journal of Library History 21 (Summer 1986): 488–509. 

33. Rosemary Ruhig Du Mont, “The Educating of Black Librarians: An 

Historical Perspective,” Journal for Education in Library and Information Science 26 

(Spring 1986): 233–49. 

34. Louise S. Robbins, “Racism and Censorship in Cold War Oklahoma: The 

Case of Ruth W. Brown and the Bartlesville Public Library,” Southwestern Historical 

Quarterly 100 (July 1996): 18–46. 

35. Mary Lee Bundy and Frederick J. Stielow, eds., Activism in American 

Librarianship, 1962–1973 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987); the chapters mentioned 

are Helen E. Williams, “Experiences of Blacks in Predominantly White 

Library Schools, 1962–1974: An Era of Transition” (153–61), E. J. Josey, “The 

Civil Rights Movement and American Librarianship: The Opening Round” 

(13–20), and Roberto P. Haro, “The Development of Library Programs for 

Hispanics in America: 1962–1973” (141–51). 

36. John Mark Tucker, ed., Untold Stories: Civil Rights, Libraries, and Black 

Librarianship (Champaign: University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and 

Information Science, 1998). The essays mentioned in this review include Marilyn 

H. Pettit, “Liberty and Literacy: Sunday Schools and Reading for African- 

American Females in New York City, 1799–1826” (10–22), Donald Franklin Joyce, 

“Unique Gatekeepers of Black Culture: Three Black Librarians as Book 

Publishers” (151–55), Dan Lee, “From Segregation to Integration: Library 

Services for Blacks in South Carolina, 1923–1962” (93–109), and Donald G. 

Davis, Jr., and Cheryl Knott Malone, “Reading for Liberation: The Role of 

Libraries in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project” (110–25). 

37. James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse 

America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998). The highlighted essays 

include Rudolph J. Vecoli, “The Italian Immigrant Press and the Construction of

Social Reality, 1850–1920” (17–33), Elizabeth McHenry, “Forgotten Readers: 

African-American Literary Societies and the American Scene” (149–72), and 

Christine Pawley, “Better than Billiards: Reading and the Public Library in 

Osage, Iowa, 1890–95” (173–99). 

38. Two key examples of this growing body of literature are Stanley Fish, Is 

There a Text in This Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, 

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), and Janice A. Radway, Reading the 

Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North 

Carolina Press, 1984). Wiegand urges library and information science educators 

to pay attention to such scholarship and provides a helpful overview of the literature 

and its significance in Wayne A. Wiegand, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Why 

Don’t We Have Any Schools of Library and Reading Studies?” Journal of Education 

for Library and Information Science 38 (Fall 1997): 314–26. 

87

“They Sure Got to Prove It on Me”: Millennial 

Thoughts on Gay Archives, Gay Biography, and 

Gay Library History 

James V. Carmichael, Jr. 

The American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and 

Transgendered Task Force (GLBTRT)* justly takes pride of place as the 

first professional gay organization in the world. 1 While the ALA itself 

ended discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1974, antipathy to gay 

issues within the profession is by no means dormant. At the same time, the 

growth in gay archives and gay studies in the past twenty-five years has 

been phenomenal. Gay librarians and archivists can continue to play an 

increasingly important role in promoting these collections and their use, 

but only if they understand the full range of historical problems that gay 

history and biography present. Where appropriate, library historians 

should also chronicle the achievements of gay library worthies. 

Apologia Pro Vita Sua 

From 1970 to 1976 I worked as a trust administrative assistant at an 

Atlanta bank, a job for which I was temperamentally and intellectually 

ill-suited. In addition to learning how foolishly some widows and 

orphans spend their money and how easily private foibles become common 

public knowledge anytime money is involved, I began to sense that 

all of the gray suits and silence in the world would never save me from 

who I was, a gay man. I was the shortest, least muscular, and most troubled 

member of the twenty or so young men who ran up and down 

stairs all day long to do the bidding of trust officers on the second 

floor—opening estates and spendthrift trusts, drafting checks in 

amounts that represented the lifetime earnings of most trust department 

employees, sorting through the papers, jewelry, and financial 

records of the recently deceased, and occasionally holding the hand of a 

*Formed as the Task Force on Gay Liberation in 1970 (shortly thereafter the 

Gay Task Force), the name of the group was expanded to the Gay and Lesbian 

Task Force in 1986, the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Task Force (GLBTF) in 1995, 

and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Round Table in 1999. 



widow who wanted to spend an afternoon complaining about the quality 

of available domestic help on bank time. 

One estate that arrived along with a box of papers was unforgettable—that 

of a retired professor. In the box, along with a truly remarkable 

collection of early-nineteenth-century cryptograms, was private 

correspondence to the professor from his best friend, interspersed with 

some titillating although not raunchy gay pictorial pornography. What I 

remember now about that experience is the all-male guffaws about the 

illegality of the material, speculations about the depraved professor, and 

comments about how sick the letters were. Thinking back on those 

touching, tender, and outrageous letters, I surmise that they were minor 

literary masterpieces. The professor and his friend addressed each other 

as “Mary Ann” and “Emily” and alluded in a parody of the finest nineteenthcentury 

ellipsis to racy encounters with attractive males, the price of fine 

linens, mundane household matters, and the legal quagmires of gay 

males who were even in the 1970s still being entrapped by the Atlanta 

police. What struck me was the fact that Mary Ann and Emily really 

cared for each other under their campy disguises, and I resented the 

dehumanizing banter around me, even if it would be several more years 

before I cut myself off from that workaday world of testosterone-laden 

coffee breaks that often assumed the ambience of a pack of dogs pursuing 

a bitch in heat. It is a shame the letters were destroyed like diseasebearing 

rags. 

This memory resonates with me today because I wrote many such letters 

myself to my friend John when he and his lover, Gary, moved to 

upstate New York in the early 1990s. During the difficult period when I 

was struggling to achieve tenure and John was establishing a practice as 

a gay substance-abuse counselor in his home state, the letters provided a 

focus for all the pent-up professional anger, romantic frustration, fears of 

living alone and dying alone, self-pity, and impatience that any normal 

forty- to fifty-year-old gay man feels from time to time. The letters were 

spiced with gossip about mutual acquaintances in Chapel Hill and flights 

of sheer imagination, hyperbole, and overstatement that had more than 

a kernel of truth to them. They were invariably signed with the names of 

obscure female personages, some of them librarians, with elaborate 

Victorian names—which would send one or both of us to the library to 

look that one up and come back with an even more hilarious example. 

John understood my feelings. He had come out to me at age thirty-one 

while he was still married; he had been through the rigors of a doctorate 

at Notre Dame. He was the best-looking man I ever saw, bar none, with 

his rugged rangy body and a black Irish twinkle in his eyes, especially 

when he recited “Dangerous Dan McGrew” in faultless County Cork 

brogue. 

89

90 L&C/Millennial Thoughts 

The night John called me to tell me he had AIDS in October 1993 I 

had just seen the AIDS Quilt for the first time. When I got home from 

work in May 1994 to find a message on the phone from Gary saying that 

John had just been removed from his house in a body bag, I could not 

believe that we were not ever going to write those letters again. They had 

kept me going for five years. I suppose I had been more than just a little 

in love with him. His family made me much more a part of his memory 

than I deserved, based on our short but intense friendship, and I sent 

them my letters from John, since they had already discovered the other 

half of the correspondence, and since they had repeatedly expressed 

their appreciation of our relationship. I sent the originals with no hope of 

ever seeing them again because somehow the letters were secondary to 

the feelings that produced them. 

The Growth of Gay Literature and Gay Consciousness 

Great progress has been made in the quantity and quality of historical 

and biographical studies in lesbigay history over the past quarter-century. 

In 1995, the high-water mark of gay publishing to date, over 244 nonfiction 

monographs were published, of which at least 27 were historical or 

biographical. 2 Compare this figure to only twenty-seven monographs in 

1970 (one historical plus two literary histories), thirty in 1981 (three historical 

plus two literary histories), and forty-three in 1985 (no history per 

se but two literary histories), and one begins to appreciate what the 

numerical trends say about the growth of gay studies in the past decade. 

These monographs correspond to a growth in the number of theses and 

dissertations on gay themes in the same period. In spite of the fact that 

these figures do not include exclusively lesbian monographs, they indicate 

clearly that gay studies have become a desirable specialty in some 

academic settings—even if some researchers in narrative history would 

maintain that as soon as any subject becomes entrenched in the academy, 

its research product becomes irrelevant to the ongoing concerns of 

the population under investigation. One can’t have the same sort of confidence 

in analysis of the statistics for gay archival collections, because 

only a fraction of relevant material is cataloged online. 

Fairly detailed accounts of the gay movement in America have emerged, 

not only of the post–Stonewall era “revolution” but also of Victorian and 

Colonial antecedents that could have scarcely been imagined when 

Jonathan Katz first published his groundbreaking documentary history. 3 

Some important urban centers as well as discernible regions have been 

studied, and the biographical and autobiographical genres have flourished, 

particularly since the advent of AIDS. 4 Gay biographical studies are 

more problematic, perhaps. Here, too, although no writer has achieved a

totally satisfactory “outing” of Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, or Henry 

James, whose surviving papers still remain opaque as far as explicit discussion 

of sexual detail, some authors deploy more sophisticated historical 

analysis to contextualize “gay behavior” in other eras. 5 Of course, 

there is repetition: the 1990s heralded still another interpretation of 

Oscar Wilde’s fall, one that basically adds little but explicit sex, more 

elaborate period detail, and Stephen Fry’s uncanny resemblance to the 

Irish playwright, to Robert Morley’s and Peter Finch’s earlier cinematic 

interpretations (both released in 1959). At any rate, one can point to the 

compilation of numerous biographical dictionaries and almanacs from 

which beginning researchers can peruse the list of famous gay men and 

lesbians as signifying greater awareness of the importance of gay history. 

Most encouraging of all is the growth and development of over sixty 

U.S. and Canadian repositories for specialized gay archives from which 

are drawn the raw materials of gay historical research. 6 The WorldCat 

database now includes at least 125 entries for archival material, plus 

another 100 or so entries that would qualify as special collections material, 

and these merely give a rough indication of the growth of primary 

documents that support gay history. Among the most notable of these 

gay collections are the James Mariposa Human Sexuality Archives at 

Cornell University, the International Gay and Lesbian Archives, the 

James Hormel Collection of the San Francisco Public Library, the 

Gebner-Hart Archives in Chicago, the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and 

the New York Public Library. Gay historian and educator James T. Sears 

has promoted the formation of similar archives throughout the 

Southeast, and Duke University is only the latest recruit to the expanding 

gay archives field. 

Thistlethwaite brilliantly describes the manner in which archivists and 

librarians of past eras squelched research into gay and lesbian topics by 

destruction of records, creation of byzantine and pejorative (not to mention 

blatantly inaccurate) subject headings, inventory descriptions that 

euphemize sexual relationships and others that fail to mention them at 

all, and a compulsive recalcitrance to deal with sexuality of any sort in 

the profession (in this, librarians, as always, have reflected the social 

mores of the eras in which they lived). 7 The new collections supposedly 

augur an era of social acceptance for homosexuality, one that 

Thistlethwaite is at pains to remind the profession may only run skindeep. 

8 Without putting too fine a point on recent findings that suggest 

that, even in urban collections, gay literature and gay studies have 

received uneven treatment or recent evidence of a backlash against 

social responsibilities as a part of the librarian mandate, it is probably no 

exaggeration to claim that gay studies have progressed in spite of librarianship 

as well as because of it. 9 

91


The Task Force on Gay Liberation (TFGL) of the American Library 

Association, formed in 1970 at the height of the social revolution and 

activism of the Vietnam era, was the first gay professional association in 

the world. That it was established by Israel Fishman mainly as a means 

for its founder to meet available gay men and developed only secondarily 

into an organization for redress of professional and publishing inequities, 

a forum for discussion of gay issues impacting library service, and a vehicle 

for recognizing quality gay fiction and nonfiction for both younger and 

adult audiences should confirm what we understand about a population 

whose entire being was defined in terms of its sexual behavior. 10 Only 

when Barbara Gittings, a longtime lesbian activist sans library credentials, 

took over leadership of the Task Force in 1971 and began to plan 

programs that reflected larger concerns within librarianship and the gay 

community at large did its coherence and visibility as an established 

organization increase. Ironically, like so many other social minority 

groups within ALA, TFGL had to wait nearly thirty years to achieve more 

than task force status (because the task of liberation was still ongoing?), 

and two nomination attempts have yet to win for Gittings an intellectual 

freedom award for the sixteen years of leadership she provided gratis to 

librarians. 11 

Perhaps the most damning qualification to be placed on librarian 

involvement in the gay movement is the relative paucity of historical literature 

about gays in libraries. While we now have several negative 

examples of how libraries participated in the persecution of homosexuals 

in the pre-Stonewall era, examples of positive librarian influence are 

nearly nonexistent. 12 Both Gittings and Marie Kuda, nonlibrarians who 

have made significant contributions to the GLBTRT and bibliography, 

are cited in standard historical and biographical sources, but only one 

librarian, Jeanette Howard Foster (author and one-time librarian of the 

Kinsey Institute, among many other library jobs she held), is included in 

a recent gay and lesbian encyclopedia. 13 Foster was the third winner of 

the ALA Gay Book Award, although she is virtually unknown to the current 

generation of librarians, straight or gay/lesbian. 

The 1990s have seen the publication of three important gay library 

titles, Cal Gough and Ellen Greenblatt’s pioneering Gay and Lesbian 

Library Service; Norman Kester’s collection of personal essays, library 

anecdotes, and coming-out stories from lesbian and gay librarians, 

Liberating Minds: The Stories and Lives of Lesbian and Gay Librarians and Their 

Allies; and my own collection of essays on the challenges of writing lesbigay 

library history, Daring to Find Our Names: The Search For Lesbigay Library 

History. 14 One may applaud these efforts while excoriating the ALA’s lack 

of leadership in bringing gays and lesbian issues into the grand design of 

the organization. Granting a minority organization round table status is

one way to squelch rebellion without ceding power, but as some blacks 

within the ALA have discovered, task forces and caucuses do not engender 

the kind of solidarity necessary for coherent social programs and professional 

self-development. The formation of the Black Librarians 

Association in 1994 reflected a discontent of several decades with the 

ALA’s tepidity on racial issues. It is doubtful that lesbians and gays will 

register a similar degree of alienation from the professional organization, 

especially because many gays are so used to compromising their 

identities that any recognition strikes them as amazing, because the 

organization does provide them with some funding, and because a more 

radical agenda threatens the invisibility that the gradualist agenda 

affords. External signs of encouragement from the ALA arrive none too 

early: the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of GLBTF was attended by 

two ALA past presidents, the current president, and at least one nominee 

for president-elect, yet in twenty-five years, only one ALA president 

has ever explicitly defended gay rights. 15 Still, the programs of GLBTF of 

the 1990s emphasized a positive social and publishing climate, signaled 

most significantly, perhaps, by the summer 1999 program that focused on 

gay archives (“Daring to Save Our History: Gay and Lesbian Archives,” 

26 June 1999, New Orleans). 

This “boom” in gay archives and collections arrives at a felicitous 

moment when the availability of online technology has precipitated a 

new awareness of the accessibility of archives among professionals in the 

field. Scholars no longer necessarily have to travel thousands of miles or 

spend hours on the telephone to ascertain what the holdings of archives 

are: many inventories and descriptions of archives are now accessible 

online. Who knows, one day library directors may come to realize that 

weekends are the most convenient time for most academic researchers to 

do their work and support weekend staffing of the archives accordingly. 

In spite of the numbers, there are at least three problems that challenge 

gay archivists and historical researchers that will be more difficult 

to resolve by fiat. The first, “mothball outing,” consists of the “outing” of 

historical personages who may have never identified themselves as homosexual, 

who merely may have been unmarried, or who left no trace of 

their personal passions on paper. Gay historians, in their eagerness to 

create a lesbigay pantheon from which struggling young gay people may 

gather inspiration, sometimes ignore normal rules of historical evidence 

in favor of more circumstantial cases for their subjects. 

Circumstantial Evidence and Ambiguity 

While the growth of gay archives over the past twenty or thirty years 

seems nothing short of miraculous, the application of historical principles 

93


to the stories of lesbians and gays, blacks, Native Americans, and Latinos, 

to name only a few minorities deserving of revisionist interpretations, 

has been inconsistent. While it is true that historians of the nineteenth 

century, in their frenzy to apply “scientific” principles to what was basically 

a literary form (historical narrative), almost succeeded in killing 

narrative interest (storytelling ability) entirely with narcotic chronologies, 

facts, and footnotes, in the late twentieth century, post-Warhol fame 

game, the rigors of evidentiary protocols have been loosened to include 

speculation and insinuation. Apologists defend the practice of “outing” 

Eleanor Roosevelt and her secretary Lorena Hitchcock, although clearly 

Roosevelt would never have made a public pronouncement on her sexuality, 

period, since sexuality according to her time, tradition, and station 

of birth was an unmentionable subject outside of a lover’s arms. 

Revisionists defend this practice on the grounds that (as one writer put 

it in the New Yorker) the possibility that such a relationship existed has 

more importance to the future of the gay movement than any squeamishness 

about evidentiary value can have to the case for acceptable historical 

standards. 16 Rose Gladney discussed the problems of generational 

differences between lesbians at the 1995 meeting of the GLBTF, where she 

described her difficulty in probing the nature of the Lillian Smith/Paula 

Snelling ménage by engaging Snelling in a conversation that women of 

her generation never had. 17 Other than for hypocrites like federal prosecutor 

Roy Cohn, who prosecuted lesbigays during the McCarthy era 

while hiding in his own closet, outing anyone against their will is a perpetuation 

of the kind of emotional violence to which people of earlier 

generations were routinely subjected. As Andrew Sullivan noted in one of 

his most famous reactionary statements, 

In all the recent brouhaha over the “outing” of alleged homosexuals, 

one fallacy has remained virtually unchallenged. It’s the 

notion of the simple “closet” and the crude assertion that one is 

either in it or out of it. I know of no one to whom this applies. Most 

homosexuals and lesbians whose sexualities are developed beyond 

adolescence are neither “in” nor “out.” They hover tentatively 

somewhere in between. 18 

While one may abhor the damage that closeted lives imply for the gay 

“movement,” gay historians and historians who are gay should never forget 

that coming out can be a singularly painful experience for many people. 

In other words, historical evidence must support the assertion of homosexual 

activity before one can claim they were “gay” in the modern sense of that term. This 

caveat becomes even more essential when no signifying relationships are 

involved, due to the fact that few writers are equipped to deal with the 

situation of single people, straight or gay. 19

Related to this problem is how people from an earlier era regarded 

their own same-sex attractions. 

The Canonical Gay “Experience” 

Daniel Harris has noted the negative as well as the positive effects of 

gay liberation in the post-Stonewall era. 20 Primary among the negative 

effects is the narrowing of vision related to the gay experience. The tendency 

to categorize gays, to assume homosexual activity where archival 

evidence remains ambiguous, and to simplify all same-sex affections as 

homosexual is astounding, even if it represents an understandable tendency, 

given the centuries-long invisibility of many gay people and the 

desire to claim group identity. Yet identity politics also tends to preclude 

dissent from the politically correct orthodoxy of the moment—it does not 

leave much room for conservatives like Bruce Bawer or Andrew Sullivan, 

for example, and even gay conservatives and neo-individualists sometimes 

feel hemmed in by the political, religious, and social orthodoxies of 

their nomenclatures. 21 

How orthodoxy, combined with a superficial, tabloid-deep respect for 

supporting documentation, plays out in gay history is both fascinating 

and terrifying to behold. One wonders what future gay historians will 

think when they examine the unevenness of the historical record regarding 

gays and lesbians one hundred years from now. John Addington 

Symonds, Oscar Wilde, Greg Louganis, Bessie Smith, Amy Lowell, 

Elizabeth Bishop—these lives have been documented as lesbigay with 

very little room for guessing what we mean by “gay,” “lesbian,” or “bisexual.” 

Yet one will look in vain for confirmation of the sexual orientation 

of lesser-known gay figures who emerge in some recent reference 

sources. 

George Washington Carver appears as an important gay scientist in 

the 1995 compilation Out in All Directions, but he fails to appear in the Gay 

and Lesbian Biography, The Gay Almanac, Completely Queer: The Gay and 

Lesbian Encyclopedia, or indeed, as a homosexual in standard biographies. 

22 In a section tellingly labeled “Queered Science,” we are told that 

Carver was “openly gay all of his life” and “lived for years with his loving 

successor at Tuskeegee, Dr. Austin W. Curtis, Jr.” What the entry does 

not tell us was that when Curtis joined the Tuskeegee staff as Dr. 

Carver’s research assistant in 1936, Carver was already over seventy 

years old, and the next year his health began to decline. While the newly 

published, widely hailed American National Biography (1999) does not label 

Carver as homosexual, it does note Carver’s “special talent for friendship” 

with many famous people, including Henry Ford, the Roosevelts, 

and foundation officials, as well as his proposal and near-marriage in 

1905 and his several nervous collapses, to which Out in All Directions does 

95


not allude. The standard biography by Linda McMurry makes it clear 

that Carver was rarely well enough for Curtis to have been more than his 

caretaker and that Carver saw Curtis’s appointment in terms of the 

younger man’s professional advancement. In Carver’s later years, Curtis 

was primarily interested in securing increased revenues for patent rights 

on Carver’s inventions. Does the fact that Carver is usually shown knitting 

in old age mean that he was openly gay? Tailoring was a leading 

occupation for black men when I grew up in the segregated South, but 

one would have to search hard for an openly gay black man even in the 

Harlem Renaissance because of the especially strong social stigma 

attached to black gay male identity. The American National Biography mentions 

that Carver spoke of Curtis “like a son.” Has a doctoral student discovered 

some new papers, or has Carver’s academic relationship with 

Curtis been proven to include “bumping ugly”? If so, the compilers of Out 

in All Directions should have included footnotes to support hitherto undocumented 

facts or drop Carver until more conclusive evidence came to 

light. 

Ditto composer Stephen Foster Collins, who is claimed by both Out in 

All Directions and The Gay Almanac, even though no documentation to support 

such a claim appears in either the recent biography of Foster or in 

the research bibliography on Foster that appeared in the 1980s. 23 While 

there may be some uncertainty about the reasons for his separation from 

his wife and family several years before he died (were the reasons financial, 

as some have claimed, or his increasing addiction to alcohol?), the 

down-at-the-heels life he lived in a grocer’s barroom in the Bowery, a section 

of New York where “Nancys,” among many others, congregated, 

hardly constitutes proof that Foster had homosexual relationships and 

shortchanges the significance of his career, which is a classic American 

saga of wasted talent and unscrupulous publisher greed. 

The central historical tenet that has failed in practice more often than 

succeeded is the discussion of ambiguity in evidence. A good example of 

effective discussion of ambiguity is William J. Mann’s biography of silentscreen 

film idol and Hollywood decorator to the stars Billy Haines. 24 

Although Mann was prevented from documenting some facts due to Ted 

Turner’s purchase and subsequent sequestration of the MGM archives, 

he nevertheless presents a more convincing case for the physical relationship 

of Cary Grant and Randolph Scott than does Boze Hadleigh, 

whose Hollywood Gays devotes two chapters to Grant and Scott based on 

lengthy (but circumspect and inconclusive) interviews he conducted with 

both men before Grant died. 25 One of the reasons Mann succeeds where 

Bozeman fails is that he has done his background homework, has corroborated 

information from interviews with extensive double checking, 

and discusses evidentiary ambiguity ad nauseam. Whatever such attention

to detail detracts from narrative and “scoop” value, it certainly adds to 

credibility. The focus of Mann’s biography of Billy Haines, the number 

one male box office attraction in Hollywood from 1926 to 1931 who lived 

an openly gay life and sacrificed his career rather than give up his longtime 

lover Jimmy Shields to pacify Louis B. Mayer, certainly has more to 

say to the current generation of gays than the incidental screen gossip 

gleaned by Bozeman about stars who snuck around for “nookie.” Mann 

employs a larger cast of characters on a much broader sociohistorical 

palette and introduces names to the lesbigay celluloid closet that are 

often ignored—Claudette Colbert, Elsa Maxwell, and Rod La Rocque, 

among many less famous others. Of course, theater and film are natural 

subjects for a gay biographer since the arts have been historically associated 

with people on the fringe and homosexuals in particular. Still, if the 

stories are told with little reference to theater or studio history, they 

have little to impart beyond the cheap thrill afforded by any grocerystore 

rag. 

Similarly, Theo Aronson’s roundabout portrait of the heir presumptive 

to the English throne, Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld, achieves 

an authority that few previous accounts of the Cleveland Street Scandal 

and its aftermath attain. 26 Again, it is not so much the evidence itself 

that has changed—the royal family, probably under the direction of 

Prince Eddy’s father, Edward VII, destroyed all papers related to the 

affair shortly after Prince Albert Victor (Eddy) died in 1892. The depth 

with which existing evidence is examined and analyzed as well as 

Aronson’s comprehensive look at not only Eddy’s relationship to the 

Cleveland Street Scandal but also unrelated sensations like Jack the 

Ripper murders, to which he has in the past been linked, bolster reader 

confidence. Aronson, incidentally, sums up the plethora of Ripper scholarship 

deftly and succinctly but relies for his own primary evidence 

on the files of the director of public prosecutions at the Public Records 

Office—a nightmare of bureaucratic disorganization if ever one 

existed—and conducts a thorough examination of periodical and newspaper 

accounts of the period—no mean task. 

Perhaps the most effective lesbigay biographies of recent years are 

those of Alla Nazimova and Stephen Tennant. 27 Here the evidence is profuse, 

some oral history sources are still available, and corroborating evidence 

exists in abundance. Ironically, Nazimova, a failed icon of the stage 

and screen by the 1930s, is restored to her rightful place in American 

theater as the premier interpreter of Ibsen to American audiences. Her 

multiple lesbian love affairs (immortalized perhaps for all time when her 

love nest became the Garden of Allah, that seediest and coziest of gathering 

places for the Hollywood gliterati of the 1930s) as well as those of 

her arch-rival, Eva La Gallienne, are secondary to the persistence of her 

97


professionalism. On the other hand, Stephen Tennant, relatively unknown 

even to gay cognoscenti as the lover of poet Siegfried Sassoon, was so 

excessive even as an outrageous member of the minor nobility, “in an electric 

brougham wearing a football jersey and earrings,” for example, as the 

Daily Express described his arrival at a 1927 society ball, that he became 

an icon of eccentricity more than of fagdom. 28 Like Nazimova, he is a 

person about whom so much documentary evidence exists that the biographical 

quest becomes one of weighing what is fair and just about the 

person more than it is reconstituting shavings of sexual scandal into 

shards of pseudo-history. 

Discretion about sexuality may not be, as many writers maintain, 

solely a protective device. It may simply be the better part of taste and 

“common sense.” Gore Vidal condemns gay nomenclature as too limiting 

of the range and complexity of human experience, nor is the gay movement 

his sole source of dissatisfaction with sexuality in America. 29 Even 

Ma Rainey’s notorious lesbian blues of 1928 echo the defiance of a sexual 

nonconformist who refuses to be categorized: They say I do it / Ain’t 

nobody caught me / They sure got to prove it on me. 30 Certainly history, with its 

century-old emphasis on evidence, is an appropriate place to apply stringent 

qualifications and definitions, whatever the political needs of the 

moment. 

The final historical sin results from willful ignorance as well as the 

inevitable toll of three decades of identity politics. 

The Varieties of Gay Experience 

Whose papers get collected? Which gay dissertation director decides 

who gets written about? In the WorldCat records one finds a preponderance 

of information not only about the Religious Right but about 

mainstream denominations and congregations that have rather selflessly 

examined their collective consciences about homosexuality and 

stood behind the lines as sub-rosa allies for these thirty years. The story 

of these groups and how they have influenced the growth of gay spirituality 

would make a fascinating document of far-reaching historical 

interest in an era when the word “Christian” has become synonymous 

with intolerance. 31 

There are many facets of gay lives that remain undocumented because 

a younger gay generation may well want to ignore reminders of oppression 

in the gay past, and, of course, every generation is more interested 

in its own accomplishments than in those of some other. Jeb Alexander’s 

diary, Jeb and Dash, for example, provides only one less glamorous example 

of the life of a repressed gay Washington bureaucrat from 1919 to 

1945 from which, nevertheless, we gather many significant details about 

the continuity of gay experience over a span of several decades. 32

Library historians and archivists are in a unique position to discover 

and publicize gay archives and particularly findings that new collections 

reveal. In this they should be pioneers rather than followers in establishing 

acceptable historical standards in order to curb the unbridled zeal of 

the converted to any hint of same-sex inclination while addressing the 

professional antipathy to the sexual nature of biographical subjects, 

period. It is probably not by accident that the first full-length biographical 

dissertation about a gay librarian was written by a historian rather 

than a librarian, and while it is true that Laura Bragg is important not 

only as the first female museum director of a major museum in America 

but also for her association with the Charleston writers of the 1920s 

Southern literary renascence, it seems symptomatic of not only homophobia 

but ahistoricity that librarians did not first claim her as one of 

their own. 33 There are lesbigay librarians and archivists worthy of inclusion 

in the biographical canon. How many librarians can cite the achievements 

of Jeanette Howard Foster? As the fifteen examples included in 

Jessie Carney Smith’s Notable Black American Women demonstrate, librarians 

and archivists play a central role in minority communities and at the 

point of intersection between those communities and the world beyond. 34 

So, finally, before gay librarians and archivists clean up the whole palace of history, 

they have to air their own rooms. 

Let the reader pretend for a moment that by the year 2075 lesbigay 

identity won’t really be a negative tag, that cases of discrimination, victimization, 

and persecution will be almost nonexistent in Wyoming and 

Alabama as well as in Israel and Iraq. Given that unlikely scenario, what 

purpose will gay archives serve other than to document varieties of gender 

experience? When there’s no longer a revolution to fight, will gays 

look back with pride not only on their ability to march and to champion 

the causes célèbres but also to be inclusive in their collection and interpretation 

of those aspects of their experience that are personally distasteful 

to them? Will all they have to disclose be the fact that they were 

or were not gay (so what?), and, if so, with whom they slept (ho hum), 

down to what sexual acts were committed (close the door!). Perhaps they 

merely dropped campy bons mots now and then, overdressed, flipped 

their wrists, donned leather chaps, marched in a gay parade, indulged in 

interior decoration on the grand scale, pierced their nipples, or drove a 

pick-up truck, thus confirming social stereotypes of gays. Or is there a 

more fundamental significance to the quality of their lives that makes 

them worthy of study or remembering? With such a standard in view, 

whether gays are silent or outspoken, they can begin to place their 

archival efforts in more coherent historical form than prescribed gay collection 

areas, the magnetic force of celebrity, or the transient sexual 

mores of the decade. They can literally live their lives from the inside, 

without undue concern for what posterity may make of the result. 

99


Postscript 

As Emma Tennant, Stephen’s niece, wrote in her own reckoning with 

her family’s and her uncle’s past, “As with the dreams and documents 

that fed my obsession with the past, there is no way of saying that what 

is true to me is not also history.” 35 Just as the letters themselves can no 

longer afford me a truer sense of the John Noonan I knew than the postmortem 

romance I have construed of our friendship, it will take more 

discerning eyes than mine to sift what is false from what is true in my 

boasts, using what papers still exist, what witnesses still live, and what 

background facts our individual histories afford. It will be left to the historian 

to say what, if anything, any such story has to tell other people 

about the quality of relationship of these two men who just happened, by 

the way, to be gay. The words we wrote tried vainly to stab at feelings, 

some of which escaped the pen and some of which endured in ink. As to 

what should be made of the evidence we collected of our tenuous and 

very fleeting past or whether it has any historical significance at all, one 

must trust to the laws of historical principle and the processes of decay. 

Notes 

1. Throughout this essay I use “gay” in its most inclusive sense to embrace 

lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, and “others” whose interests in homosexual 

issues are personal. I use “lesbian” when speaking specifically of women who are 

gay. “Lesbigay” is used to denote gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals. 

2. The figures come from a recent unpublished citation study, James V. 

Carmichael, Jr., “Deconstructing the Myth of a Boom in Gay Publishing: 

Quantitative Measures vs. Qualitative Advances,” a paper delivered at the 

Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Madison, 

Wisconsin, 16 July 1999. Contact Jim_Carmichael@uncg.edu. Among the 

notable historical 1995 titles are John Boswell’s posthumously published Same-Sex 

Unions in Modern Europe, Gary P. Leup’s history of homosexuality in Japan (Male 

Colors), Scott Lively’s The Pink Swastika, Colin Spencer’s Homosexuality: A History, 

and Neil Miller’s remarkable Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the 

Present. Biographical subjects include Oscar Wilde, T. E. Lawrence, John Maynard 

Keynes, David Norris, and Robert Mappelthorpe. 

3. The most wide-ranging sampler of these discoveries is contained in Martin 

B. Duberman, Martha Vincus, and George Chauncey, Jr., eds., Hidden from History: 

Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (New York: New American Library, 1989); 

Jonathan N. Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A., rev. ed. 

(New York: Meridian, 1992). 

4. George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay 

Male World, 1890–1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994); James T. Sears, Lonely Hunters: 

An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life, 1948–1968 (New York: Eastview Press, 

1997); Gean Harwood, The Oldest Gay Couple in America: A 70 Year Journey Through 

Same-Sex America (Seacaucus, N.J.: Birch Lane Press, 1997). The later writings of 

Paul Monette epitomize the AIDS memoir, but a fine, lesser-known example is

101 

John R. Noonan, The Singing Bird Will Come: An AIDS Journal (Latham, N.Y.: 

Canticle Press, 1997). 

5. See Colm Tóibín, “Roaming the Greenwood,” James White Review 16 

(Spring 1999): 3–11, esp. 11, for a thorough, even-handed, and commonsensical 

critique of “queer readings” of James, in particular. 

6. Alan V. Miller, comp., Directory of the International Association of Lesbian and 

Gay Archives and Libraries (Toronto: Canadian Gay Archives, 1987); Lesbian and 

Gay Archives Roundtable, Lavender Legacies: Guide to Sources in North America, 1998, 

available at www.archivists.org/units/lagar/htm, accessed 21 June 1999. 

7. Polly J. Thistlethwaite, “The Gay and Lesbian Past: An Interpretive 

Battleground,” Gay Community News (Boston) 4 (Winter 1995): 10–11, 24. For a 

fine example of the degree of specificity and currency needed in gay subject headings, 

see Dee Michel, Gay Studies Thesaurus: A Controlled Vocabulary for Indexing and 

Accessing Materials of Relevance to Gay Culture, History, Politics, and Psychology (The 

author, 1985). Copies of the thesaurus are available for $15.00 by writing Dee 

Michel, 2236 Hillington Green, Madison, WI 53705. 

8. Polly J. Thistlethwaite, “Gays and Lesbians in Library History,” in Wayne 

A. Wiegand and Donald G. Davis, Jr., eds., The Encyclopedia of Library History (New 

York: Garland Publishing Company, 1994). 

9. Eric Bryant, “Pride & Prejudice,” Library Journal 120 (June 1995): 37–39; 

Stephen Joyce and Alvin M. Schrader, “Hidden Perceptions: Edmonton Gay Males 

and the Edmonton Public Library,” Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science 

22 (April 1997): 19–37. For information and documentation on the backlash, see 

James V. Carmichael, Jr., “Homosexuality and United States Libraries: Land of 

the Free, but Not Home to the Gay,” Proceedings of the 64th International Federation of 

Library Associations Conference 1998, booklet 7, 136–45, esp. 141. 

10. Israel D. Fishman, “Founding Father,” in James V. Carmichael, Jr., ed., 

Daring to Find Our Names: The Search for Lesbigay Library History (Westport, Conn.: 

Greenwood Press, 1998), 107–12. Fishman, incidentally, has disclaimed this essay, 

according to a letter to be published in the Library Quarterly. 

11. To be fair, Gittings was honored in 1998 with many others at a dinner given 

by the Intellectual Freedom Committee, and when the Philadelphia Free Public 

Library and PrideFest America honored her at a ceremony at the Free Library on 

27 April 1999, ALA director William Gordon was on hand to note her accomplishments 

on behalf of the association. See American Libraries 30 (June–July 1999): 43. 

12. For some of these negative examples, see the illustration on page 102 in 

Molly McGarry and Fred Wasserman, eds., Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of 

Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth Century America (New York: New York Public 

Library, 1997), of a report filed in 1899 at the NYPL by a customer who was 

accosted in the men’s room; see also John Howard’s detailed account of the 1953 

sting conducted by Atlanta police in the men’s room at the Atlanta Public Library 

using a two-way mirror in “The Library, the Park, and the Pervert: Public Space 

and Homosexual Encounter in Post World War II Atlanta,” Radical History Review 

62 (Spring 1995): 166–87; and Louise Robbins, “A Closet Curtained by 

Circumspection: Doing Research on the McCarthy Era Purge of Gays from the 

Library of Congress,” in Carmichael, Jr., ed., Daring to Find Our Names, 55–64. 

13. Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia (New York: Henry Holt, 

1996). 

14. Cal Gough and Ellen Greenblatt, Gay and Lesbian Library Service (New York: 

Garland, 1990; now under revision for a second edition); Norman Kester, Liberating 

Minds: The Stories and Lives of Lesbian and Gay Librarians and Their Allies (Jefferson, 

N.C.: McFarland, 1997); and Carmichael, Jr., ed., Daring to Find Our Names.


15. Marilyn Miller spoke at the rally of lesbigay librarians protesting Denver’s 

rescission of its antidiscrimination policies. See John Berry, Francine Fiakoff, 

Evan St. Lifer, and Michael Rogers, “Under Protest: ALA Midwinter in Denver,” 

Library Journal 118 (March 1993): 32–38. 

16. Mark A. Thompson, Letter, New Yorker, 26 September 1994, 14. 

17. Margaret R. Gladney, “Biographical Research on Lesbigay Subjects: 

Editing the Letters of Lillian Smith,” 47-54, in Carmichael, Jr., ed., Daring to Find 

Our Names, 51–52. 

18. Paul [i.e., Andrew] Sullivan, “Sleeping with the Enemy,” New Republic, 9 

September 1991, 43. 

19. Exceptions exist: the novels of Anita Brookner are exemplary; a model of 

biographical treatment is Victoria Glendinning’s Edith Sitwell: A Lion among 

Unicorns (New York: Knopf, 1981), esp. 158–60. 

20. Daniel Harris, The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture (New York: Ballantine Books, 

1999). 

21. See for, example, explorations of this topic in Bruce Bawer, ed., Beyond 

Queer: Challenging Gay Left Orthodoxy (New York: Free Press, 1996). 

22. Lynn Witt, Sherry Thomas, and Eric Marcus, eds., Out in All Directions: The 

Almanac of Gay and Lesbian America (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 27, 37–38; 

Michael J. Tyrkus and Michael Bronski, eds., Gay and Lesbian Biography (Detroit: 

St. James Press, 1997); The Gay Almanac (New York: Berkeley, 1996); Completely 

Queer; Linda O. McMurry, George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 1981). See also Carver’s biography in American National 

Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), vol. 4. 

23. Ken Emerson, Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture 

(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997); Calvin Elliker, Stephen Foster Collins: A 

Guide to Research (New York: Garland, 1988). 

24. William J. Mann, Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, 

Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Star (New York: Penguin Group, 1998). 

25. Boze Hadleigh, Hollywood Gays (New York: Barricade, 1996), 237–308. 

26. Theo Aronson, Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld (London: John 

Murray, 1994). 

27. Gavin Lambert, Nazimova: A Biography (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1997); Philip 

Hoare, SeriousPleasures:TheLifeofStephenTennant (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990). 

28. Hoare, Serious Pleasures, back dust jacket (not cited in notes). 

29. Gore Vidal, Gore Vidal, Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings (San 

Francisco: Cleis Press, 1999). 

30. Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Prove It on Me Blues, Paramount Records 12668, 

June 1928. Reissued on Ma Rainey: The Complete 1928 Sessions in Chronological Order, 

Document DOCD-5156, 1993. 

31. John J. Carey’s The Sexuality Debate in North American Churches, 1988–1995 

(Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1995) concentrates on the reactionary backlash 

of the 1990s. 

32. Ina Russell, ed., Jeb and Dash: A Diary of a Gay Life, 1918–1945 (Boston: Faber 

and Faber, 1993). 

33. Louise A. Allen, “Laura Bragg: A New Woman Practicing Progressive 

Social Reform as a Museum Administrator and Educator” (Ph.D. dissertation, 

University of South Carolina, 1997). 

34. Jessie Carney Smith, ed., Notable Black American Women (Detroit: Gale 

Research, 1992). 

35. Emma Tennant, Strangers: A Family Romance (New York: New Directions, 

1999), 182.

The History of Youth Services Librarianship: 

A Review of the Research Literature 

Christine A. Jenkins 

Youth services librarianship—a term that encompasses all library services 

to youth (children and young adults, ages zero to eighteen) in school 

and public library settings—has long been considered the classic success 

story of American libraries. This classic success, however, has received little 

attention from library history scholars. Further, past and current 

research in the history of children’s, young adult, and/or school librarianship 

is scattered through scholarly and mass market publications in library 

and information science, history, education, and English. This essay provides 

a review of the existing research literature of this multidisciplinary 

field and suggests a research agenda for future scholars in this area. 

Introduction 

In considering the historiography of youth services librarianship, one is 

struck by how often a call for further research in this area has been 

sounded and how limited the response to that call has been. Margo 

Sasse’s 1973 article examining biographical reference tools found that 

youth services librarians were rarely included in either standard biographical 

reference tools or in the specialized resources focused entirely 

on women. 1 Mary Niles Maack, Suzanne Hildenbrand, and Lillian 

Gerhardt have repeated Sasse’s call for more and better research on the 

history of youth services librarians and librarianship in 1982, 1989, and 

1999, respectively. 2 Although this body of work has indeed grown in the 

years since Sasse’s initial challenge, the growth has been slow, and a field 

of study declared wide open in 1973 continues to be as wide open as ever. 

One emblematic instance of the lack of research focused on any aspect 

of youth services librarianship is the Public Library Inquiry, the exhaustive 

study of American public libraries conducted in the late 1940s. The study, 

supervised by sociologist Robert D. Leigh, was the project of a team of 

social scientists who published their findings in a series of seven books. 

The approach of the PLI to library service to the young is perhaps best 

typified by Oliver Garceau’s volume, The Public Library in the Political 

Process, which describes the children’s room as “one of the busiest, as well 



104 L&C/Youth Services Librarianship 

as one of the pleasantest places in the library” and credits children’s 

librarians with primary responsibility for the development of modern 

children’s literature. 3 This, however, is the sole mention of children’s services 

in Garceau’s 239-page text. Likewise, Leigh’s summary report on 

the PLI contains his oft-quoted declaration that “children’s rooms and 

children’s librarians have been the classic success of the public library,” 

yet no part of the PLI was directed to the study of this classic success 

story. 4 As Frances Henne stated in her critique of the PLI at the Chicago 

Graduate Library School’s 1949 symposium devoted to the study, “it was 

quite disappointing for children’s librarians to find that children’s 

work—which, according to the Inquiry, accounted for over half of the 

public library circulation—accounted for less than 1/250th of the Inquiry 

itself.” She added dryly that perhaps the PLI staff “felt that public 

library service to children had reached a stage of relative perfection that 

obviated the need for careful analysis.” 5 Like many other activities 

involving women and children, youth services librarianship has been 

simultaneously revered and ignored, and the origins and history of school 

and public library service to youth are only beginning to be seriously 

examined by library historians. 

Much of the early research in this area is in the form of broad historical 

overviews written for a practitioner audience. Many of these are in 

themselves primary sources of data. These writings will be reviewed first 

in order to lay the groundwork for an examination of the more scholarly 

(and generally more recent) research, which has a narrower focus and an 

intended audience of historians, researchers, and academicians. The literature 

will be categorized and examined according to particular aspects 

of youth services librarianship, using Fannette Thomas’s definition of 

youth services librarianship as a framework. According to Thomas, youth 

services librarianship is evidenced by the fulfillment of five conditions: 

(1) specialized collections, (2) specialized space, (3) specialized personnel, 

and (4) specialized programs/services designed for youth, (5) all 

existing within a network of other youth services organizations and agencies. 

6 Given this definition, this review does not include research on the 

collections or uses of Sunday school libraries, social libraries, circulating 

libraries, or other public library forerunners to which children may have 

had access before the advent of public youth services librarianship as we 

know it today. 

Primary and Secondary Sources, Scholarly and Otherwise 

An overview of the history of youth services librarianship requires both 

primary and secondary sources. Professional texts that are in themselves 

primary sources, while often not particularly scholarly, provide a glimpse

105 

into the profession’s “common wisdom” about itself during the late nineteenth 

and twentieth centuries. Here it must be noted that the model of 

youth services librarianship as it is currently configured first evolved in 

American and British public libraries—thus the emphasis on library 

development in the United States. A baseline account of public library 

service to young people in the United States can be found in Public 

Libraries in the United States of America (1876), a thirty-nine-chapter government-sponsored 

report that includes two chapters on youth services: 

Samuel Warren and S. N. Clark’s “School and Asylum Libraries” and 

William I. Fletcher’s “Public Libraries and the Young”; the former is a 

report on funding legislation for common school libraries, the latter an 

essay arguing for the elimination of age restrictions that barred young 

readers from public libraries. 7 Useful early primary sources include 

Arthur Bostwick’s 1910 text, The American Public Library, which contains 

two fairly comprehensive chapters on youth services in school and public 

libraries; W. C. Berwick Sayers’s 1911 manual for British librarians, 

The Children’s Library; J. W. Emery’s 1917 text for Canadian librarians, The 

Library, the School and the Child; Alice I. Hazeltine’s 1917 anthology of 

selected writings on children’s librarianship from library literature; 

Sophie Powell’s 1917 text on the educational role of public and school 

libraries; and the two invaluable ALA-sponsored textbooks on youth services 

in public libraries by Effie L. Power and in school libraries by Lucile 

F. Fargo, both published in 1930. 8 Another useful primary source is a 

four-volume series of yearbooks (1929–32) published by the ALA’s 

Section for Library Work with Children that covers specific developments 

in youth services at that time. 9 

A detailed and thorough picture of youth services librarianship during 

the 1940s as viewed from a social science perspective is provided in Youth, 

Communication and Libraries, the proceedings of the University of Chicago’s 

1947 Library Institute, edited by school library leaders Frances Henne, 

Alice Brooks, and Ruth Ersted. 10 School librarianship was a rapidly 

expanding field in the postwar baby boom years, and its attractive 

salaries and regular hours threatened to draw librarians away from public 

library children’s work. In an attempt to recruit public librarians, the 

ALA’s Division of Libraries for Children and Young People sponsored the 

publication of Harriet Long’s Rich the Treasure: Public Library Service to 

Children (1953), an informative—though understandably rosy—picture of 

the profession’s history and accomplishments. 11 A 1954 thematic issue of 

Library Trends on public libraries featured articles on public library service 

to children by Elizabeth Nesbitt and to young adults by Jean Roos. 12 

While neither piece is long or detailed, both reveal how youth services 

librarians viewed themselves and their work during the 1950s. As noted 

above, the first two volumes of the Public Library Inquiry were published in


1949, and public children’s librarians were understandably concerned 

about the PLI’s overall lack of coverage of youth services. The ALA’s 

Division of Libraries for Children and Young People responded to this 

lack by commissioning a study of children’s work in public libraries. 13 

The study was conducted by Elizabeth Gross, who based her report on 

past and current library service to children on data gathered from a mail 

survey of more than five hundred public libraries in 1957–58. 14 Dorothy 

Broderick’s Introduction to Children’s Work in Public Libraries (1965) and 

Gross’s Public Library Service to Children (1967) contain descriptive handson 

information about U.S. public youth services librarianship during the 

mid-1960s. 15 All of these texts were written by current or former practitioners 

for a practitioner audience, and all include some account of the 

profession’s history. 

More substantive coverage began appearing in the 1920s with the publication 

of Gwendolen Rees’s Libraries for Children (1924), which has several 

chapters on the history of school and public library service to 

children in the United States and Great Britain. 16 Frances Clarke 

Sayers’s succinct but useful essay on the origins of library service to children 

appeared in a 1963 thematic issue of Library Trends on youth services 

librarianship. 17 The best known, however, is Harriet Long’s oft-cited 

Public Library Service to Children (1969), an account of youth services librarianship 

in the United States from the Colonial period to the outbreak of 

World War I that contains both an overview and a case study of the 

Cleveland Public Library from 1900 to 1914. 18 Although brief and relatively 

undocumented by modern standards, Long’s work was the first substantive 

historical study to place youth services history into the larger 

context of the Progressive Era child welfare movement. The output of 

history inspired by the American Library Association’s Centennial in 

1976 included two library history anthologies, both of which featured 

articles on youth services librarianship: Clara O. Jackson’s article in the 

library history anthology Century of Service (1976) and Sara Fenwick’s article 

in a Library Trends issue on “Trends in Libraries and Librarianship: 

1876–1976.” 19 Jackson’s is an institutional history, while Fenwick’s study 

stresses the interactions between youth services librarians, the schools, 

and other contemporaneous child welfare agencies. 

Scholarly Historical Research 

Scholarly research in the history of youth services librarianship began 

to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s, though this literature still remains 

sparse. Most works have been published in journals or by presses that 

specialize in library literature. However, there have also been three historical 

monographs published by trade and university presses with

107 

greater visibility among history academicians: Dee Garrison’s Apostles of 

Culture: The Public Librarian and American Society, 1876–1920 (1979), Abigail 

Van Slyck’s Free to All: Carnegie Libraries & American Culture, 1890–1920 

(1995), and Alison M. Parker’s Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform, 

and Pro-Censorship Activism, 1873–1933 (1997). 20 Although not their major 

focus, each book includes a chapter or more on some aspect of youth services 

library history. Unfortunately, each work illustrates some of the 

analytical pitfalls that scholars have encountered in writing women’s history. 

Also unfortunately, as a result of their visibility, these texts are 

likely to be the sole information sources on the history of youth services 

librarians and librarianship encountered by most historians. All three are 

discussed and critiqued in the appropriate sections below. 

Studies by Manuel Lopez and by Fannette Thomas trace the nineteenth-century 

development of children’s public libraries in the United 

States and Great Britain in order to identify the essential elements of 

children’s libraries. 21 Both describe the historical development of separate 

collections, separate rooms, and separate personnel; Thomas also 

documents the specific services offered by the eight children’s libraries 

she identifies as pioneers in the field. Thomas’s outstanding study of the 

genesis of library service to children from 1875 to 1906 continues to be 

one of the richest and most valuable works in this area. Sybille Jagusch’s 

dissertation describes the late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century history 

of youth services but focuses primarily on the lives of Caroline Hewins 

and Anne Carroll Moore, probably the two most influential youth services 

librarians of the time. 22 

Thus far, few historical studies of library service specific to young 

adults have appeared. Two very different works deserve mention: Marie 

Inez Johnson’s 1940 master’s thesis from Columbia is on the development 

of separate service for young people in public libraries during the 

1920s and 1930s. 23 Miriam Braverman’s 1979 book provides concrete 

details—how and when services were founded, what was offered, and so 

on—to document the history of American public library service to young 

adults from the 1920s to the 1960s. 24 Braverman based her work on primary 

source documents, plus interviews of librarians in three large urban 

library systems, and places her study in the context of both the developmental 

needs of adolescents and the particular social conditions facing 

urban teens during the 1950s and 1960s. 

Although school district funds have supported libraries in a sporadic 

fashion since the nineteenth century, school libraries as they are currently 

configured grew out of early public library service to schools in the 

late 1890s and early 1900s. Thus, much of the early history of school 

librarianship must be gleaned from sources that focus on public library 

history. Lucile Fargo’s textbook, The Library in the School, first published in


1930, provides a useful baseline for school libraries as they were envisioned 

by the first generation of school librarians. 25 There have been a 

number of master’s theses and Ph.D. dissertations on the institutional 

history of school libraries in a particular state or region; most are 

descriptive rather than analytical and fail to place their subjects in the 

sociopolitical context of their times. Among the exceptions are two welldocumented 

and thoughtful reports on the history of school libraries in 

the South by Margaret Rufsvold (1934) and Frances Lander Spain 

(1946). 26 In addition, both Frederic Aldrich’s and Constance Melvin’s 

accounts of the development of school libraries in Ohio and Pennsylvania, 

respectively, are institutional histories that, while not comprehensive, 

place the narrative into the larger legislative history of the state. 27 

Another interesting approach may be found in Henry Cecil and Willard 

Heaps’s survey of U.S. school libraries, which includes a chapter on history 

embedded in an in-depth portrait of the field in 1940. 28 Two texts 

focus on developments in the field specific to media and technology: Paul 

Saettler’s encyclopedic account of the evolution of educational technology 

explores the impact of advances in social science research and educational 

media on school libraries, and Gene Lanier’s dissertation 

examines the conceptual and philosophical shift that changed school 

libraries into instructional material centers during the 1950s and 

1960s. 29 Kathy Latrobe’s anthology, The Emerging School Library Media 

Center: Historical Issues and Perspectives (1998), offers by far the most comprehensive 

history of the field, while the first chapter of Morris, 

Gillespie, and Spirt’s textbook on school library administration gives a 

succinct overview of school library history from 1876 to the 1990s. 30 

Finally, there are dissertations by Patricia Pond and by Charles Koch 

on the history of U.S. school librarians’ national organization, the 

American Association of School Librarians (AASL). Pond’s comprehensive 

and well-documented account of school librarians’ efforts to organize 

within three national associations (the National Education Association 

[NEA], the National Council of Teachers of English [NCTE], and the 

ALA) from 1896 to 1951 contains a wealth of information and is one of 

the only examples of a truly contextualized history of youth services 

librarianship. 31 Koch’s work is an authorized history of the AASL from 

1950 to 1971 and has the strengths and problems associated with officially 

sanctioned works. 32 

General Public Library History: City, State, and National 

In a passage in Joanne Passet’s Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in 

the American West, 1900–1917, a Wyoming librarian recalls a child “who 

wandered forlornly through the stacks [hunting for] . . . the few juvenile

ooks distributed among the common shelves.” 33 This striking image 

serves as a metaphor for the historian’s search for documentation of 

youth services librarianship within institutional histories of public 

libraries. Much of the published history of youth services librarianship 

consists of several paragraphs on the children’s room and/or early children’s 

services (often under “special user groups”), plus the name of the 

library’s first and/or most notable children’s librarian. Among the few 

exceptions to this pattern are Phyllis Dain’s history of New York Public 

Library; C. H. Cramer’s history of the Cleveland Public Library; 

Rosemary Dumont’s study of big city public libraries, focusing on Boston, 

Cincinnati, Cleveland, and St. Louis; and Chieko Tachihata’s history of 

public libraries in Hawaii. 34 Anniversary years of library systems’ youth 

services departments are often celebrated in print with an abbreviated 

retrospective of the library’s past; while these texts are created for a general 

audience, the vintage photos that are traditionally used to illustrate 

them may be of value to the library history scholar. 

Library service to youth as it is currently understood originated in the 

United States and Great Britain, but today library collections and services 

for young people may be found throughout the world. Their histories 

are just beginning to be written and available to an English-speaking 

audience. Fortunately, over the last several decades the International 

Federation of Library Associations has published four volumes of Library 

Service to Children from 1963 to 1983. 35 Each volume contains individual 

reports on some fifteen to twenty-five countries detailing the context, 

history, and current status of library services to youth. Some countries 

are included in each volume; others appear only once. More recent 

scholarly historical studies of youth services librarianship in France, 

Norway, Russia, Canada, and Puerto Rico have appeared in refereed 

journals. 36 

Specialized Library Collections 

109 

A separate collection of library materials for young people is the first 

condition for youth services librarianship. Children’s literature scholar 

Anne Pellowski notes that the “history of U.S. children’s libraries cannot 

be separated from that of children’s literature.” 37 Youth services librarianship 

began with specialized collections. Specialized space, personnel, 

services, and networks began with the establishment of public libraries. 

Collections, however, greatly predate the other elements of youth services 

librarianship, and the librarian’s knowledge of the collection—the 

texts—is the bedrock of expertise upon which the profession rests. 

There is a vast and interdisciplinary literature on the history of children’s 

and young adult literature, with research located primarily


(though not exclusively) in the fields of education, literature, and library 

science. While all of it may be of interest to practicing librarians, there 

are areas within this body of scholarship that are particularly relevant to 

historians of youth services librarianship. These areas include historical 

research in children’s and young adult literature of the nineteenth and 

twentieth centuries; children’s and young adult book reviewing and evaluation, 

notably the evolution of critical standards as applied to children’s 

literature; children’s and young adult book publishing; children’s and 

young adult popular culture/series books; children’s and young adult 

book censorship; and children’s and young adult literature and services 

for special user populations. 

There are numerous historical accounts of various aspects of literature 

for young readers, several of which provide a broad view of this very large 

field. Among the most comprehensive are two on children’s literature, 

one on children’s publishing, and one on children’s book reviewing. A 

Critical History of Children’s Literature (originally published in 1953 and 

revised in 1969) is a lengthy literary history from the collective perspective 

of its four authors: a children’s author, a public children’s librarian, 

a school librarian, and a children’s book reviewer. Anne Pellowski’s massive 

volume, accurately titled The World of Children’s Literature (1968), is 

the most comprehensive source for historians with an interest in children’s 

literature and library collections, containing forty-five hundred 

annotated references to monographs, bibliographies, and articles on all 

aspects of children’s literature, including youth services librarianship, in 

eighty-four countries throughout the world. 38 A useful entry into the specific 

historiography of twentieth-century children’s book publishing is 

provided by Robin Gottlieb’s Publishing Children’s Books in America, 

1919–1976, an annotated bibliography of more than seven hundred references 

to information and research on all areas of children’s publishing 

history. Finally, The Rise of Children’s Book Reviewing in America, 1865–1881 

by Richard Darling provides a very detailed picture of the genesis of children’s 

book reviewing. 39 

Children’s and young adult literature textbooks commonly include the 

history of various genres of books for young readers. Among the studies 

of particular relevance to research on library collections for young readers 

is Barbara Bader’s comprehensive history of children’s picture books, 

which emphasizes twentieth-century literature. 40 Betsy Hearne analyzes 

the canon of twentieth-century American picture books as identified by 

scholars, reviewers, and practitioners. 41 Studies by Jagusch and Bader 

and essay collections in honor of Anne Carroll Moore and Lillian H. 

Smith cover various aspects of the intertwined histories of children’s literature 

and librarianship from the 1920s to the 1990s. 42 Three useful

111 

sources—two popular and one scholarly—give a comprehensive grounding 

in the history of young adult literature: Alleen Pace Nilsen and 

Kenneth Donelson’s Literature for Today’s Young Adults (1993), Michael 

Cart’s From Romance to Realism (1996), and Susan McEnally Jackson’s dissertation 

on the history of the junior novel (1986). 43 The first two provide 

conversational yet informative accounts of this history; the third examines 

the evolution of the literature that became the core of early library 

collections for young adult readers. Terri Butler’s research looks at the 

history of audiovisual materials, a later addition to children’s library collections. 

44 

The Newbery and Caldecott Medals for excellence in writing and in 

illustration, respectively, are chosen each year by an ALA committee of 

children’s librarians and are awarded amidst great ceremony at ALA’s 

annual conference. Youth services librarians have always been responsible 

for the selection of the medal winners, but this professional jurisdiction 

has not gone unchallenged; Christine Jenkins’s study follows the 

critical course of one such challenge in the late 1930s. 45 Irene Smith’s 

History of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals (1957) contains valuable information 

about the evolution of the awards and their accompanying rituals. 

46 Horn Book Magazine has published a series of volumes containing 

descriptions of each year’s winners, plus the texts of each recipient’s 

acceptance speech. 47 Award winners are frequently studied as representative 

examples of publishing and evaluation trends over time. One of 

the richest analyses is Lyn Ellen Lacy’s survey of trends in Caldecott 

Medal winners’ illustration and book design. 48 

The evaluation of library materials for young readers is a part of the 

daily work of youth services librarians. Sheila Egoff provides an overview 

of reviewers’ evolving critical standards for children’s books, while Julia 

Lord contends that librarians’ critical standards have actually changed 

very little over time, an unfortunate state she blames on children’s 

librarians’ romanticized notions of children and childhood. 49 Although 

Lord’s collection of primary source professional literature is extensive, 

her conclusions do not appear to be based on the evidence she cites. 

Several journals dedicated to reviews and critical writing on children’s 

literature have played—and continue to play—an important role in 

librarians’ book evaluation process. 50 Horn Book Magazine, founded by 

Bertha Mahoney Miller in 1924, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s 

Books, founded in 1948 and edited by Zena Sutherland from 1958 to 1985, 

are two of the oldest and best-known arbiters of excellence in children’s 

publishing. 51 Horn Book’s seventy-fifth anniversary issue was published in 

September 1999 and contains several articles of interest to historians: 

Barbara Bader traces the history of the journal itself, while Kathleen


Krull looks at its role in the evolution of children’s book reviewing. In a 

joint examination of the canon of professional/inspirational texts written 

by and for earlier generations of children’s librarians, Betsy Hearne and 

Christine Jenkins identify the beliefs about children’s literature and 

about children, respectively, that have informed the professional ethos of 

twentieth-century youth services librarianship. 52 

Throughout their history, youth services librarians have promoted critically 

acclaimed children’s literature through collaborations with other 

groups with an interest in children’s books and reading. For example, in 

the early decades of the twentieth century, children’s books were most 

commonly purchased and received as Christmas or holiday gifts. 

Children’s Book Week was inaugurated in November 1919 as an annual 

children’s book promotion campaign in anticipation of holiday shopping. 

The week was a collaborative project by three influential people with a 

professional interest in children’s books: Franklyn Mathiews, librarian of 

the Boy Scouts; Frederic Melcher, publisher and editor of Publishers 

Weekly; and librarian Anne Carroll Moore. To Mathiews, Children’s Book 

Week was part of a moral crusade against dime novels and “cheap reading”; 

to Melcher it was an opportunity for children’s book publishers to 

give their products maximum visibility for holiday sales. To Moore, it 

supported librarians’ ongoing campaign to encourage children’s library 

use and to heighten public awareness of the variety and value of good literature 

for young readers. 

Historical research on children’s book editing and publishing, children’s 

popular print culture, and children’s intellectual freedom are all 

connected to the history of children’s librarianship. In 1918 Macmillan 

hired Louise Seaman Bechtel to head its new juvenile division, and 

Macmillan Children’s Books began publication in 1919. 53 The professional 

relationship between children’s book editors and children’s librarians 

has traditionally been a close one. Indeed, children’s book editors 

were often former children’s librarians themselves. Betsy Hearne’s article 

on that interconnected world is based on interviews with editor and 

former librarian Margaret McElderry. 54 Over the past several years Horn 

Book Magazine has published a series of interviews with long-time children’s 

book editors by Leonard Marcus. 55 Marcus has edited a collection 

of the professional correspondence between children’s editor Ursula 

Nordstrom and the well-known authors and illustrators she worked with 

in her thirty-three years as director of Harper’s Department of Books for 

Boys and Girls. 56 Marcus has also written a biography of children’s 

author Margaret Wise Brown, whose life included close connections with 

publishers and with progressive educators. 57 

The selection of “the best” children’s literature implies a larger pool of 

books that are not selected. The Stratemeyer Syndicate’s popular written-

113 

to-order children’s series books were particularly problematic for early 

librarians, and Edward Stratemeyer, publisher of thousands of massproduced 

children’s series titles, was the bête noire of children’s librarians 

throughout his long career. 58 For example, when Effie L. Power 

devoted several pages of her 1930 textbook Library Work with Children to a 

section on “fiction which fails to meet accepted standards,” she included 

a representative critique of The Bobbsey Twins and Their Schoolmates. 59 

Studies by Paul Deane and Faye R. Kensinger put series books into their 

historical context, including run-ins with critical librarians. 60 Several 

studies on the history of children and comics have included information 

on children’s librarians’ varying responses to comics during the 1940s 

and 1950s. 61 

Children’s librarians have also been enmeshed in the struggles surrounding 

children’s book censorship. Joseph Bryson and Elizabeth Detty 

trace the legal history of censorship in school libraries. 62 Alison Parker’s 

history of the procensorship activism of the Woman’s Christian 

Temperance Union draws upon ALA journals and proceedings, including 

extensive quotes from Anne Carroll Moore and Caroline Hewins, to 

make a case for censorship as business as usual in Progressive Era 

American libraries. 63 Three studies look at ALA children’s librarians’ 

conflicted relationship with censorship as they moved from their earlier 

role of child protector to their more recent one of child advocate. 64 This 

evolution is highlighted in Christine Jenkins’s study of the ALA Youth 

Services Divisions’ anticensorship activities in the years between the 

ALA’s adoption of the Library Bill of Rights in 1939 and its adoption of 

the School Library Bill of Rights in 1955. 65 Ralph Wagner traces a very 

different history of Catholic high school librarians who attempted to 

incorporate the Church’s standards by including their negative evaluation 

of seventy-five books listed in the 1942 edition of the Standard Catalog 

for High School Libraries. 66 

The intertwining history of literature and libraries for youth has rarely 

focused on the reader. One exception is the study of library services to 

African-American children, whose history as library users and readers 

has been complicated by racial segregation, discrimination, and limited 

access to publishing resources. The “all-white world of children’s books” 

described by Nancy Larrick in 1965 was—and remains—symptomatic of 

patterns of discrimination and inclusion/exclusion woven into the 

American social fabric and thus into American youth services librarianship. 

67 The traditional marginalization of African-American children 

necessitates an especially diligent focus on the user by historians, and 

this focus has informed reflective and nuanced scholarship in this area. 

Joseph Alvarez and Barbara Bader look at the contributions of Arna 

Bontemps, an African-American librarian and children’s book author


whose works reflected the lives and experiences of African-American 

children, and of Carter Woodson, prolific writer and publisher/owner of 

Associated Press, which published a number of African-American children’s 

books. 68 Beryl Banfield relates the history of the Council on 

Interracial Books for Children, whose Bulletin reviewed and analyzed 

children’s literature with an eye toward representations of minority status 

groups. 69 Violet Harris, Rudine Sims, Kay Vandergrift, and Dorothy 

Broderick examine literary representations of black characters in children’s 

literature. 70 Broderick’s detailed analysis of all children’s books 

with African-American characters included in the classic library selection 

tool, H. W. Wilson’s Children’s Catalog, is particularly relevant to library 

historians as an examination of the titles likely to be included in children’s 

library collections. Nancy Tolson looks at early efforts by librarians 

and booksellers in promoting African-American children’s literature, and 

Cheryl Knott Malone examines library service to black children in the 

segregated branches of Louisville’s public library system. 71 

Specialized Library Space 

Specialized space is the second condition for youth services in libraries. 

The children’s room itself, as a physical space and a location, is often 

treated as a given by historians rather than as an element of youth services 

librarianship with a distinct history. Library children’s rooms as 

they are currently configured were greatly influenced by the Carnegie 

library building program, particularly the architectural plans available to 

communities with Carnegie library grants. George Bobinski’s historical 

study of Carnegie libraries reproduces the six floor plans provided by the 

Carnegie Corporation, four of which include a separate children’s reading 

room that often matched the adult reading room in size. 72 

Unfortunately, these illustrations are the only coverage of children’s 

rooms in Bobinski’s research. Abigail Van Slyck’s book is superior to 

Bobinski’s in laying out a contextual and well-illustrated architectural 

and institutional history of the American public library from 1890 to 

1920, including two chapters relevant to youth services. 73 Chapter 5 

examines the library as a workplace, focusing in large part on the children’s 

room as a purposeful space for youth services librarianship. 

Chapter 6 is a less successful attempt to describe children’s library experiences 

based upon published writing: several writers’ memoirs of childhood 

visits to Carnegie libraries, plus several librarians’ accounts of daily 

life in the children’s room. Thomas’s dissertation on the genesis of public 

library children’s services contains a chapter on their establishment in 

both remodeled and newly built space, while her 1990 article provides a 

more succinct account of the history of early children’s rooms. 74 Finally,

Gerald Greenberg’s account of public libraries’ innovative response to 

summer’s hot weather describes the evolution of open air “reading 

rooms” on public library roofs, in city parks, and at beaches. All were 

heavily used by children. 75 

Specialized Personnel: Youth Services Librarians 

Specialized personnel—librarians assigned specifically to work with 

young library users—is the third condition of youth services librarianship. 

Thus far, biographical research on youth services librarians is growing 

but still very uneven—a handful of subjects is studied extensively, but 

the lives and work of many equally intriguing subjects remain unexamined. 

The best sources of biographical scholarship on individual youth 

services librarians are two standard reference books, Dictionary of 

American Library Biography (1978) and its Supplement (1990). 76 

Goedeken’s prosopographical study of these texts, he notes that 301 subjects 

(87 women and 214 men) were chosen for the initial volume and 51 

individuals (13 women and 38 men) for the Supplement. 77 In the first volume, 

25 (24 women and 1 man) of those 301 subjects—8 percent of the 

total—are known chiefly for their involvement in some aspect of school 

or public youth services librarianship. In the Supplement, 6 (6 women and 

0 men) of the 51 subjects, or 12 percent of the total, are youth services 

librarians. Overall, the two volumes profile 352 subjects (100 women and 

252 men), including 31 (30 women and 1 man) in youth services. Youth 

services subjects comprise 9 percent of the full total, which is a larger 

proportion than might be expected, given the generally low profile that 

youth services librarianship and its practitioners have had in library history 

scholarship overall. Not surprisingly, the full group of youth services 

subjects is 97 percent female. Both statistically and anecdotally, the 

female-intensive nature of children’s librarianship is evident throughout 

its history. 

Public Librarians 

115 

As the only work on this subject from a trade publisher, Dee Garrison’s 

Apostles of Culture has long been the most readily available history of 

librarianship as a female-intensive profession. 78 Although published in 

1979 and long out of print, Garrison’s book (plus her earlier article, “The 

Tender Technicians,” on which the book’s final section is based) is probably 

the most-cited historical work on women in librarianship. Garrison 

includes children’s librarians in her examination of the status and economic 

problems associated with female-intensive service professions. 

Unfortunately, her analysis of youth services librarians and librarianship 

In


is based on a selective and decontextualized reading of prescriptive articles 

and essays from a handful of professional journals. Thus, her conclusions 

are flawed as well. 

Jagusch’s title for her biographical dissertation on Anne Carroll Moore 

and Caroline M. Hewins is “First among Equals,” which aptly describes 

the founding mothers of youth services librarianship. According to Davis 

and Tucker’s American Library History, accurately subtitled A Comprehensive 

Guide to the Literature, there were fifteen biographical studies of Anne 

Carroll Moore of varying lengths available in 1988; since that time, several 

more have appeared. 79 A look at the best of these reveals fuller coverage 

of her life and work than of any other youth services librarian. 

Cumins, Lundin, and Bader focus on her impact on children’s publishing 

and reviewing, while McElderry’s piece is a brief but vivid memoir of her 

work under Moore’s supervision. 80 Poor, Sayers, and Jagusch contribute 

full-length biographies that, taken together, depict a charismatic and 

tyrannical leader who is in large part responsible for the central position 

children’s librarians have occupied in the world of children’s publishing 

throughout this century. 81 

Biographical studies of youth services librarians appear infrequently 

and predictably focus on librarians with national visibility. For several 

reasons, including Anne Carroll Moore’s long tenure as superintendent 

of children’s work and the proximity to the New York City publishing 

houses, there is a strong trend among subjects toward involvement in the 

New York Public Library and in the American Library Association. 

Caroline M. Hewins was a prolific writer, an active member of the ALA, 

and the author of the first widely circulated bibliography of high quality 

books for children, Recommended Books for Boys and Girls (1882). 82 She also 

mentored Anne Carroll Moore. Mary Gould Davis, New York Public’s 

head of storytelling, was originally hired by Moore. 83 Frances Clarke 

Sayers, librarian, teacher, and professional leader, was Moore’s successor 

at the New York Public Library from 1941 to 1952. 84 Originally hired by 

Moore in 1937 as a branch children’s librarian, Augusta Baker served as 

head of youth services at New York Public from 1961 to 1974. 85 

The bulk of Lutie Stearns’s professional work was for the Wisconsin 

Free Library Commission. 86 She was an early youth services advocate 

within the ALA and was especially active in efforts to abolish the age 

restrictions that hindered children’s library access during the 1870s and 

1880s. Effie Power worked as a children’s library administrator in St. 

Louis, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh and wrote the ALA-published textbook 

on children’s services in the late 1920s. 87 Sarah Bogle’s career included 

positions as a public librarian, director of Pittsburgh’s Training School 

for Children’s Librarians, and ALA executive. 88 Mildred Batchelder was

the coordinator of the ALA’s youth divisions. 89 Before going into juvenile 

publishing, Margaret McElderry worked as a children’s librarian under 

Moore’s supervision. 90 Siddie Joe Johnson’s fame was more regional, but 

she was also an active member of the ALA’s Children’s Library 

Association. 91 Pura Belpre, the New York Public Library’s first Puerto 

Rican librarian, was known for her pioneering work with Latino/Latina 

children as a storyteller, writer, and librarian. 92 Virginia Haviland was a 

children’s librarian at Boston Public Library and a reviewer for Horn Book 

who went on to become head of the Children’s Book Section at the 

Library of Congress. 93 

A recent book about Edith Guerrier stands out as an exception to the 

relative abundance of biographies of well-known professional “founding 

mothers.” 94 Essentially a scholarly edition of Guerrier’s autobiography, 

the work details the career and accomplishments of a librarian in the 

Boston Public Library who did extensive work with library-sponsored 

clubs for teenage working girls. Guerrier’s interest in improving members’ 

work lives led to the founding of the Paul Revere Pottery to provide 

employment to the club girls. 

School Librarians 

Biographies of school librarians are less plentiful: Mary Peacock 

Douglas was a long-time school library activist in North Carolina and in 

the ALA; Mary Gaver was a school librarian who became a library educator 

and was elected ALA president in the 1960s; Alice Harrison was 

one of the twenty-four school library pioneers included in the first edition 

of the Dictionary of American Library Biography. 95 Sayers’s article on Anne 

Eaton is more of a tribute than a biography; Eaton was also known for 

her work as a reviewer and bibliographer of recommended children’s 

books. 96 

Young Adult Librarians 

117 

Young adult librarianship—that is, public library work directed specifically 

toward secondary school–age youth—is a relatively recent development, 

and its ranks are thin when compared to school and children’s 

librarianship. All three biographical studies of young adult librarians to 

appear thus far—by Atkinson, Campbell, and Hannigan—are group 

biographies; all profile Margaret Alexander Edwards and Mabel 

Williams, while two of the three include Margaret Scoggin and Jean 

Roos. 97 It appears that these four women may be the “first among 

equals” of young adult librarianship.


Organizational History 

As Effie L. Power stated in her inaugural address as chair of the ALA’s 

Children’s Library Association, “The consciousness that none of us is 

working alone in her endeavor to bring worthwhile books to children 

should strengthen us.” 98 Many school and public librarians were the sole 

professional youth services librarian in their building or institution; they 

created and maintained collegial connections through library associations 

and conferences, professional journals, personal correspondence, 

and formal and informal networks of colleagues and friends. Thus, 

research on individual librarians inevitably leads to research on professional 

networks. Batchelder’s article is a memoir of national youth services 

leadership, while Bush traces the connections between four 

well-known women—Moore, Hewins, Alice Tyler, and Bertha Mahoney 

Miller—in their various roles as reviewers, librarians, and children’s literature 

advocates. 99 Anne Lundin surveyed teachers of youth services 

and literature working in library and information science schools for 

information on coverage of history in their courses and learned that 

some of the courses included the study of some of the youth services 

biographees listed above. 100 

Specialized Programs and Services 

The fourth component of youth services librarianship is specialized 

services and programming. The ultimate purpose of youth services 

library programming in both school and public libraries is the promotion 

of reading and literacy. This goal underlies a wide range of activities, all 

designed to facilitate connections between young people and texts. Some 

of these services involve the provision of books to children who cannot 

come to the library themselves through such innovations as home 

libraries, traveling libraries, and bookmobiles. 101 Library history contains 

many accounts of librarians as secular missionaries delivering books to 

readers of all ages via horseback, sleigh, and foreign aid package, traveling 

in person to developing areas to reach children who lack library service, 

or rebuilding and restocking libraries ravaged by war. 102 Early public 

library outreach in urban settings focused in large part on providing book 

collections—and librarians—to public schools, laying the groundwork for 

the establishment of school libraries as they are currently configured. 103 

Other library services and programs directed toward young readers’ 

recreational reading include story hours, summer reading programs, 

young author programs, audiovisual programs, storytelling, and other 

performances. 104 Reference work with children contributes to children’s 

informational reading. 105 Youth services librarians publish book reviews,

119 

distribute reading promotional materials, celebrate Children’s Book 

Week, and write columns and articles on children’s reading for newspapers, 

magazines, and other publications that reach a broader public. 

106 Some of these activities have been studied by historians, but most 

have not. 

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of library programming with 

young people. While this craft is older than print itself, library storytelling 

occupies a unique niche within the much larger field. The World 

of Storytelling by Anne Pellowski provides a comprehensive and welldocumented 

history of storytelling. Alvey’s lengthy dissertation on the 

history of storytelling contains useful information on library storytelling, 

and Greene’s text includes two succinct chapters: one on the general history 

of storytelling and one on the specific history of storytelling in a 

library setting. 107 “Story-Telling around the World,” a five-part symposium 

published in 1940 in Library Journal, gives a picture of storytelling’s 

international history from the professional perspective of youth services 

librarians. 108 

There have been several biographical studies of prominent storytellerlibrarians; 

among them are works treating Mary Gould Davis, the New 

York Public Library’s first superintendent of storytelling; and Augusta 

Baker, New York Public Library librarian and storyteller as well as coauthor 

of the first two editions of Greene’s book. 109 The foundation of 

library storytelling is a knowledge of traditional folktales and folklore 

collections. DelNegro’s study analyzes the coverage of folklore and the 

art of storytelling in the nine editions (1947–97) of Arbuthnot and 

Sutherland’s classic text, Children and Books, and in doing so traces the 

evolution of storytelling as a library activity and of folklore texts as story 

sources for librarians. 110 

If the history of library programs and services for children is insufficiently 

studied, the history of library programs and services for young 

adults is nearly nonexistent. The works of Braverman and of Craver are 

exceptional in this respect. Braverman’s best-known work is her 1979 

study of the two major types of library programming—social service and 

cultural—for young adults. 111 Her 1981 study used this model as a framework 

for analyzing young adult librarians’ provision of career information 

during the 1960s. 112 The latter study provides some useful data to 

those tracing the history of library services to teens, but it is apparent 

that the study was conducted to bolster arguments for the continuation 

of this service rather than to create a nuanced picture of library service 

to teens during that time. Craver’s work builds on Braverman’s service 

model to examine young adult public library programming during the 

1960s in greater depth. 113 She found that libraries initially provided both 

social service and cultural programming, but subsequent funding cuts


caused the social service function to be dropped, while the less costly cultural 

programming based on book-related subjects continued, despite its 

apparent lack of broad appeal. 

A Network of Child Welfare and Social Service Agencies 

The fifth and final condition for youth services librarianship is fulfilled 

when the first four conditions—specialized collection, space, personnel, 

and services—are located within a network of child welfare organizations 

and agencies. State, regional, and national professional organizations can 

provide the necessary infrastructure for professional networks. For 

example, Catherine Burr’s study traces the history of a state organization, 

the Missouri Association of School Librarians, from 1950 to 1975. 114 

Elizabeth Burr’s history of Wisconsin public library service to children 

describes a heterogeneous network of state-based organizations and 

agencies working collaboratively. 115 Anderson’s dissertation on Batchelder 

provides excellent coverage of the ALA’s Youth Services Divisions during 

her lengthy career as the executive of the ALA’s Youth Services Divisions 

from 1936 to 1966. 116 The professional network of ALA youth services 

librarians is described in Marilyn Karrenbrock’s history and analysis of 

Top of the News, the ALA journal published from 1942 to 1987 that functioned 

as a national forum for youth services librarians to share their 

professional work and concerns with colleagues and peers. 117 The 

research of Pond and Koch covers the several national organizations for 

school librarians that eventually evolved into the American Association 

of School Librarians (AASL) in 1950. 118 Jenkins’s work on the history of 

the ALA’s Youth Services Divisions from 1939 to 1955 also pictures their 

professional networks within the ALA. 119 

Youth services libraries have collaborated with various social welfare 

agencies, but schools were the first and most critical institution in this 

regard. As noted earlier, the first school libraries were extensions of public 

library service. Large urban libraries often had an office or department 

with one or more librarians assigned exclusively to work with 

schools. In some cases, school/library cooperation eventually led to the 

establishment of public library branches within the school. Sometimes, 

however, common interests and goals meant that librarians were competing 

for the same funding sources. There have been numerous suggestions 

by advisory and legislative bodies that children’s library service 

should be provided by one agency rather than two to eliminate what was 

perceived as costly duplication. For example, a report issued by the State 

of New York’s Commissioner of Education recommended that all library 

service to children be transferred to elementary school libraries. This was 

never enacted, but the ensuing responses and discussions highlighted the

complex nature of school/library cooperation. J. Gordon Burke and 

Gerald Shields’s text begins with the text of the report, followed by 

responses from five youth services library leaders in New York at that 

time. 120 Budd Gambee’s study (rather eerily titled “An Alien Body”) 

describes problems in school/public library relations from 1876 to 

1920. 121 In the late 1940s conflicts between the school and public library 

sections of the ALA resulted in the formation of a separate school library 

organization, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), in 

1950. The story of this conflict is told from various perspectives in four 

different dissertations on the activities of the ALA’s youth services leadership 

at that time. 122 

Studies that place the history of youth services librarianship in the 

larger social context are beginning to appear. Among them are Virginia 

Mathews’s autobiographical account of connections between libraries 

and other agencies from a political perspective, along with Eileen 

Cooke’s article on the legislative history of funding for youth services in 

libraries. 123 Barbara Brand investigates the early connections between 

the female-intensive social welfare professions of librarianship, social 

work, and public health from 1870 to 1920. 124 Jella Lepman’s autobiographical 

account of her activities during the 1940s and 1950s in establishing 

an International Youth Library in Germany is a chatty narrative 

and travelogue describing the range of alliances she forged with social 

welfare and political organizations in pursuit of her library goal. 125 

Young Library Users 

121 

The five elements of youth services librarianship—specialized collections, 

rooms, personnel, and services in a network of other agencies and 

organizations—are assembled in order to provide libraries and library 

services to young people. Thus, the final element in this review is the 

young people themselves—the library users that provide the “why” of 

youth services librarianship. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, this 

most important component is also the least studied by library historians. 

Only a handful of historical studies have focused on young library users. 

Christine Pawley’s outstanding historical dissertation on the reading and 

library use of the residents of Osage, Iowa, in the 1890s has yielded two 

articles that examine children’s reading patterns. 126 Judith Gutman 

examined Lewis Hine’s photos for the New York Child Welfare Exhibit of 

1911 to glean information about the young library users being photographed. 

127 Abigail Van Slyck uses adults’ memoirs of their childhood 

public library experiences to describe the children’s room, collection, and 

librarian from the perspective of a young library user. 128 Reading Rooms, a 

lengthy (486-page) anthology of fiction and nonfiction about public


libraries, is not a study, but it also includes a number of autobiographical 

accounts by professional writers of themselves as young library users. 129 

Research Agenda 

A passage from Sidney Ditzion’s respected text, Arsenals of a Democratic 

Culture: A Social History of the American Public Library Movement in New 

England and the Middle States from 1850 to 1900, provides a telling starting 

point for considering the state of historiography of youth services librarianship. 

The years he describes from 1850 to 1900 saw the establishment 

of all five conditions of youth services librarianship: the first collections, 

space, personnel, and services for young library users in a network of 

other child welfare agencies and organizations. American public libraries 

pioneered this work; the library facilities and services they created continue 

to be a model for children’s libraries worldwide. Despite these 

momentous developments, a single sentence in Ditzion’s 200-page book 

describes the genesis of youth services librarianship: “The children’s 

room proper was an innovation of the last decade of the century.” 130 

Historians of youth services in libraries may feel daunted by the vast 

quantity of research that needs doing. On the other hand, by using 

Ditzion’s words as a baseline, we are reminded how far the field has come 

since 1947. 

Women’s Historiography: Lerner and Hildenbrand 

Pioneering women’s historian Gerda Lerner theorized a much-cited 

conceptual framework of research perspectives that describes the various 

stages of women’s inclusion in historiography. 131 Library historian 

Suzanne Hildenbrand built upon Lerner’s perspectives to create a theoretical 

model specific to scholarship on women in library history: (0) 

invisibility; (1) compensatory or contributions history; (2) discrimination 

or oppression history; (3) women’s cultural history; and (4) women in history. 

132 This typology begins with zero because the study of history, as it 

has been traditionally understood in Western culture, has not included 

women. That is, the presence of women is not denied, but their work and 

lives are assumed to exist solely in the shadow of men; women themselves 

are invisible. The first scholarly perspective that includes women 

is compensatory or contributions history. It is based on the assumption 

that the experiences of men and women have been basically similar and 

that the addition of some influential but hitherto overlooked Great 

Women is sufficient to effect the inclusion of women in history. The second 

perspective, discrimination or oppression history, assumes that male 

and female experiences have been fundamentally different and seeks to

document discrimination against women as a historically oppressed 

group. The third perspective, women’s cultural history, also assumes that 

male and female experiences have been fundamentally different but 

focuses instead on the historically undervalued activities in which women 

have engaged. The fourth and final perspective, the “women in history” 

model, is based on the assumption that men and women are neither completely 

similar or dissimilar but are instead influenced by a wide range of 

variables, including—but not limited to—gender. This awareness of the 

contextual gender system enables researchers to view more clearly the 

power relationships in a given context and how the various actors—male 

and female—fit into that frame. 

The model proposed by Lerner and modified by Hildenbrand may be 

used to understand not only the history of women generally but also the 

historiography of the extremely female-intensive specialization of youth 

services librarianship. First, youth services librarianship was absent from 

library history. Then, a few exceptional Great Youth Services Librarians 

began to appear in library history. Next, historians related accounts of 

the discrimination faced by youth services librarians inside and outside 

the profession; they also wrote about youth services work as a women’s 

culture. Finally, historians integrated women into history and youth services 

librarianship into the overall history of librarianship. Following a 

brief discussion of sources for information about the past, I will attempt 

to sketch a research agenda for the history of youth services librarianship 

based on the five categories identified earlier (collection, space, etc.) and 

adding users and other themes, always with Lerner’s typology in the 

background to suggest the range of questions still to be answered. This 

research agenda is by no means comprehensive but rather reflects the 

particular interests that I bring to this field. 

Primary Sources 

123 

When children are affected, adults are eager to advise and recommend. 

There is an abundance of prescriptive literature on all aspects of 

youth services librarianship. Contemporaneous published primary 

sources contain lists of recommended books, activities, decor, circulation 

procedures, bulletin board displays, audiovisual materials and programming, 

and so on, as well as advice on the ideal librarian’s personality, 

demeanor, and education. As yet, however, very few scholars have used 

descriptive primary sources as a “reality check” to the prescriptive literature. 

In addition, researchers have frequently succumbed to the temptation 

of using a single vivid quote to represent librarians’ views, without 

indicating when individuals were speaking for themselves and when their 

views represented a professional consensus.


Published sources are invaluable, but it may be possible to supplement 

them with unpublished institutional files, such as reports, minutes, correspondence, 

circulation records, personal papers, and work journals. 

Oral history is another underused primary source; historians examining 

the recent past should consider the value of conducting (and archiving) 

interviews. Unfortunately, difficulties arise in the use of existing 

recorded oral histories in formats for which playback equipment is no 

longer readily available, such as reel-to-reel audiotape and videotape. 

Specialized Collections 

The first library collections for young readers were more or less invisible, 

as readers of all ages drew their books from a single library collection. 

Lerner’s next perspective of contributions history is reflected in 

histories of early children’s collections like the Bingham library (see 

below). There were also early singular books, such as Alice in Wonderland, 

a book some consider to be the first book truly written for children, as 

well as early singular authors, illustrators, publishers, and journals. 

Children’s literature is well represented in discrimination history: children’s 

literature was—and is—rarely included in discussions of the 

canon, and otherwise respected authors’ works for children are often 

ignored by literary historians. Next, the cultural history of children’s literature 

accurately portrays it as a world unto itself, with its own awards, 

reviewing sources, evaluation criteria, and listservs. Finally, research 

could focus on children’s literature as part of an overall body of literature, 

children’s collections within the larger library collection, children’s 

authors among all authors, the censorship of children’s books as an event 

in a more global history of censorship. 

Librarians created numerous lists of recommended books and materials 

for children’s collections. What books were actually in the library collection? 

What books and other materials were excluded? In the 

professional literature, for example, much was written about the ill 

effects of series books. What was the actual incidence of series books in 

children’s collections? What part did book reviews, both in-house and in 

review journals, play in selection decisions? What can library collections 

tell us about the canon? 

Some McCarthy era library censorship campaigns were successful, 

while others were not. What role(s) did children’s librarians play in these 

varying outcomes? American Legion posts’ Americanism Committees, 

the National Organization for Decent Literature, and other procensorship 

groups sometimes targeted libraries. Did their pressure tactics have 

an effect on children’s library collections?

Specialized Space 

Without designated children’s space in the library, there is little physical 

evidence of children’s past library use, which in turn renders children’s 

library presence invisible. Early public libraries had age restrictions. How 

were these enforced? In the course of their gradual removal, were there 

similar patterns in libraries according to geographic area and size of 

community or library? 

The establishment of children’s rooms was a national phenomenon 

that took hold and spread throughout the country during the 1890s. 

What political, social, and cultural factors shaped this trend? What was 

the decision process by which a library gained a children’s area or room? 

Who was responsible? Librarians? Women’s clubs? A coalition effort? 

Adult library users? What arguments were used? How was the expense 

justified? Some of the first children’s rooms have been documented in 

floor plans or photos, but the process of their creation has not been 

examined in any depth. 

Some historians and other observers have viewed the common relegation 

of the children’s room to the library basement or other out-of-theway 

library locations as evidence of its second-class status. Others view 

this physical separation as a more positive move to allow children and 

children’s librarians control over their own space with minimal disturbance 

from others. How was the children’s space’s location seen by the 

librarians? By young library users? By adult library users? 

Children’s library space could usually be identified by the presence of 

low tables and chairs, but children’s rooms in diverse locations often had 

other common decor and design elements that appear to have signified 

the room’s identity as a space for children. What were these signifiers? 

What was the relation between this space and the rest of the library? 

How did the children’s room compare to other spaces being designed for 

children at that time, such as kindergartens, playgrounds, and hospital 

children’s wards? What influence did the Arts and Crafts domestic architecture 

of that time have on the decor of the library children’s room? 

Specialized Personnel: Librarians 

125 

According to Lerner’s model, once women ceased to be invisible to historians, 

their lives and work were studied using the first perspective of 

contributions or compensatory history, seeking to add a few Great 

Women to the field’s pantheon of Great Men. As noted earlier, this pattern 

also describes the historiography of youth services librarianship. 

Thus far, much of this history has focused on a handful of Great


Librarians from the first generation of professionals involved in library 

work with young people. The lives and work of some of these pioneers 

have been documented, particularly Minerva Sanders, Caroline Hewins, 

Lutie Stearns, and the omnipresent Anne Carroll Moore. Who were the 

others in that first generation of children’s librarians? 

The next generation of children’s librarians received specialized training 

at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Carnegie in Pittsburgh, or Case 

Western in Cleveland. Who were these students? What curriculum did 

they study? What was their work history following graduation? One 

model for this research can be found in Elizabeth Cardman’s groundbreaking 

study using student records to document the personal and professional 

lives of the 361 students who attended the Illinois Library 

School in its first fourteen years from 1893 to 1907. 133 What might student 

records tell historians about the graduates of the Carnegie Library 

of Pittsburgh’s Training School for Children’s Librarians, or about students 

who went into children’s work from other library school programs? 

The ideal personality and demeanor for the children’s librarian (sunny 

disposition, comfortable manner, boundless patience, good sense of 

humor, and relentlessly positive attitude) were no doubt familiar to practitioners. 

At the same time, the negative stereotype of a librarian pictured 

her (and it was always a “her”) quite differently—a grim-visaged 

spinster with an exaggerated sense of decorum. Is it possible to determine 

where reality lay between these two extreme images? What information 

might work journals or photographs reveal about children’s 

librarians in and out of the workplace? 

Historically, youth services librarianship has been a female-intensive 

specialization within a female-intensive field. In a field that has been 

over 97 percent female, the culture of youth services librarianship was a 

woman’s culture. The history of this profession is women’s cultural history, 

and the feminist theory that informs the study of women’s history 

can be usefully applied. In addition, for years youth services librarians 

had one of the lowest marriage rates of any profession. Thus the history 

of youth services librarians is the history of single women and could be 

viewed through that lens as well. 134 

Children’s librarianship was one of a number of female-intensive child 

welfare professions that grew out of Progressive Era social activism, and 

the histories of these professions are beginning to be written. 135 A comparative 

study of youth services librarians and women in other femaleintensive 

child welfare professions would be enlightening. How did the 

experiences of youth services librarians within the ALA compare to the 

experiences of elementary teachers within the NEA or those in the more 

child-oriented and presumably more female-intensive professional specializations 

within the American Nurses Association or the National

Association of Social Workers? 136 As these female-intensive groups 

worked within male-dominated professional organizations to achieve 

their goals, did they face similar barriers? Employ similar strategies? The 

meaning of such networks for individual librarians might be gleaned 

from their letters and other correspondence. 

Specialized Programs and Services 

At some point early in this history, there were no library-sponsored 

activities for children. What were the first activities for children? How 

did children’s programming become established, and how was it justified? 

What sort of resistance or encouragement did it encounter? Early public 

library children’s departments sponsored numerous children’s clubs. The 

official record connects them with reading, and one also finds mentions 

of library-sponsored walking and hiking clubs, sewing clubs, and nature 

clubs, as well as worker clubs for delivery boys, Western Union messengers, 

and young garment industry piece-workers. Are there any archival 

records of library clubs? Why did library clubs die out? How did they 

relate to other youth organizations and agencies, such as the Boy Scouts, 

Boys and Girls Clubs, the YMCA and YWCA? 

Public libraries sponsored regular radio and television programming 

aimed at reading promotion for children and teens. Children’s librarians 

provided library service to children in this country’s Japanese internment 

camps during World War II. What other services did youth services 

library outreach programs provide? What part did these programs play in 

the library’s overall outreach program? 

Professional Networks and the Wider Historical Context 

127 

Historically, children’s librarianship has been a fairly small field compared 

to teaching and nursing, so that children’s library services and 

their connections with other agencies remained invisible to many. How 

were connections between libraries, schools, and public health facilities 

initiated and established? This is now a potentially rich area of study 

because of recent historical work that has been done on other social and 

child welfare organizations. Histories of other child welfare organizations 

have been or are being written, but as yet they contain little information 

about the interrelated work and services of children’s libraries and 

librarians. 137 What role(s) did children’s libraries and librarians play in 

the general movement toward child welfare during the Progressive Era? 

We know that there were often strong connections between settlement 

house work and public library work. Caroline Hewins, for example, lived 

for twelve years in a settlement house in Hartford. Did other librarians


live in settlements, and what might their lives tell us about relations 

between urban libraries and urban settlements? What was the relationship 

of the public library with the schools, public health departments, 

and playgrounds? The kindergarten movement began somewhat earlier 

than children’s librarianship, and several studies of its history have been 

published. 138 Kindergarten work and children’s librarianship were often 

compared, and it was not uncommon for children’s librarians to have a 

background in kindergarten work. What were the connections between 

public libraries and librarians and kindergartens and kindergarten teachers? 

How did children’s librarians work with the General Federation of 

Women’s Clubs and other service organizations? 

At this point, studies generally focus on children’s, young adult, or 

school librarians. What might be learned by studying them together, as 

the contemporaries that they were? We need a history of youth services 

that encompasses both school and public libraries. 

The Public They Served: Young Library Users 

Thus far, the historical study of youth services librarianship has 

focused on the work from only one side of the desk. What of the library 

users? In order to understand this field fully, we need accounts from the 

viewpoint of the young people and the adults who made use of the services 

the library provided. How did children, parents, and teachers view 

the library as a place and as a service? 

A large part of youth services librarianship occurs on a one-to-one 

basis as librarians continually strive to put that “right book” into the 

hands of that “right child.” Many books, including many reference books, 

are devoted to this practice, but there has been little historical analysis 

of readers’ advisory work with young readers. 

Contextual History: Youth Services Librarianship in History 

All these professions were predicated on women’s access to higher 

education. There are several studies of women as they gained access to 

and entered the professions. 139 The history of youth services librarianship 

is part of this history. Youth services history could also inform and 

be informed by the history of publishing and the history of children’s 

literature. 

Children’s library service was one small part of a far larger governmental 

bureaucracy. Keeping it financially viable required consistent 

(and constant) advocacy within a public sector that was continually 

underfunded. The survival of children’s librarianship for the past one 

hundred or more years indicates that librarians have been successful

political players. What leadership style did children’s librarians employ? 

How did they utilize “women’s ways of knowing” to support women’s 

ways of wielding power? 

Histories of children and childhood are beginning to be written. 140 Few 

of these histories include any mention of children in libraries, while histories 

of libraries, from Ditzion’s time to our own, pay scant attention to 

youth services. We need institutional history that includes children’s history. 

We know children were there. The work of historians can make 

them visible. 

There was some early public library service to children in Great 

Britain, but the model for youth services librarianship as it is currently 

configured took shape and matured in the United States. Has the U.S. 

model been used in other countries? If so, how? If not, what other models 

have been followed? As in other areas having to do with women and 

children, youth services librarianship has been simultaneously revered 

and ignored throughout its illustrious history. 

Conclusion 

129 

According to Jesse Shera’s canonical history of early American 

libraries, Foundations of the Public Library, the founding of the Bingham 

Library for Youth in Salisbury, Connecticut, in 1803 was “the first 

instance in which a municipal governing body contributed active financial 

assistance to public library service.” 141 Thus, the first public library 

as the term is currently understood was a library created specifically for 

young people. Thirty-one years later, in 1834, the Peterborough, New 

Hampshire, Town Library was founded and became a far better-known 

claimant to the “earliest public library” designation. The Peterborough 

library was for residents of all ages, but Shera notes that more than half 

of its inaugural collection—approximately 200 books out of 370—were 

described as “the Juvenile Library,” or books for young readers. 142 Thus, 

from the very early years children have been a significant constituent 

group of library users. 

The early scholars of women’s history knew that women were present 

throughout the past—the task was not so much that of ferreting out an 

obscure history but that of making the invisible visible. The same holds 

true for library scholars who would place children—and the women (and 

some men) who worked with them—in the mainstream rather than the 

margins. If they have been invisible, it is because no one was looking for 

them; rather, they were unsought and thus unfound. But we know they 

were there. 

Contributions history is fine and should continue, but it is not enough. 

Discrimination history is certainly needed if only to respond to those who


insist that children’s librarians were not library directors simply because 

they didn’t wish to be. But even as we raise questions about apparent discrimination 

(why, for example, were children’s rooms so often relegated 

to the library’s basement?) we should continue using a cultural history 

perspective as well. What happened in those basement children’s rooms? 

What were librarians and young readers doing, saying, and reading? 

Finally, there is the perspective of women in history. Historically, children 

have been viewed as peripheral to history, and those who work with them 

have been dismissed as inconsequential. But the record tells a different 

story. Photos of children using libraries adorned annual reports from 

coast to coast. We know they were there. Now it is time to find them. 

The amount of work that remains to be done to even begin laying a 

foundation for a twenty-first-century history of youth services librarianship 

is daunting. There is so much to learn, so many questions to ask and 

answer, so much to make visible. 

An Ample Field, Amelia Munson’s 1950 book about the emerging field of 

young adult librarianship, begins with a chapter that describes the many 

responsibilities of this rewarding and demanding professional specialization. 

She ends her true-to-life account of library work with teenagers 

with a challenge to the reader: “Of course it’s a job! What did you think? 

Maybe you’re right. Maybe you ought to take up needlepoint instead.” 143 

Every page of Munson’s text promotes the growing field of library service 

to young adults with unflagging energy. Indeed, even at the close of 

twelve enthusiastic chapters, it appears that she could continue almost 

indefinitely. But instead she concludes and turns back to the work at 

hand, writing, “But all these things are not for telling now; / I have, God 

knows, an ample field to plow.” 144 

Historical research in youth services librarianship is an equally ample 

field that has lain fallow for far too long. It is time—and, I hope, not yet past 

time, given the potential fragility of print on paper resources—for historians 

to step up to this scholarship with the same positive problem-solving 

attitude and professional zeal characteristic of the profession itself. It is 

time to find and to write the history of youth services librarianship. 

Notes 

1. Margo Sasse, “Invisible Women: The Children’s Librarian in America,” 

Library Journal 98 (January 1973): 213–17. 

2. Mary Niles Maack, “Toward a History of Women in Librarianship: A 

Critical Analysis with Suggestions for Further Research,” Journal of Library History 

17 (Spring 1982): 164–85; Suzanne Hildenbrand, “ ‘Women’s Work’ within 

Librarianship: Time to Expand the Feminist Agenda,” Library Journal 114 

(September 1989): 153–55; Lillian N. Gerhardt, “Tilling the Field of Children’s 

Literature,” School Library Journal 45 (July 1999): 30–33.

131 

3. Oliver Garceau, The Public Library in the Political Process: A Report of the Public 

Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), 49. 

4. Robert D. Leigh, The Public Library in the United States: The General Report of 

the Public Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), 100. 

5. Leslie I. Poste, “The Public Library Inquiry,” Library Journal 74 

(September 1949): 1170; Frances Henne, “Special Discussion of Service for 

Children and Young People,” in Lester Asheim, ed., A Forum on the Public Library 

Inquiry: Conference at the University of Chicago Graduate Library School, August 8–13, 

1949 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), 237. 

6. Fannette H. Thomas, “The Genesis of Children’s Library Services in the 

American Public Library, 1876–1906” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of 

Wisconsin–Madison, 1982). 

7. Public Libraries in the United States of America (Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1876), 38–59, 412–18. 

8. Arthur E. Bostwick, The American Public Library (New York: D. Appleton, 

1910); W. C. Berwick Sayers, The Children’s Library: A Practical Manual for School, 

Public and Home Libraries (London and New York: George Routledge/Dutton, 

1911); J. W. Emery, The Library, the School and the Child (Toronto: Macmillan 1917); 

Alice I. Hazeltine, Library Work with Children (White Plains, N.J.: H. W. Wilson Co., 

1917); Sophie Powell, The Children’s Library: A Dynamic Factor in Education (New 

York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1917); Effie L. Power, Library Work with Children (Chicago: 

American Library Association, 1930); Lucile F. Fargo, The Library in the School 


9. American Library Association, Committee on Library Work with 

Children, Children’s Library Yearbook, vols. 1–4 (Chicago: American Library 

Association, 1929–1932). 

10. Frances Henne, Alice Brooks, and Ruth Ersted, eds., Youth, Communication 

and Libraries: Papers Presented before the Library Institute at the University of Chicago 

August 11–16, 1947 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1949). 

11. Harriet G. Long, Rich the Treasure: Public Library Service to Children 

(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1953). 

12. Elizabeth Nesbitt, “Library Service to Children,” Library Trends 3 (October 

1954): 118–28; Jean Roos, “Library Service to Young Adults,” Library Trends 3 

(October 1954). 

13. Garceau, The Public Library in the Political Process; Bernard Berelson, The 

Library’s Public: A Report of the Public Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia 


14. Elizabeth Henry Gross, Children’s Service in Public Libraries (Chicago: 


15. Dorothy Broderick, An Introduction to Children’s Work in Public Libraries (New 

York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1965); Elizabeth H. Gross, Public Library Service to Children 

(Dobbs Ferry: Oceana Publications, 1967). 

16. Gwendolen Rees, Libraries for Children: A History and a Bibliography (London: 

Grafton, 1924). 

17. Frances Clarke Sayers, “The Origins of Public Library Work with 

Children,” Library Trends 12 (July 1963): 6–13. 

18. Harriet G. Long, Public Library Service to Children: Foundation and 

Development (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1969). 

19. Clara O. Jackson, “Service to Urban Children,” in Sidney L. Jackson, 

Eleanor B. Herling, and E. J. Josey, eds., Century of Service: Librarianship in the 

United States and Canada (Chicago: American Library Association, 1976), 20–41;


Sara Innis Fenwick, “Library Services to Children and Young People,” Library 

Trends 25 (July 1976): 329–60. 

20. Dee Garrison, Apostles of Culture: The Public Librarian and American Society, 

1876–1920 (New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1979); Abigail Van Slyck, Free to All: 

Carnegie Libraries & American Culture, 1890–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1995); Alison M. Parker, Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform, and Pro- 

Censorship Activism, 1873–1933 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997). 

21. Manuel Lopez, “Children’s Libraries: Nineteenth Century American 

Origins,” Journal of Library History 11 (1976): 316–42; Thomas, “The Genesis.” 

22. Sybille Anna Jagusch, “First among Equals: Caroline M. Hewins and 

Anne C. Moore: Foundations of Library Work with Children” (Ph.D. dissertation, 

University of Maryland, 1990). 

23. Sister Marie Inez Johnson, “The Development of Separate Service for 

Young People in Public Libraries of the United States, and Its Implications for 

Library Schools” (master’s thesis, Columbia University, 1940). 

24. Miriam Braverman, Youth, Society, and the Public Library (Chicago: 


25. Fargo, The Library in the School. Four editions were published in 1930, 1933, 

1939, and 1947. 

26. Margaret I. Rufsvold, “History of School Libraries in the South,” Peabody 

Journal of Education 12 (July 1934): 14–18; Frances Lander Spain, “High School 

Libraries in the South,” in Will Carson Ryan, ed., Secondary Education in the South 

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1946), 95–114. 

27. Frederic D. Aldrich, The School Library in Ohio with Special Emphasis on Its 

Legislative History (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1959); Sister M. Constance Melvin, 

“A History of State Administration and Public School Libraries in Pennsylvania,” 

in John David Marshall, ed., Approaches to Library History: Proceedings of the Second 

Library History Seminar, Tallahassee, March 4–6, 1965 (Tallahassee: Journal of Library 

History, 1966), 106–18. 

28. Henry L. Cecil and Willard A. Heaps, School Library Services in the United 

States: An Interpretive Survey (New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1940). 

29. Paul Saettler, The Evolution of American Educational Technology (Englewood, 

Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1990); Gene Lanier, “The Transformation of School 

Libraries into Instructional Materials Centers” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of 

North Carolina, 1968). 

30. Kathy Latrobe, ed., The Emerging School Library Media Center: Historical 

Issues and Perspectives (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1998); Betty J. 

Morris, John T. Gillespie, and Diana L. Spirt, Administering the School Library Media 

Center, 3rd ed. (New Providence, N.J.: R. R. Bowker, 1992), 1–23. 

31. Patricia Pond, “A.A.S.L.: Origins and Development of a National 

Professional Association for School Librarians, 1896–1951” (Ph.D. dissertation, 

University of Chicago, 1982). 

32. Charles Koch, “A History of the American Association of School 

Librarians, 1950–1971” (Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Illinois University, 1975). 

33. Joanne Passet, Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West, 

1900–1917 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 111. 

34. Phyllis Dain, The New York Public Library: A History of Its Founding and Early 

Years (New York: New York Public Library, 1972), 299–306; C. H. Cramer, Open 

Shelves and Open Minds: A History of the Cleveland Public Library (Cleveland: Case 

Western Reserve University Press, 1972), 61–75; Rosemary Ruhig Dumont, 

Reform and Reaction: The Big City Public Library in American Life (Westport, Conn.: 

Greenwood Press, 1977), 85–95; Chieko Tachihata, “The History and

133 

Development of Hawaii Public Libraries: The Library of Hawaii and Hawaii State 

Library” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 1981). 

35. Section of Children’s Libraries, International Federation of Library 

Associations, ed., Library Service to Children: An International Survey (New York: 

K. G. Sauer, 1963, 1966, 1978, 1983). 

36. Gaetan Benoit, “Eugene Morel and Children’s Libraries in France,” 

Journal of Library History 20 (Summer 1985): 267–86; Mary Niles Maack, “L’Heure 

Joyeuse, the First Children’s Library in France: Its Contribution to a New 

Paradigm for Public Libraries,” Library Quarterly 63 (July 1993): 257–81; Lis 

Byberg, “Public Library Development in Norway in the Early Twentieth Century: 

American Influences and State Action,” Libraries & Culture 28 (Winter 1993): 

22–34; Iulia P. Malent’eva, “Youth Services in Russian Libraries in an Era of 

Social Change,” Libraries & Culture 33 (Winter 1998): 69–75; Lynne (E. F.) 

McKechnie, “Patricia Spereman and the Beginning of Canadian Public Library 

Work with Children,” Libraries & Culture 34 (Spring 1999): 135–50; Consuelo 

Figueras, “A Historical Appraisal of the Establishment, Development, Growth, 

and Impact of School Libraries in Puerto Rico, 1900–1984” (Ph.D. dissertation, 

Florida State University, 1990). 

37. Anne Pellowski, The World of Children’s Literature (New York: R. R. Bowker 

Co., 1968), 391. 

38. Cornelia Meigs, Elizabeth Nesbitt, Anne Thaxter Eaton, and Ruth Hill 

Viguers, A Critical History of Children’s Literature (New York: Macmillan, 1953; rev. 

ed. 1969); Pellowski, The World of Children’s Literature. 

39. Robin Gottlieb, Publishing Children’s Books in America, 1919–1976: An 

Annotated Bibliography (New York: Children’s Book Council, 1978); Richard 

Darling, The Rise of Children’s Book Reviewing in America, 1865–1881 (New York: 

R. R. Bowker, 1968). 

40. Barbara Bader, American Picturebooks from Noah’s Ark to the Beast Within (New 

York: Macmillan, 1976). 

41. Betsy Hearne, “Perennial Picture Books: Seeded by the Oral Tradition,” 

Journal of Youth Services in Libraries 12 (Fall 1998): 26–33. 

42. Sybille A. Jagusch, ed., Stepping away from Tradition: Children’s Books of the 

Twenties and Thirties (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1988); Barbara 

Bader, “American Picture Books: From Max’s Metaphorical Monsters to Lilly’s 

Purple Plastic Purse,” Horn Book 74 (March–April 1998): 141–56; Frances 

Lander Spain, ed., Reading without Boundaries: Essays Presented to Anne Carroll Moore 

on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Inauguration of Library Service to 

Children at the New York Public Library (New York: New York Public Library, 1956); 

Adele M. Fasick, Margaret Johnston, and Ruth Osler, eds., Lands of Pleasure: 

Essays on Lillian H. Smith and the Development of Children’s Libraries (Metuchen, N.J.: 


43. Alleen Pace Nilsen and Kenneth L. Donelson, Literature for Today’s Young 

Adults, 4th ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 545–79; Michael Cart, From 

Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature (New York: 

HarperCollins, 1996); Susan McEnally Jackson, “The History of the Junior Novel 

in the United States, 1870–1980” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North 

Carolina, 1986). 

44. Terri Payne Butler, “Moving Pictures: Morton Schindel Revisited,” Horn 

Book 74 (September–October 1998): 554–67. 

45. Christine Jenkins, “Professional Jurisdiction and ALA Youth Services 

Women: Of Nightingales, Newberies, Realism and the Right Books, 1937–1945,” 

Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 813–39.


46. Irene Smith, A History of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals (New York: Viking 

Press, 1957). 

47. Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books, 1922–1955; with Acceptance Papers, 

Biographies and Related Materials (Boston: Horn Book, 1955); Newbery and Caldecott 

Medal Books, 1956–1965; with Acceptance Papers, Biographies and Related Materials 

(Boston: Horn Book, 1965); Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books, 1966–1975; with 

Acceptance Papers, Biographies and Related Materials (Boston: Horn Book, 1975); 

Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books, 1976–1985; with Acceptance Papers, Biographies and 

Related Materials (Boston: Horn Book, 1986). 

48. Lyn Ellen Lacy, Art and Design in Children’s Picture Books: An Analysis of 

Caldecott Award–Winning Illustrations (Chicago: American Library Association, 

1986). 

49. Sheila Egoff, “Precepts and Pleasures: Changing Emphases in the 

Writing and Criticism of Children’s Literature,” in Sheila Egoff, G. T. Stubbs, 

and L. F. Ashley, eds., Only Connect: Readings on Children’s Literature (Toronto: 

Oxford University Press, 1969), 419–46; Julia Wood Lord, “The Cosmic World of 

Childhood: The Ideology of the Children’s Librarians, 1900–1965” (Ph.D. dissertation, 

Emory University, 1969). 

50. Mary Ellen Meacham, “The Development of Children’s Book Reviewing 

in Selected Journals from 1924–1984” (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Woman’s 

University, 1989). 

51. Joan Blodgett Peterson Olson, “An Interpretive History of the Horn Book 

Magazine, 1924–1973” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1976); Ann Weeks 

Carlson, “Zena Sutherland: Reviewer, Teacher, and Author,” Library Trends 44 

(Spring 1996): 776–93. 

52. Barbara Bader, “Realms of Gold and Granite,” Horn Book 75 

(September–October 1999): 524–31; Kathleen Krull, “Revisiting Eleanor, 

Marshall, and Roald,” Horn Book 75 (September–October 1999): 564–71; Betsy 

Hearne and Christine Jenkins, “Sacred Texts: What Our Foremothers Left Us in 

the Way of Psalms, Proverbs, Precepts, and Practices,” Horn Book 75 

(September–October 1999): 536–58. 

53. Rita J. Smith, “Just Who Are These Women? Louise Seaman Bechtel and 

Ruth Marie Baldwin,” Journal of Youth Services in Libraries 11 (Winter 1998): 

161–70; Barbara Bader, “Macmillan Children’s Books, 1919–1995,” Horn Book 71 

(September–October 1995): 548–61. 

54. Betsy Hearne, “Margaret K. McElderry and the Professional Matriarchy 

of Children’s Books,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 755–75. 

55. Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with Margaret K. McElderry—Part 1,” 

Horn Book 70 (November–December 1993): 692–704; Leonard Marcus, “An 

Interview with Margaret K. McElderry—Part 2,” Horn Book 71 (January–February 

1994): 34–45; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with William Morris,” Horn Book 71 

(January–February 1995): 37–46; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with Susan 

Hirschman, Part 1,” Horn Book 72 (March–April 1996): 34–45; Leonard Marcus, 

“An Interview with Susan Hirschman, Part 2,” Horn Book 72 (May–June 1996): 

282–94; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with Ethel Heins,” Horn Book 72 

(November–December 1996): 694–706; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with 

Walter Lorraine,” Horn Book 74 (January–February 1998): 168–72; Barbara Bader, 

“William R. Scott, Publisher,” Horn Book 74 (July–August 1998): 459–64; Leonard 

Marcus, “An Interview with Dorothy Briley,” Horn Book 74 (November–December 

1998): 693–702; Leonard Marcus, “An Interview with Phyllis Fogelman,” Horn 

Book 75 (March–April 1999): 148–63.

135 

56. Leonard Marcus, Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (New York: 

HarperCollins, 1998). 

57. Leonard Marcus, Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon (Boston: 

Beacon Press, 1992). 

58. Trudi Abel, “A Man of Letters, a Man of Business: Edward Stratemeyer 

and the Adolescent Reader, 1890–1920” (Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, 

1993); Deidre Johnson, Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer Syndicate (New York: 

Twayne Publishers, 1993). 

59. Power, Library Work with Children, 72–75. 

60. Paul Deane, Mirrors of American Culture: Children’s Fiction Series in the 

Twentieth Century (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1991); Faye R. Kensinger, 

Children of the Series & How They Grew: or, A Century of Heroines & Heroes, Romantic, 

Comic, Moral (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular 

Press, 1987). 

61. Larry D. Dorrell, Dan B. Curtis, and Kuldip R. Rampal, “Book-Worms 

without Books? Students Reading Comic Books in the School House,” Journal of 

Popular Culture 29 (Fall 1995): 223–34; Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The 

History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1998), 1–21. 

62. Joseph E. Bryson and Elizabeth W. Detty, Legal Aspects of Censorship of Public 

School Library and Instructional Material (Charlotteville, Va.: Michie Co., 1982). 

63. Parker, Purifying America. 

64. Margaret N. Coughlan, “Guardians of the Young . . . ” Top of the News 33 

(Winter 1977): 137–48; Christine Jenkins, “ ‘Since So Many of Today’s Librarians 

Are Women’: Women and Intellectual Freedom in U.S. Librarianship, 

1890–1990,” in Suzanne Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library Past: 

Writing the Women In (New York: Ablex, 1996), 221–49; Louise S. Robbins, 

Censorship and the American Library: The American Library Association’s Response to 

Threats to Intellectual Freedom, 1939–1969 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 

1966), 136–37. 

65. Christine Jenkins, “The Strength of the Inconspicuous: Youth Services 

Librarians, the American Library Association, and Intellectual Freedom for the 

Young, 1939–1955” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1995). 

66. Ralph D. Wagner, “Not Recommended: A List for Catholic High School 

Libraries, 1942,” Libraries & Culture 30 (Spring 1995): 170–98. 

67. Nancy Larrick, “The All-White World of Children’s Books,” Saturday 

Review 11 (September 1965): 63–65, 84–85. 

68. Joseph A. Alvarez, “The Lonesome Boy Theme as Emblem for Arna 

Bontemps’s Children’s Literature,” African American Review 32 (Spring 1998): 

23–31; Barbara Bader, “History Changes Color: A Story in Three Parts,” Horn 

Book 73 (January–February 1997): 91–98. 

69. Beryl Banfield, “Commitment to Change: The Council on Interracial 

Books for Children and the World of Children’s Books,” African American Review 32 

(Spring 1998): 17–22. 

70. Violet J. Harris, “African American Children’s Literature: The First One 

Hundred Years,” Journal of Negro Education 59 (1990): 540–65; Rudine Sims, 

Shadow & Substance: Afro-American Experience in Contemporary Children’s Fiction 

(Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1982); Kay E. 

Vandergrift, “Feminist Perspective on Multicultural Children’s Literature in the 

Middle Years of the Twentieth Century,” Library Trends 41 (Winter 1993): 

354–77; Dorothy M. Broderick, Image of the Black in Children’s Fiction (New York: 

R. R. Bowker, 1973).


71. Nancy Tolson, “Making Books Available: The Role of Early Libraries, 

Librarians and Booksellers in the Promotion of African-American Children’s 

Literature,” African American Review 32 (Spring 1998): 9–16; Cheryl Knott 

Malone, “Louisville Free Public Library’s Racially Segregated Branches, 

1905–1935,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 93 (Spring 1995): 159–79. 

72. George Sylvan Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries: Their History and Impact on 

American Library Development (Chicago: American Library Association, 1969). 

73. Van Slyck, Free to All, 160–216. 

74. Fannette H. Thomas, “Early Appearances of Children’s Reading Rooms 

in Public Libraries,” Journal of Youth Services in Libraries 4 (Fall 1990): 81–85. 

75. Gerald S. Greenberg, “ ‘On the Roof of the Library Nearest You’: 

America’s Open-Air Libraries, 1905–1944,” Library History Round Table, ALA 

Annual Conference, New Orleans, 28 June 1999. 

76. George S. Bobinski, Jesse H. Shera, and Bohdan S. Wynar, eds., Dictionary 

of American Library Biography (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1978); Wayne 

A. Wiegand, Supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Englewood, 

Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1990). 

77. Edward A. Goedeken, “ ‘The Rainbow Survivors of Some Vanished Grey 

Moment of Reality’: A Prosopographical Study of the Dictionary of American Library 

Biography and Its Supplement,” Libraries & Culture 30 (Spring 1995): 153–69. 

78. Garrison, Apostles of Culture; Dee Garrison, “The Tender Technicians: The 

Feminization of American Public Librarianship, 1876–1905,” Journal of Social 

History 10 (1975): 99–105. 

79. Donald G. Davis, Jr., and John Mark Tucker, American Library History: A 

Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1989), 

3343–44. 

80. Julie Cumins, “ ‘Let Her Sound Her Trumpet’: NYPL Children’s 

Librarians and Their Impact on the World of Publishing,” Biblion 1 (Spring 

1993): 83–114; Julie Cumins, “Moore Than Meets the Eye,” School Library Journal 

45 (July 1999): 26–29; Anne Lundin, “Anne Carroll Moore [1871–1961]: ‘I Have 

Spun out a Long Thread,’” in Hildenbrand, ed., Reclaiming the American Library 

Past, 187–204; Barbara Bader, “Only the Best: The Hits and Misses of Anne 

Carroll Moore,” Horn Book 73 (September–October 1997): 520–28; Margaret K. 

McElderry, “Remarkable Women: Anne Carroll Moore and Company,” School 

Library Journal 38 (March 1992): 156–62. 

81. Anne M. Poor, “Anne Carroll Moore: The Velvet Glove of Librarianship” 

(master’s thesis, Southern Connecticut State College, 1966); Frances Clarke Sayers, 

Anne Carroll Moore (New York: Athenaeum, 1972); Jagusch, First among Equals. 

82. Caroline M. Hewins and Jennie D. Lindquist, Caroline Hewins: Her Book 

(Boston: Horn Book, 1954); Caroline M. Hewins, Recommended Books for Boys and 

Girls (Chicago: American Library Association, 1882). 

83. E. D. Sword, “Mary Gould Davis: Her Contribution to Storytelling” (master’s 

thesis, Southern Connecticut State College, 1972). 

84. Eleanor Cameron, “The Inimitable Frances,” Horn Book 67 (March–April 

1991): 180–85; Ethel L. Heins, “Frances Clarke Sayers: A Legacy,” Horn Book 66 

(January–February 1990): 99–109. 

85. Augusta Baker, “My Years As a Children’s Librarian,” in E. J. Josey, ed., 

The Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1970), 117–23; 

Maxine Modell Merriman, “Augusta Baker: Exponent of the Oral Art of 

Storytelling: Utilizing Video as a Medium” (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Woman’s 

University, 1983); Henrietta M. Smith, “Augusta Baker,” Horn Book 70 

(March–April 1995): 292–96.

137 

86. Christine Pawley, “Advocate for Access: Lutie Stearns and the Wisconsin 

Free Library Commission,” Libraries & Culture (forthcoming). 

87. Margaret B. Becker, “Effie Louise Power: Pioneer in the Development of 

Library Services for Children” (master’s thesis, Western Reserve University, 

1950). 

88. Nancy Becker Johnson, “Sarah C. N. Bogle: Librarian at Large” (Ph.D. 

dissertation, University of Michigan, 1991). 

89. Dorothy J. Anderson, “Mildred L. Batchelder: A Study in Leadership” 

(Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Woman’s University, 1977). 

90. Betsy Hearne, “Margaret K. McElderry and the Professional Matriarchy 

of Children’s Books,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 755–75. 

91. Janice Fisher Giles, “Siddie Joe Johnson and the Dallas Public Library: A 

History of Service to Children,” Journal of Youth Services in Libraries 6 (Fall 1992): 

67–71. 

92. Julio L. Hernandez-Delgado, “Pura Teresa Belpre, Storyteller and 

Pioneer Puerto Rican Librarian,” Library Quarterly 62 (1992): 425–40. 

93. Karen Patricia Smith, “Initiative and Influence: The Contributions of 

Virginia Haviland to Children’s Services, Research, and Writing,” Library Trends 

44 (Spring 1996): 736–54. 

94. Edith Guerrier, An Independent Woman: The Autobiography of Edith Guerrier, 

ed. and introduction by Molly Matson (Amherst: University of Massachusetts 

Press, 1992). 

95. Budd L. Gambee, “A Firm Persuasion: The Career of Mary Peacock 

Douglas,” North Carolina Libraries 43 (1985): 72–86; Mary Virginia Gaver, A Braided 

Cord: Memoirs of a School Librarian (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988); Billie 

Grace U. Herring, “Alice S. Harrison: Pioneer School Librarian, 1882–1967” 

(master’s thesis, University of Texas, 1968). 

96. Frances Clarke Sayers, “Anne Eaton of Lincoln School,” Horn Book 23 

(1947): 331–39. 

97. Joan Atkinson, “Pioneers in Public Library Service to Young Adults,” Top 

of the News 43 (1986): 27–44; Patty Campbell, Two Pioneers of Young Adult Library 

Services (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1998); Jane Anne Hannigan, “A Feminist 

Analysis of the Voices for Advocacy in Young Adult Services,” Library Trends 44 

(Spring 1996): 851–74. 

98. Effie L. Power, “Children’s Librarians Section of the ALA,” ALA Bulletin 

19 (March 1925): 102. 

99. Mildred Batchelder, “The Leadership Network in Children’s 

Librarianship: A Remembrance,” in Jagusch, ed., Stepping away from Tradition, 

71–120; Margaret Bush, “New England Book Women: Their Increasing 

Influence,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 719–35. 

100. Anne Lundin, “The Pedagogical Context of Women in Children’s Services 

and Literature Scholarship,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 840–50. 

101. Fannette H. Thomas, “Home Libraries: A Look in the Past of Children’s 

Services,” Journal of Youth Services in Libraries 6 (Fall 1992): 41–52; Joane E. Passet, 

“Reaching the Rural Reader: Traveling Libraries in America, 1892–1920,” 

Libraries & Culture 26 (Winter 1991): 100–118; Christine Pawley, “Advocate for 

Access: Lutie Stearns and the Traveling Libraries of the Wisconsin Free Library 

Commission, 1895–1914,” Libraries & Culture (forthcoming). 

102. Passet, Cultural Crusaders, 79–101; Pawley, “Advocate for Access”; 

Christine Jenkins, “ALA Youth Services Librarians and the CARE-UNESCO 

Children’s Book Fund: Selecting the ‘Right Book’ for Children in Cold War


America, 1950–1958,” Libraries & Culture 3 (Winter 1996): 209–34; Jella Lepman, 

A Bridge of Children’s Books, trans. Edith McCormick (Leicester, U.K.: 

Brockhampton Press; Chicago: American Library Association, 1969). 

103. Pond, “A.A.S.L.”; Fargo, The Library in the School. 

104. Jill L. Locke, “Summer Reading Activities—Way Back When,” Journal of 

Youth Services in Libraries 6 (Fall 1992): 72–78; Carol A. Doll, “Audiovisual 

Materials and Programming for Children: A Long Tradition,” Journal of Youth 

Services in Libraries 6 (Fall 1992): 53–62. 

105. Lillian K. Orsini, “Reference Service to Children—Past, Present, and 

Future,” in Melvin J. Voigt, ed., Advances in Librarianship, vol. 1 (New York: 

Academic Press, 1970), 159–70. 

106. Paula Quint, “A Celebration of Reading: 75 Years of National Children’s 

Book Week,” School Library Journal 40 (November 1994): 22–25; Leonard S. 

Marcus, ed., 75 Years of Children’s Book Week Posters: Celebrating Great Illustrators of 

American Children’s Books (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1994); Lynn S. Cockett, “Writing 

for Parents about Children’s Literature in Mass Market Publications, 

1900–1950,” Library Trends 44 (Spring 1996): 794–812. 

107. Anne Pellowski, The World of Storytelling (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1990); 

Richard Gerald Alvey, “The Historical Development of Organized Story-Telling 

to Children in the United States” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 

1974); Ellin Green, Storytelling: Art and Technique (New Providence, N.J.: R. R. 

Bowker, 1996). 

108. Ruth A. Hill, “Story-Telling around the World: A Symposium: Part I: 

United States,” Library Journal 65 (April 1940): 285–89; Blanche Weber, “Story- 

Telling around the World: A Symposium: Part II: Europe,” Library Journal 65 (May 

1940): 379–81; Frances W. Trotter, “Story-Telling around the World: A 

Symposium: Part III: Canada,” Library Journal 65 (June 1940): 484–87; Ann M. 

Faender and Eloise W. Winstedt, “Story-Telling around the World: A Symposium: 

Hawaii,” Library Journal 65 (July 1940): 574–77; Hildamar Escalante, “Story- 

Telling around the World: A Symposium: South America,” Library Journal 65 

(August 1940): 624–27. 

109. Sword, “Mary Gould Davis”; Merriman, “Augusta Baker”; Baker, “My 

Years as a Children’s Librarian”; Smith, “Augusta Baker.” 

110. Janice DelNegro, “A Change of Storyteller: Folktales in Children and Books 

from Arbuthnot to Sutherland,” Library Trends 47 (Winter 1999): 579–601. 

111. Braverman, Youth, Society, and the Public Library. 

112. Miriam Braverman, “Youth, Unemployment, and Work with Young 

Adults,” Journal of Library History 16 (1981): 353–64. 

113. Kathleen W. Craver, “Social Trends in American Young Adult Library 

Service, 1960–1969,” Libraries & Culture 23 (Winter 1988): 18–28. 

114. Catherine Reed Murray Burr, “Missouri Association of School Librarians, 

1950–1975” (Ph.D. dissertation, St. Louis University, 1981). 

115. Elizabeth Burr, “Wisconsin Public Library Service to Children: Its History 

and Development from 1872 to 1984,” Wisconsin Library Bulletin 79 (Winter 1984): 

138–46. 

116. Anderson, “Mildred L. Batchelder.” 

117. Marilyn H. Karrenbrock, “A History and Analysis of Top of the News,” 

Journal of Youth Services in Libraries 1 (1987): 29–43. 

118. Pond, “A.A.S.L.”; Koch, “A History.” 

119. Jenkins, “Strength of the Inconspicuous.” 

120. Gordon Burke and Gerald R. Shields, Children’s Library Service: School or 

Public? (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974).

139 

121. Budd L. Gambee, “ ‘An Alien Body’: Relationships between the Public 

Library and the Public Schools, 1876–1920,” in Ball State University Library Science 

Lectures, First Series (Muncie, Ind.: Department of Library Science, Ball State 

University, 1973), 1–23. 

122. Anderson, “Mildred L. Batchelder”; Pond, “A.A.S.L.”; Koch, “A History”; 

Jenkins, “Strength of the Inconspicuous.” 

123. Virginia H. Mathews, “Kids Couldn’t Wait Then Either, but Sometimes 

They Had To,” American Libraries 28 (June–July 1997): 76–80; Eileen Cooke, “The 

Political Viability of Youth Services: A Bit of Legislative History,” Bottom Line 7 

(Winter–Spring 1994): 21–25. 

124. Barbara Elizabeth Brand, “The Influence of Higher Education on Sex- 

Typing in Three Professions, 1870–1920: Librarianship, Social Work, and Public 

Health” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1978). 

125. Lepman, A Bridge of Children’s Books; Robert Sink, “Democratic Images: 

Children in the Library: Lewis Hine’s Photographs for the Child Welfare Exhibit 

of 1911,” Biblion 1 (Spring 1993): 12–18. 

126. Christine Pawley, “ ‘What to Read and How to Read’: The Social 

Infrastructure of Children’s Reading, Osage, Iowa, 1870–1900,” Library Quarterly 

68 (July 1998): 276–97; Christine Pawley, “Better than Billiards: Reading and the 

Public Library in Osage, Iowa, 1890–1895,” in James P. Danky and Wayne A. 

Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse America: Essays on the Historical Sociology of 

Print (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998). 

127. Judith Mara Gutman, “Democratic Images: Lewis Hine’s Library 

Photographs: A Critic’s View,” Biblion 1 (Spring 1993): 25–38. 

128. Van Slyck, Free to All, 201–16. 

129. Susan Allen Toth and John Coughlan, eds., Reading Rooms: America’s 

Foremost Writers Celebrate Our Public Libraries with Stories, Memoirs, Essays, and Poems 

(New York: Doubleday, 1991). 

130. Sidney Ditzion, Arsenals of a Democratic Culture: A Social History of the 

American Public Library Movement in New England and the Middle States from 1850 to 

1900 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1947), 96. 

131. Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1979). 

132. Suzanne Hildenbrand, “Some Theoretical Considerations on Women in 

Library History,” Journal of Library History 18 (1983): 382–90. 

133. Elizabeth R. Cardman, “Interior Landscapes: Personal Perspectives on 

Professional Lives: The First Generation of Librarians at the Illinois Library 

School, 1893–1907” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana- 

Champaign, 1996). 

134. Studies in this area include Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and 

Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 

1985); Lee Chambers-Schiller, Liberty a Better Husband: Single Women in America: 

The Generations of 1780–1840 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984); 

Joanne J. Meyerowitz, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago (Chicago: 

University of Chicago Press, 1988). 

135. There are several studies that focus on the women in these femaleintensive 

child welfare professions. See Robyn Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion 

in American Reform, 1890–1935 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Linda 

Gordon, Putting Children First: Women, Maternalism, and Welfare in the Twentieth 

Century (Madison: University of Wisconsin–Madison, Institute for Research on 

Poverty, 1993); Molly Ladd-Taylor, Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State, 

1890–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).


136. One example of this scholarship is Marjorie Murphy, Blackboard Unions: 

The AFT and the NEA, 1900–1980 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990). 

137. There are a number of studies that focus on the child welfare agencies 

and work that grew out of the Progressive Era. They include Walter I. Trattner, 

Crusade for the Children: A History of the National Child Labor Committee and Child Labor 

in America (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970); Dominick Carvallo, Muscles and 

Morals: Organized Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880–1920 (Philadelphia: University 

of Pennsylvania Press, 1981); Murray and Adeline Levine, Helping Children: A 

Social History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Duncan Lindsey, The 

Welfare of Children (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Eve P. Smith and 

Lisa A. Merkel-Holguin, eds., History of Child Welfare (New Brunswick, N.J.: 

Transaction Publishers, 1996); Kriste Lindenmeyer, A Right to Childhood: The U.S. 

Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912–1946 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 

1997); Ruth Hutchinson Crocker, Social Work and Social Order: The Settlement 

Movement in Two Industrial Cities, 1889–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 

1992). 

138. Studies of kindergarten teachers and the kindergarten movement include 

Elizabeth Dale Ross, The Kindergarten Crusade: The Establishment of Preschool 

Education in the United States (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976); Michael 

Steven Shapiro, Child’s Garden: The Kindergarten Movement from Froebel to Dewey 

(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983); and Norman 

Brosterman, Inventing Kindergarten (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1997). 

139. Examples of these studies include Barbara Harris, Beyond Her Sphere: 

Women and the Professions in American History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 

1978); Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the 

United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Joyce Antler, The 

Educated Woman and Professionalization: The Struggle for a New Feminine Identity, 

1890–1920 (New York: Garland, 1987). 

140. A number of studies on the history of childhood, children, and adolescents 

have been written. Among them are Grace Palladino, Teenagers: An American 

History (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Harvey J. Graff, ed., Conflicting Paths: 

Growing Up in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); 

Elliott West and Paula Petrik, eds., Small Worlds: Children and Adolescents in America, 

1850–1950 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992); N. Ray Hiner and 

Joseph M. Hawes, eds., Growing Up in America: Children in Historical Perspective 

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); David Nasaw, Children of the City: At 

Work and Play (Garden City: Doubleday, 1985). 

141. Jesse H. Shera, Foundations of the Public Library: The Origins of the Public 

Library Movement in New England, 1629–1855 (Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1949), 160. 

142. Ibid., 64–65. 

143. Amelia H. Munson, An Ample Field (Chicago: American Library 

Association, 1950), 11. 

144. Ibid., 116.

The Failure or Future of American Archival 

History: A Somewhat Unorthodox View 

Richard J. Cox 

The quality of research on American archival history has been uneven 

and the quantity not very impressive. This essay reviews some of the highlights 

of American archival history research, especially the growing interest 

in cultural and public history that has produced some studies of 

interest to scholars curious about the history of archives. The essay also 

focuses more on why such research still seems so far removed from the 

interests of most archivists. The essay will consider some hopeful signs, 

such as the re-emergence of records and record-keeping systems as a core 

area for study, for a renewed emphasis on American archival history. While 

much needs to be done, I am optimistic that the golden age of historical 

research on American archives lies ahead. 

Introduction 

Today, many lament the loss of historical perspectives in library and 

information science education and practice. Donald G. Davis, Jr., asks the 

following: “Where do the values that have informed us for millennia have 

a place—or do they at all?” 1 It is ironic that American archivists face a 

similar challenge, given the long-term tradition of history in this field 

and the many professionals who have such educational backgrounds. 2 

But they do, perhaps as a result of other priorities, an educational infrastructure 

only beginning to focus individuals on archives and records as 

important topics for study, and a weak self-image that sustains minimal 

desire for publishing historical scholarship. 

At first glance, the state of American archival history appears not to be 

a significant problem. There continues to be published a fair number of 

histories of archival programs and biographies within mainstream professional 

journals. This suggests that all is well. However, this idea of 

what constitutes archival history is too narrow. Besides, there continues 

to be a lack of broader, more substantive histories of record keeping, 

archival development, and archival theory and practice, indicating that 

the historical dimension in the professional education and work of 



142 L&C/American Archival History 

archivists is somewhat lacking. There are few in the field who seem able 

to connect such aspects into a more holistic view of archival history. 

My 1983 essay was the first effort to summarize and describe the varied 

and sometimes rich literature on the history of American archives. In 

that essay I noted that there still remained a need for extensive state histories, 

institutional histories, regional histories, and a single-volume synthesis. 

3 All remain needs fifteen years later. I discovered when I reviewed 

the literature in the early 1990s that a decade after my initial survey very 

little new research had been done of any quality and certainly not any 

that created much of a blip on the radar screen of historical research. 4 

The best histories of our national archives are twenty to thirty years old, 5 

and the best efforts to write an overview analysis of historical societies 

are nearly forty years old. 6 There also remains only one comprehensive 

history of archival development in a single state, and it is more than 

three decades old. 7 While there have been important new uses of primary 

sources for smaller studies, there have been few major monographs 

on archival history topics completed in the last twenty years. 8 

I should note that the genesis of my own research and writing developed 

as a result of my trying to understand the evolution of archives 

and records programs I worked in, leading to research conducted for a 

master’s thesis on the development of early Maryland archives. I 

worked on this type of research and writing with the logical assumption 

that a historical perspective would help me to understand in a better 

fashion what I was working on and the reason why things were as they 

were in the organizations and profession in which I labored. I also drew 

on my own experience to write a rationale for the value of archival history. 

9 While this essay has always been favorably commented on and 

cited, it has not—it seems to me—led to a great upsurge of interest 

among the archival community for writing on archival history. In hindsight, 

it may be that such a practical emphasis led to a very internally 

focused inquiry that works against broader and more engaging research 

and scholarship. 10 

Promising Developments for Historical Research within Archivy 

There are some promising signs within the American archival discipline 

regarding research on archival history. The expansion of graduate 

education has led to a stronger curriculum with a more serious focus on 

research and an attempt to attract students with an interest in archives 

to doctoral programs. As of yet, there have been few contributions to 

archival history that have had a major impact on the field or on others 

working in related realms. With what has been done, however, we can see 

a more sophisticated reliance on and interpretation of sources. 11

Moreover, some new developments, such as the creation of new bibliographic 

standards, have led to analyses that provide a broader (if still 

applied) historical background of theory and practices. 12 

There has been a peripheral connection of education to an interest in 

history. With the emergence of a North American interest in the theoretical 

approach of diplomatics as a means for understanding records 

and record-keeping systems, there has been a revisiting of older ideas of 

archival science. 13 This has led to a re-articulation of archival history. 

Although not directly connected to American archival history, Richard 

Brown’s essay on a medieval record keeper shows the way for future 

work. Brown argues that archivists must not superimpose modern concepts 

of records on earlier concerns to manage records, especially as this 

has been seen in the rebirth of diplomatics as the crux of an archival science. 

Rather, archivists must be willing to understand the historical 

development of records management for what it tells us about records, 

not for what it suggests about an archivist’s or records manager’s current 

professional image. 14 

There are other promising trends in research about archival history. 

There continues to be a steady, if unspectacular, number of articles published 

on this topic in the primary North American journals in the field. 

Since 1990 every other issue of Archivaria and one in three issues of the 

American Archivist have included an essay on archival history. However, this 

does not bode well for understanding American archival history, since 

many of these essays focus on Europe. 15 More important, however, has 

been the trend toward essays reliant on archival sources and those that 

establish parameters for a broader understanding of records and 

archives. 16 Members of the American archival profession are old enough 

now to write and publish memoirs, most notably Robert Warner’s account 

of his effort to lead the U.S. National Archives back to an independent 

agency status. Memoirs have notorious problems in terms of their veracity 

and utility, but Warner’s story is a compelling addition to the rich and 

troubled history of this institution—an institution that has been intertwined 

with the historical evolution of the American archival profession. 17 

Even with these encouraging aspects, however, it is readily obvious that 

American archival history is a weak link in the professional chain. 

Glimpses from Outside 

143 

What is not a weak link, however, is the growing interest by those outside 

the archival and records profession in the historical evolution of 

writing, records, record keeping, archives, and historical sources. This 

interest is emerging in studies of the history of literacy, public memory, 

the culture wars, and the computer’s societal impact.


The historical study of literacy has become a prime source of understanding 

how record-keeping systems have emerged. Archivists first 

became aware of this area of scholarship in 1979 when M. T. Clanchy 

published his work on the origins of records systems in medieval 

England, a far-reaching and pioneering study that bridged the gap 

between orality and writing and foresaw what was occurring in contemporary 

society with computers. 18 While much of this scholarship may 

seem irrelevant to the American archivist because it concerns either 

ancient or medieval notions of literacy and writing, the scholarship does 

reaffirm more recent notions of records as transactions and challenges 

many of the assumptions made about the origins of archives. At the least, 

scholarship in this area has led to some major re-assessments about writing 

with more detail about how records represent writing systems. 19 

Rosalind Thomas’s work on Greece and Rome, for example, directly confronts 

long-accepted notions of centralized government archives. 20 The 

re-creation of the medieval notion of record keeping, because of the 

renewed interest in diplomatics as a core component of archival science, 

is certainly challenged in studies by individuals such as Patrick Geary, 

who demonstrate how unsystematic these early record keepers seemed to 

be. 21 More directly relevant are the works by David Cressy on English literacy 

in the era of American colonization. Cressy provides an interesting 

perspective on document formation, the uses of communication, and the 

power of records and information in Tudor, Elizabethan, and Stuart 

England—all laying the groundwork for a fuller understanding of early 

American record keeping. 22 

The studies of historical literacy have also challenged stereotypical 

notions of the evolution of writing and records. In an important set of 

essays on alternative literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes, a portrait 

of nontextual writing and record keeping describes how, “in this particular 

Amerindian writing tradition, a pictorial system is better suited to an 

environment where a multitude of often unrelated languages is spoken, 

allowing communication across language boundaries. By nature, alphabetic 

writing systems lack this flexibility.” 23 Such insights have great 

potential for helping us to re-interpret the development of records and 

archives, discerning that it is not merely the textual information that 

makes them valuable but their role as evidence and symbol. 

The larger context for the development of archives may be the idea of 

public memory, a strong new focus for studying the meaning of the past 

that is enriched by interdisciplinary research. 24 Archives—both the individual 

records/collections and the institutional repositories—are clearly 

a symbolic marker on the landscape. Archives mark the past and are 

formed by the past. Elsewhere I have written about how scholarship on 

public memory has managed to avoid specific or in-depth discussion of

145 

archives and historical records. 25 But the scholarship has become so vast 

and far-reaching that it is hard not to see it as providing a more substantial 

framework for understanding at least the cultural significance 

(there are other significant noncultural aspects as well) of the origins 

and subsequent development of archives. 

Since the end of the Second World War many have written about how 

other nations are struggling to remember aspects of the horrific acts of 

their forebears. Some of these works have discussed the manner in which 

records are being or have been used or neglected for such purposes. 26 

While other wars have spurred on the collecting and preservation of 

records, the aftermath of the Second World War has led to a contested 

context for the meaning of records. 27 In fact, studies about remembering 

painful past events have much to inform archivists about the origins and 

nature of their profession and its institutions. 28 Some of this has led to 

considerable debate about the meaning and value of archives, from the 

Civil War to the end of the Second World War. 29 Ironically, this contested 

past, as in the interpretation and memory of the Second World War, has 

also been tied to developments that suggest the importance of records in 

general and archives in particular. This has been most evident in the controversy 

surrounding the role of Swiss banks in financing Adolf Hitler 

and subsequent generations’ efforts to lay claims to assets left by and 

stolen from Holocaust victims. 30 The result has been powerful social 

pressure to move archives from dusty bins visited by scholars to the front 

pages of newspapers and on the table before public policymakers. This 

suggests a different kind of archival history—at least the need for such a 

history. If we can find studies on historic preservation that enable certain 

societal elements to use it to fulfill particular mandates (such as “to 

prompt Americans—newcomer and native alike—to accept their aesthetics, 

work harder, live more humbly, and appreciate Yankee traditions”), 

31 we also need studies that show the factors leading to the 

origins and ongoing development of archives and historical records 

repositories. 

Yet the association of public memory and archives is far more complex 

than what I have just stated. There has been an uneven reception about 

the importance of archives in public memory. One study about how 

Watergate has been perceived includes no discussion of the Presidential 

Records Act or of the legal wrangles and hassles over the ownership of 

the Nixon White House tape recordings, 32 despite the public interest in 

such secret record keeping. 33 Another study argues how the personal 

accounts by journalists have become the de facto societal archives for 

remembering and interpreting the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 34 

What has been lost in this is an appreciation that there is a need to study 

the formation of presidential records, if not the memorializing event that


surrounds the establishment of presidential libraries; both topics are 

worthy of focus by archival historians, and neither has been well 

treated. 35 

It may be that not only the scholarship about public memory but the 

debate about its use in multiculturalism, textbook writing, and history 

standards are important for a new context for archival history. In these 

discussions and diatribes (and there are both, often side by side) we see 

a nearly simultaneous rejection and elevation of the value of historical 

records. 36 Such debates have often proceeded with little appreciation of 

how archives are formed, but it is likely that continuing discussions will 

lead us to some new understanding. This is doubly important in the socalled 

Information Age, when the computer has become God, information 

is the source of all power and prestige, and electronic networking is 

the only way by which this information can be disseminated. 

The exploding literature on the challenges posed and promises offered 

by the computer also contributes to studies with implications for understanding 

the development of modern record-keeping systems. Thomas 

Landauer’s efforts to reconsider the claims of the computer’s productivity 

have led him to write extensively about automated record-keeping systems. 

37 His work is reminiscent of earlier histories completed on office systems 

and work that, while examining issues such as gender and 

communication, provides some of the most in-depth understanding of how 

records and information technologies have evolved in the past century and 

a half. 38 These studies provide a new understanding about the importance 

of records and the challenges confronting the maintenance of archives. 

Histories of other information technologies also are useful for understanding 

the impact on traditional record-keeping systems. Many 

archivists have lamented that telecommunications technologies such as 

the telephone, with its ability to provide quicker communication with a 

lower cost, have affected what is captured in transactional records. 

However, histories of the telephone suggest that initially its success was 

not certain, and its reasons for success often had little to do with its technical 

attributes. 39 Considering such histories should indicate to archivists 

the need for fuller studies of records and archives. Has the creation of 

archival programs been sustained by the more ephemeral nature of electronic 

information systems? Have these new and emerging systems really 

affected society’s ability to document itself? 

The impact of computer technology on organizations and individuals 

has also prompted many concerns about the social, ethical, political, and 

other impacts of the technology. 40 From my vantage point it seems that 

such concerns have led to a renewed interest in matters that have considerable 

implications for understanding the history of records systems 

and archives, such as access and privacy, handwriting, personal record

147 

keeping, and so forth. Regarding privacy and/or access, new scholarship 

has emerged that re-examines such complex matters as the impact of 

opening secret police files, the negative ramifications of government 

secrecy, and the problems inflicted on personal lives by preserving and 

opening private papers. 41 While archivists and other records professionals 

have written extensively on privacy and access over the past two 

decades, none of their work has led to significant new studies of the history 

of record keeping and archives. That this is a loss can be seen in 

E. Wayne Carp’s recent study of secrecy in adoption, which provides an 

extensive history of the evolution of adoption records systems since the 

mid–nineteenth century. 42 

The growing influence of electronic media has also prompted a new 

interest in the cultural history of older record-keeping technologies. 

Tamara Plakins Thornton’s study of American handwriting is a prime 

example with a major emphasis on the evolution of scripts, the teaching 

of particular scribal traditions, and the emergence of autograph collecting 

as part of a resistance to other information technologies such as the 

typewriter and office equipment. 43 There has developed, for example, an 

intense interest in diary writing, the most intimate and personal recordkeeping 

approach. The scholarship in this area has stressed the history of 

diary writing and, in some cases, has even argued that the process of personal 

diary writing has served as a surrogate for local archives and the 

documentation process. 44 Some of the concern about the new technologies 

has been directed toward understanding how objects or artifacts 

such as records could be authentic or reliable in the new cyberculture or 

virtual reality. Studies that address such matters have a direct connection 

to the understanding of the continuing evolution of record-keeping 

systems and archives. Anthony Grafton’s anecdotal history of the footnote 

is an explanation of one form of authority. 45 An increasing interest 

in forgeries is another indication of such concerns and an important one 

for archives, given that the origins of archival science (diplomatics) rests 

with the business of detecting forgeries. 46 

The development of the World Wide Web and other information technologies 

has also increased the sense that visualization is superseding 

text in much the same manner that writing superseded oral communication. 

There has been increased attention paid to the history of photography, 

for example, and this has in some cases provided a new base for 

archivists to rethink the evolution of this technology as a record-keeping 

system. 47 It is also no surprise that the study of book collecting as well as 

a scholarship that examines the future of the book have developed. For 

some it might be surprising that the writing about the collecting of books 

has easily lapsed over into chronicling the acquisition of manuscripts and 

the origins of special collections. 48


The onslaught of cyberculture is not the only stimulus to useful scholarship 

with implications for archival history. While archivists have 

focused on small institutional studies and biographies, more substantial 

studies that provide probes into certain aspects of records and archives 

have appeared. Some historians have written detailed accounts of particular 

record-keeping systems as sources of information, such as the census. 

49 A growth in the examination of nonprofit management has 

produced some excellent studies of research institutions chronicling 

their fiscal management and their development as collections. 50 Textual 

criticism has also produced some notable work that historians of archives 

and records could draw on. This work ranges from the role of scribes and 

clerical bureaucrats with a sense of the influence of records in Latin 

America to an interpretation of the creation of the British Empire via 

research, classification, and documentation to critiques of individual documents. 

51 The availability and value of such research are only beginning 

to be appreciated by a fairly limited group of archivists. 

Finally, the archivist or person interested in archives might find some 

insights on the history of records and archives in unlikely sources. 

Writers who revisit their own past wind up waxing eloquently about their 

family papers. 52 The current spate of popular writings by professionals 

such as engineers and architects also provides some useful surprises such 

as Henry Petroski’s ruminations on paper clips and the pencil. 53 The continuing 

fascination with measure and quantification has also produced 

important references for comprehending the development of legislation 

for creating records and financial systems such as double-entry bookkeeping. 

What we are reading about in these volumes concerns the 

records ultimately considered for archives. 54 

Conclusion 

If we expect to see a vibrant interest in the history of archives, 

archivists and other information professionals need to expand their views 

about the topic. There needs to be an acceptance of the interdisciplinary 

nature of research in the field, but it has to be one that will enrich both 

those studying this within and without the disciplinary boundaries. 

Archivists and other records professionals have much to gain from these 

other fields, but it is not a one-way benefit. Archivists and records managers 

may have a greater sensitivity to professional issues that provides 

insights others might lack. 

The other need is to expand archivists’ and others’ views beyond traditional 

archives—the traditional efforts to acquire and preserve historic 

manuscripts and records—to an understanding of records and recordkeeping 

systems. I mentioned earlier the resurgence of interest in diplo-

matics, but this interest has partly grown because of the challenges 

posed by electronic records. Archivists have been forced to rethink their 

cherished mission, how they define records, and for and with whom they 

work. Out of this comes the essence of a new power for archival history. 

Understanding records and record-keeping systems naturally leads us to 

think about why they have been created, what uses they have, and issues 

about their maintenance. The muse of history, Clio, would be happy to 

help archivists and records managers in such endeavors. 

A revitalized archival history will take more than an Archival History 

Round Table in the Society of American Archivists (where one has 

existed for more than a decade) or even partnerships with the Library 

History Round Table, which is celebrating its golden anniversary, in the 

American Library Association. It will require an understanding of the 

significance of the historical perspective for everyday, practical archival 

work. It will require the continued expansion of graduate archival education 

with time and opportunity to study the history of archives and 

record keeping. And, finally, it will require a scholarship with more 

breadth and depth than what has thus far passed for archival history. My 

own sense is that we will see a growth in the historical study of records 

and record keeping because of the modern sensibility about their importance. 

Notes 

149 

1. Donald G. Davis, Jr., “Ebla to the Electronic Dream: The Role of Historical 

Perspectives in Professional Education,” Journal of Education for Library and 

Information Science 39 (Summer 1998): 228–35 (quote p. 230). 

2. This can be seen in the research they conduct, and this research has not 

emphasized historical studies. See Richard J. Cox, “An Analysis of Archival 

Research, 1970–92, and the Role and Function of the American Archivist,” American 

Archivist 57 (Spring 1994): 278–88. 

3. Richard J. Cox, “American Archival History: Its Development, Needs, and 

Opportunities,” American Archivist 46 (Winter 1983): 31–41. For a more comprehensive, 

international bibliography of the same era, see Frank B. Evans, comp., 

The History of Archives Administration: A Select Bibliography (Paris: UNESCO, 1979). 

4. Richard J. Cox, “Other Atlantic States: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, 

Maryland, New Jersey, and South Carolina,” in H. G. Jones, ed., Historical 

Consciousness in the Early Republic: The Origins of State Historical Societies and 

Collections, 1791–1861 (Chapel Hill: North Caroliniana Society and North 

Carolina Collection, 1995), 102–24. 

5. H. G. Jones, The Records of a Nation: Their Management, Preservation, and Use 

(New York: Atheneum, 1969); and Donald R. McCoy, The National Archives: 

America’s Ministry of Documents 1934–1968 (Chapel Hill: University of North 

Carolina Press, 1978). 

6. David D. Van Tassel, Recording America’s Past: An Interpretation of the 

Development of Historical Societies in America 1607–1884 (Chicago: University of 

Chicago Press, 1960); and Walter Muir Whitehill, Independent Historical Societies:


An Enquiry into Their Research and Publication Functions and Their Financial Future 

(Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 1962). 

7. H. G. Jones, For History’s Sake: The Preservation and Publication of North Carolina 

History 1663–1903 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966). 

8. Works such as Victor Gondos, Jr., J. Franklin Jameson and the Birth of the 

National Archives 1906–1926 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981) 

and Burl Noggle, Working with History: The Historical Records Survey in Louisiana and 

the Nation, 1936–1942 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981) 

remain unsurpassed. Barbra Buckner Higginbotham, Our Past Preserved: A History 

of American Library Preservation 1876–1910 (Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1990) is 

closely related and does examine many original sources. 

9. Richard J. Cox, “On the Value of Archival History in the United States,” 

Libraries & Culture 23 (Spring 1988): 135–51. 

10. This is similar to problems faced in library history: “Because a sizable percentage 

of all books that are read come from libraries, a broad history of the uses 

of literacy must eventually incorporate some history of the uses of libraries. Until 

now, historians of libraries have focused more on internal professional development 

than on readers or the circulation of books.” Carl F. Kaestle, Helen Damon- 

Moore, Lawrence C. Stedman, Katherine Tinsley, and William Vance Trollinger, 

Jr., Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading since 1880 (New Haven, Conn.: 

Yale University Press, 1991), 66. 

11. See, for example, the theoretical contribution of Trevor Livelton, Archival 

Theory, Records, and the Public (Lanham, Md.: Society of American Archivists and 


12. Terry Eastwood, ed., The Archival Fonds: From Theory to Practice (Ottawa: 

Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1992) is a good example. 

13. This can be seen in the influence of the diplomatics approach at the 

University of British Columbia master’s in archival studies program and the 

emergence of a substantial amount of writing about the history of records systems 

and record keeping. The theoretical foundation of this approach was captured 

in Luciana Duranti’s six-part series on diplomatics published in Archivaria, 

a series recently published as a book (Luciana Duranti, Diplomatics: New Uses for an 

Old Science [Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press for the Society of American 

Archivists, 1998]). That diplomatics has taken on a new and re-invigorated role 

can be seen in the special issue of the American Archivist on “Diplomatics and 

Modern Records” (volume 59, Fall 1996). 

14. Richard Brown, “Death of a Renaissance Record-Keeper: The Murder of 

Tomasso da Tortona in Ferrara, 1385,” Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 1–43. 

15. In the 1990–97 run of Archivaria, 18 of the 191 articles were on archival history, 

and 10 of 15 issues had an article on this topic. In the 1990–97 run of the 

American Archivist, 14 of the 267 articles were on archival history, and 10 of the 32 

issues had an article on this topic. In the American Archivist, 4 of the 14 articles 

were on European archival history; in Archivaria, 3 of the 15 articles were on 

European archival history. 

16. Some of these noteworthy essays on American archives are Alfred E. 

Lemmon, “The Archival Legacy of Spanish Louisiana’s Colonial Records,” 

American Archivist 55 (Winter 1992): 142–55; Dennis East, “The Ohio Historical 

Society and Establishment of the State’s Archives: A Tale of Angst and Apathy,” 

American Archivist 55 (Fall 1992): 562–77; Margaret O’Neill Adams, “Punch Card 

Records: Precursors of Electronic Records,” American Archivist 58 (Spring 1995): 

182–201; Anke Voss-Hubbard, “ ‘No Documents—No History’: Mary Ritter Beard

151 

and the Early History of Women’s Archives,” American Archivist 58 (Winter 1995): 

16–30; and Robert D. Reynolds, Jr., “The Incunabula of Archival Theory and 

Practice in the United States: J. C. Fitzpatrick’s Notes on the Care, Cataloguing, 

Calendaring and Arranging of Manuscripts and the Public Archives Commission’s 

Uncompleted ‘Primer of Archival Economy,’” American Archivist 54 (Fall 1991): 

466–82. A noteworthy historical analysis of theoretical matters, with implications 

for North American archivy, is Terry Cook, “What Is Past Is Prologue: A History 

of Archival Ideas since 1898, and the Future Paradigm Shift,” Archivaria 43 

(Spring 1997): 17–63. 

17. Robert M. Warner, Diary of a Dream: A History of the National Archives 

Independence Movement, 1980–1985 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995). 

18. A revised second edition of the original 1979 work was issued as M. T. 

Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: 

Blackwell, 1993). 

19. Of prime importance is Henri-Jean Martin, The History and Power of Writing, 

trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). See also 

the works by Jack Goody, The Interface between the Written and the Oral (Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 1987) and The Logic of Writing and the Organization of 

Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), which seem to serve as 

points of departure for many other commentators and disciplines on writing and 

literacy. 

20. Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 1992). For other interesting works on ancient literacy, 

see William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard 

University Press, 1989) and Denise Schmandt-Besserat, How Writing Came About, 

abridged ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996). The latter provides an 

interesting look at the origins of writing systems from tokens used to capture 

ancient commercial transactions. 

21. Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the 

First Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994). Other interesting 

works on the medieval period are Brian Stock, Listening for the Text: On the 

Uses of the Past (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990) and The 

Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretations in the Eleventh and 

Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987). 

22. David Cressy, Bonfires and Bells: National Memory and the Protestant Calendar in 

Elizabethan and Stuart England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); 

Coming Over: Migration and Communication between England and New England in the 

Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Literacy and 

the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 1980). 

23. Peter L. van der Loo in Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D. Mignolo, eds., 

Writing without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes (Durham: 

Duke University Press, 1994), 84. 

24. The burst of research has been well documented in Patrick H. Hutton, 

History as an Art of Memory (Hanover: University of Vermont, 1993). 

25. Richard J. Cox, “The Concept of Public Memory and Its Impact on 

Archival Public Programming,” Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 122–35. I focused 

on John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in 

the Twentieth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992); David 

Glassberg, American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth 

Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990); and Michael


Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture 

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). 

26. See, for example, Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany 

and Japan (New York: Meridian, 1994). 

27. See, especially, the Australian experience in Alistair Thomson, Anzac 

Memories: Living with the Legend (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 

28. An interesting study to begin with is Kenneth E. Foote, Shadowed Ground: 

America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy (Austin: University of Texas Press, 

1997). 

29. Robert Brent Toplin, ed., Ken Burns’s The Civil War: Historians Respond (New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1996). The Enola Gay Exhibition debate has been 

particularly powerful. See, for example, Martin Harwit, An Exhibit Denied: 

Lobbying the History of Enola Gay (New York: Copernicus, 1996); Edward T. 

Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt, eds., History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles 

for the American Past (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996); and Philip Nobile, ed., 

Judgment at the Smithsonian (New York: Marlowe and Co., 1995). 

30. Tom Bower, Nazi Gold: The Full Story of the Fifty-Year Swiss-Nazi Conspiracy to 

Steal Billions from Europe’s Jews and Holocaust Survivors (New York: Harper Collins 

Publishers, 1997); Isabel Vincent, Hitler’s Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, and 

the Pursuit of Justice (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1997); and Jean Ziegler, 

The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead, trans. John Brownjohn (New York: Harcourt 

Brace and Co., 1998). A similar controversy about stolen art treasures has also 

resulted in new studies that re-explore archives and demonstrate their importance. 

See Hector Feliciano, The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the 

World’s Greatest Works of Art (New York: HarperBooks, 1997); Lynn H. Nicholas, The 

Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War 

(New York: Vintage Books, 1994); and Elizabeth Simpson, ed., The Spoils of War: 

World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property 

(New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with the Bard Graduate Center for 

Studies in the Decorative Arts, 1997). 

31. James M. Lindgren, Preserving Historic New England: Preservation, Progressivism, 

and the Remaking of Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 155. 

32. Michael Schudson, Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget, 

and Reconstruct the Past (New York: Basic Books, 1992). 

33. See, for example, Michael R. Beschloss, ed., Taking Charge: The Johnson 

White House Tapes, 1963–1964 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997); Tom 

Blanton, ed., White House E-Mail: The Top Secret Computer Messages the Reagan/Bush 

White House Tried to Destroy (New York: New Press, 1995); Stanley I. Kutler, ed., 

Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (New York: Free Press, 1997); and Ernst R. 

May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds., The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the 

Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University 

Press, 1997). 

34. Barbie Zelizer, Covering the Body: The Kennedy Assassination, the Media, and the 

Shaping of Collective Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 

35. The potential to study such records can be seen in Carol Gelderman, All 

the Presidents’ Words: The Bully Pulpit and the Creation of the Virtual Presidency (New 

York: Walker and Company, 1997), which tracks the influence of speechwriters on 

the modern presidency, and Harold Holzer, comp. and ed., Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters 

to the President (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1993), which includes an interesting 

description of how the president’s secretaries contributed to the creation 

of his records.

153 

36. See, for example, Lynne Cheney, Telling the Truth: Why Our Culture and Our 

Country Have Stopped Making Sense—and What We Can Do about It (New York: Simon 

and Schuster, 1995); Todd Gitlin, The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is 

Wracked by Culture Wars (New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Co., 

1995); Lawrence W. Levine, The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture and 

History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996); James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: 

Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: New Press, 1995); 

Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn, History on Trial: Culture Wars 

and the Teaching of the Past (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997); Peter N. Stearns, 

Meaning over Memory: Recasting the Teaching of Culture and History (Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 1993). 

37. Thomas K. Landauer, The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and 

Productivity (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995). 

38. The classic work of this type remains JoAnne Yates, Control through 

Communication: The Rise of System in American Management (Baltimore, Md.: Johns 

Hopkins University Press, 1989). For an example of the type of study that considers 

women in the workplace, see Margery W. Davies, Woman’s Place Is at the 

Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers 1870–1920 (Philadelphia: Temple 


39. Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 

40. This is why areas of scholarship such as cyberculture and social informatics 

have developed. For the latter, visit the Center for Social Informatics at 

http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI. For a view on cyberculture, visit the Resource 

Center for Cyberculture Studies at http://otal.umd.edu/~rccs. 

41. Timothy Garton Ash, The File: A Personal History (New York: Random 

House, 1997); Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: A Half 

Century of Denial (New York: Avon Books, 1995); Angus MacKenzie, Secrets: The 

CIA’s War at Home (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); David 

Rudenstine, The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case 

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Janna Malamud Smith, Private 

Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997); and 

Mary Gordon, The Shadow Man (New York: Vintage Books, 1996). 

42. E. Wayne Carp, Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption 

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998). 

43. Tamara Plakins Thornton, Handwriting in America: A Cultural History (New 

Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996). 

44. See, for example, Suzanne L. Bunkers and Cynthia A. Huff, eds., Inscribing 

the Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s Diaries (Amherst: University of Massachusetts 

Press, 1996); Andrew Hassam, Sailing to Australia: Shipboard Diaries by Nineteenth- 

Century British Emigrants (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1995); 

Alexandra Johnson, The Hidden Writer: Diaries and the Creative Life (New York: 

Anchor Book, Doubleday, 1997); Kenneth A. Lockridge, The Diary, and Life, of 

William Byrd II of Virginia, 1674–1744 (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1987); 

Thomas Mallon, A Book of One’s Own: People and Their Diaries (New York: Ticknor 

and Fields, 1984); James G. Moseley, John Winthrop’s World: History as a Story: The 

Story as History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992); Stuart Sherman, 

Telling Time: Clocks, Diaries, and English Diurnal Form, 1660–1785 (Chicago: 

University of Chicago Press, 1996); and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: 

The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812 (New York: Vintage Books, 

1990). The Sherman and Ulrich studies are especially useful.


45. Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (Cambridge, Mass.: 

Harvard University Press, 1997). 

46. For interesting studies on forgeries, see Pat Bozeman, ed., Forged Documents: 

Proceedings of the 1989 Houston Conference, Organized by the University of Houston 

Libraries (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Books, 1990); Anthony Grafton, Forgers and 

Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton 

University Press, 1990); Charles Hamilton, The Hitler Diaries: Fakes That Fooled the 

World (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991); Robert Harris, Selling 

Hitler (New York: Penguin Books, 1986); Steven Naifeh and Gregory White 

Smith, The Mormom Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit, and Death (New 

York: New American Library, 1988). 

47. Some interesting and noteworthy works include Julia Hirsch, Family 

Photographs: Content, Meaning, and Effect (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); 

Marianne Hirsch, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory (Cambridge, 

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997); Celia Lury, Prosthetic Culture: Photography, 

Memory, and Identity (New York: Routledge, 1998); and John Tagg, The Burden of 

Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories (Minneapolis: University of 

Minnesota Press, 1993). 

48. See, for example, Nicholas A. Basbanes, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, 

Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1995). 

49. Margo J. Anderson, The American Census: A Social History (New Haven, 

Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988). 

50. Jed I. Bergman, in collaboration with William G. Bowen and Thomas I. 

Nygren, Managing Change in the Nonprofit Sector: Lessons from the Evolution of Five 

Independent Research Libraries (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996); and 

Kevin M. Guthrie, The New-York Historical Society: Lessons from One Nonprofit’s Long 

Struggle for Survival (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996). 

51. Angel Rama, The Lettered City, trans. and ed. John Charles Chasteen 

(Durham: Duke University Press, 1996); Thomas Richards, The Imperial Archive: 

Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire (London: Verso, 1993); and Jay Fliegelman, 

Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance 

(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993). 

52. Ian Frazier, Family (New York: HarperPerennial, 1994). 

53. Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things (New York: Vintage Books, 

1992) and The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance (New York: Alfred A. 

Knopf, 1990). 

54. Alfred W. Crosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 

1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Historical Bibliography and Library History 

D. W. Krummel 

The fields of historical bibliography and library history have drawn upon 

each other and long been linked in their scholarship. The history of the 

book interest of recent years has shown further interdisciplinary relationships. 

Several predicaments that result when the two fields are juxtaposed 

underscore some of the problems that remain to be dealt with. The 

Western orientation of both fields is also largely assumed in both, and not 

always for the better. 

Library history and historical bibliography work together like a stereopticon: 

two objects on paper, one image in the viewer. In antiquity they 

were one: Egyptian libraries are a story of papyrus and scribes, the history 

of Mesopotamian literature is being revised at the Ebla library, both 

accounts are informed by Socrates’ parable of Thoth. Readers of this 

journal, on the other hand, are usually better versed in recent history, 

and here the two are separate. Indeed, it pushes an odd envelope to tie 

together such near-contemporaries as Anthony Panizzi and William 

Blake, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and Andrew Carnegie, Charles Ammi 

Cutter and Henry Bradshaw, the Grabhorns and the Farmington Plan. 

William Morris and Melvil Dewey may have had much in common (ants 

in the pants, broadly speaking, for instance), but sadly they never met, 

and I can’t imagine what we might make of it if they had. 

The two fields remain very close, particularly in their literatures. Many 

writings fit in both fields, and those that appear to address only one are 

often germane to the other as well. Library historians use book history 

sources, which they find out about through contents pages, indexes, footnotes, 

and bibliographical guides. Historical bibliographers look at journals 

like this one for current awareness of library history, often 

retrospective awareness as well. 

The fields have moved apart over the past few centuries, as their 

objects of study have come to appeal to different affections, for bibliography 

the acts of reading, for library history the institutions of reading. 

The former appeals to printers, collectors, and booksellers, also to such 

librarians as are fortunate to still remember the experience of reading 

that told them to become librarians in the first place: their academic 



156 L&C/Historical Bibliography 

friends are mostly in literature and philology departments. The academic 

counterparts of the latter are historians, also such social scientists 

as are not petrified at the thought of history. In work with colleagues and 

in the world of learning at large, historical bibliographers thus learn to 

cope with allegations of preciousness and solipsism, while library historians 

learn to write as if they respected their readers. 

Over time both fields have become fragmented. Both are enriched by 

dialectics (some will say built on fault-lines) that emerged once the fields 

were first established. Both are also searching for broader agendas. The 

tensions and paradigm shifts, as usual, both traumatize and excite: the 

tensions confirm that some do really care, while the paradigm shifts suggest 

that they are very much alive. 

Bibliography, for instance, has long separated the listing and description 

of books from the accounts of their history and lore. This may make 

sense in theory, but in practice we know how lists often make lucid and 

exciting reading matter, while descriptive prose bogs down so as to work 

like a listing. In classic library administrative structure, however, the 

descriptive side is still easy to associate with the technical services (cataloging 

and now conservation in particular), the history and lore side with 

public service and outreach. 

As for the descriptive side, it is guided by, and tries valiantly to reconcile, 

the rigors of AACR-2 cataloging practices, scary to those who have 

trouble living with things Procrustean, and the rigors of Greg-Bowers, 

scary to those who are frightened by the precision of formulas in general. 

Those who want the latter to go away should be reminded that the cornerstone 

course at the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, and 

still the most popular, is in descriptive bibliography. As for cataloging 

rules, the continuing intensity of the discourse in committee meetings, 

particularly for historical materials, could be ample evidence that permanent 

solutions, such as might be delegated to a computer, lie ahead of us. 

Description is a key to access, but it informs other activities as well. 

Critical readers love, learn from, and trust “hard evidence” such as can 

be coaxed out of study of the rich heritages of the printing crafts. 

Technology has clearly captured today’s imagination, so the pursuit of 

bibliographical forensics would appear to be particularly promising. In 

any event, two words widely used today (ugly noun hybrids they may be, 

but they do fill the bill) are “physicality” and “materiality.” 

Descriptive bibliography and library cataloging are mostly based on 

book production—the printing primarily, the content secondarily. Rarely 

can they delve into later historical events—the circulation and use of 

books, involving distributors, criticism, and readers. Study of the “postnatal” 

events is thus inherited—along with the accounts, contexts, and 

criticism of the printing processes—by the other world of bibliography,

157 

devoted to the history and lore of books. Its writings range from displays 

of erudition by antiquarian booksellers and collectors, typically casual 

but often both delightful and deep, over to academic work that, in spite 

of and sometimes because of its awesome rigor, often seems superficial. 

Mutual respect (or at least as much as learned colleagues can ever 

muster) unified the field in days when the literature was smaller and 

scholars better able to cross linguistic and ideological border lines. 

Is there any difference between historical bibliography and book history? 

There may be a generation gap; it is also possible that the scholarship 

is now more strongly based in academia (History Departments are 

seen, by others more than by themselves, as the power brokers). Nor am 

I sure where histoire du livre fits in the picture. To some it is one more participant 

now sharing the bibliography stage who would happily take over 

the whole stage; to others it is the same as book history. In the study of 

books, its French annales methods range from the refreshing and stimulating 

to the apocalyptic and impenetrable. In fact, a case can be made 

(strong to some, infuriating to others) for it being mostly book lore 

written up by sociology Ph.D.’s. Personally, I like it that both historical 

bibliography/book history and library history have largely succeeded in 

avoiding the heavy breathing of pseudo-scientific methodology. Both 

scholarly communities have typically been more literate than numerate, 

although quantitative work in both has often been provocative. But selfconsciousness 

is important in academia today. One difference between 

historical bibliography and histoire du livre is that the former assumes 

descriptive bibliography to be basic, the latter sees it is an option. (But is 

bibliographical description a methodology? I leave this for others to 

debate.) 

As for library history, it has not subdivided its specialties like bibliography, 

but it is not without partisanship. (In Francis Bacon’s analogy of 

ants, spiders, and bees, the bees are always one’s own specialty, the other 

two are one’s protagonists.) “House history” may contrast with “revisionism,” 

but both have their places, the former, for instance, in its 

archival source work, the latter in its bold agenda. If the former seems 

dotty and uncritical, the latter seems unwilling to formulate a definition 

of “elitism.” As the outspoken partisans label each other as fogies or 

pinkos, they are joined by the geeks, committed either to saving everything, 

or to dumping libraries and starting over from scratch, or to doing 

both at the same time, but above all to doing something with modern 

technology. 

Bibliography comes to life through its physical objects; library history, 

in contrast, comes to life as it reminds us that its subject is cultural institutions 

basic to our civilization itself. It comes to life through its 

crossovers—as biographies involve the history of institutions, as histories


of institutions study evolving practices, as studies of evolving practices 

reflect historical ideologies, as ideologies come into focus in the work of 

their main advocates. If library history is enriched by its centrifugal 

forces, historical bibliography has honored its specialties by directing 

them inward to make them even more specialized. Bibliography still 

addresses broad historical questions, and not only in matters of the postnatal 

importance of books. Its scholarship usually suggests social, artistic, 

and technological perspectives, although the particulars often need 

to be coaxed out of its citations and prose accounts. 

Journal editors in both fields, in any event, are much to be envied: the 

paradigm shifts, trauma, fun, nonsense, and posturing make for interesting 

times. Both fields might be happier if their arguments were less 

shrill, although the politics of academic turf may never allow this. 

Simplistic ideas, however, in the spirit of Gresham’s law, do tend to drive 

out large ones. Both fields keep a wary eye on those of our intellectually 

impoverished administrators and colleagues who wonder why either field 

should be of interest to anybody (especially since neither one usually 

makes any money). And even historians have been known to enjoy playing 

lifeboat games (which one should survive, library history or bibliography?), 

ignoring the need for the two to enrich each other. 

Latent tensions of greater substance between library history and bibliography 

come to the surface when the two are juxtaposed. Historical bibliography 

is right to reach beyond the worlds of book production into the 

worlds of dissemination and use. The evidence has long been clear, however: 

only a small proportion of the press output was ever meant to, or 

did, or ever will find its way into libraries. Personal copies are almost 

always cherished more than library copies. 

Are libraries then not less central to learning than librarians care to 

admit? What we think libraries were and might have been is not the 

same as what they ought to be. As repositories of sources, they are a 

place for transactions. But they are also organic processes that redefine 

themselves as they help redefine scholarship and society. Their preservation 

role becomes all the more important. And thus the classic maxim 

that “libraries are for use” may no longer be our useful cornerstone for 

financial support. Preservation and access may belong together, but it is 

one of the purposes of libraries to redefine the meanings of this Article 

of Faith. 

Nor will history ever be all that kind to library classification systems. If 

(to paraphrase Heisenberg) we can measure position or momentum but 

not both, then assuming any position in the totality of knowledge is permanent 

is an invitation to obsolescence. To some, of course, the battles 

are over: the electronic media have wiped out history, along with both 

books and libraries and including all their battlefields, making the notion 

of an electronic library an oxymoron.

Far happier, and more responsible, would we be to live with, try to 

understand, and work around all the uncertainties, embarrassments, and 

anomalies that result when library history and historical bibliography are 

juxtaposed. Here are a few of our predicaments: 

• Those who enjoy hating rare books, and those who do battle with 

them, need also to explain why libraries and museums are attracted to 

each other but frightened by each other at the same time. 

• The slogan “All politics is local” is crucial to the survival of libraries 

but all the harder to appreciate when librarians find global thinking less 

painful and dangerous than local action. 

• Libraries must be “state of the art” and commit their limited funds to 

new thought as well as to new computer upgrades. Historical bibliography 

thus becomes all the more important in reminding us (even if it is 

usually in vain) that out of today’s discards tomorrow’s reference questions 

will be answered, tomorrow’s treasures selected, and tomorrow’s 

insights developed. 

Perhaps the hardest questions of all are ones that neither bibliography 

nor library history can address. Books and libraries, as objects, institutions, 

and ideas, are tied down to the heritages of Western missionary 

printers and modern proponents of national library development. Such 

memories make it all the harder to grasp how the bridges we have built 

to other civilizations are also barriers to understanding as well. The 

quest for power denies the perspectives that may ever understand the 

workings of hubris. The value of studying history, of both books and 

libraries, lies in its insights; even if, in both fields, the need for theory to 

grow out of practice must remain a mystery to those who do not understand 

the practice. 

A Note on Sources 

159 

Since this brief text can do little more than touch on underlying relationships, 

I must do what all good librarians and bibliographers are expected to do: cite and 

recommend sources. One of the nicest is surely Paul Raabe’s “Library History 

and the History of Books: Two Fields of Research for Librarians,” which appeared 

in Journal of Library History, no. 2 (Spring 1984): 282–97, the editor having spotted 

it in the Essays in Honor of James Edward Walsh (Cambridge, Mass.: Goethe 

Institute, 1983), 7–22. For another provocative overview, see A Potencie of Life: 

Books in Society, the Clark Lectures, 1986–87 (London: British Library, 1993), 

notably “A New Model for the Study of the Book” by Thomas R. Adams and 

Nicolas Barker, with valuable references at the end. And librarians who have not 

read the late D. F. McKenzie’s inaugural Panizzi Lectures, Bibliography and the 

Sociology of Texts (London: British Library, 1986), ought to be ashamed of themselves. 

Much to be awaited are the collected essays that Ian R. Willison has long 

promised: among them should be Toward a General Theory of Historical Bibliography 

(School of Librarianship, North-Western Polytechnic, Occasional Papers 11, 1958),


and On the History of Libraries and Scholarship, his lecture for the Library History 

Round Table on 26 June 1979, which was published by the Library of Congress in 

1980. This and other Center for the Book lectures, and indeed the very mission 

of the Center itself, are salutary both in their own right and as efforts to merge 

the best of library history and bibliography. Another argument in defense of the 

interrelationship between the fields must, of course, be Jorge Luis Borges’s essay 

on “The Library of Babel,” perhaps for no other reason than that it is so hard to 

say why. Nor should the ratiocinations of the late Isaiah Berlin be forgotten: his 

notions of positive and negative liberty are a valuable explanation, all too easily 

overlooked, of why the rationale of libraries is so central to the cause of intellectual 

freedom. 

Among current literature guides, two works—the Annual Bibliography of the 

History of Printed Books and Libraries (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973–) and the 

Bibliographie der Buch- und Bibliotheksgeschichte (“BBB”; Bad Iburg: Horst Meyer, 

1982–)—seek to cover both fields (although, of course, many of the most interesting 

sources will, as usual, fall outside the intended scope). G. Thomas 

Tanselle’s annual Studies in Bibliography essays include two in particular that 

library historians need to know: “Bibliographical History as a Field of Study,” 41 

(1988): 33–63, and “Printing History and Other History,” 48 (1995): 269–89.

The Library Historian’s Field of Dreams: 

A Profile of the First Nine Seminars 

Edward A. Goedeken 

History haunts me with a sense of lost opportunities. 

Louis Shores 1 

The Library History Seminars, founded by Louis Shores in 1961, have 

met about every five years ever since. Through a series of tables and 

charts, this essay examines various characteristics of the seminar participants, 

including their gender, institutional affiliation, and the topic and era 

of their presentations. The data are analyzed to provide a picture of who 

does library history and how the discipline’s research interests have 

evolved over the past thirty years. 

Like the farmer in the movie Field of Dreams, Louis Shores always 

believed that if he could build it, they would come—and they did. In 

1961, little more than a decade after Shores, Wayne Shirley, and Carl 

Milam founded the American Library History Round Table (ALHRT) in 

1947, the indefatigable Shores was ready to host the first Library History 

Seminar at Florida State University. 2 From that humble beginning (only 

sixteen library historians attended the 1961 meeting), the seminars have 

flourished. Over the years the number of attendees has steadily 

increased, with recent seminars attracting scholars from all corners of 

the globe to share their affection for library history. 

Fortunately, the seminars’ proceedings have all been published, and as 

a group they represent a collection of individual snapshots of the state of 

the art of library history over the past thirty-five years. 3 This essay analyzes 

the first nine seminars in order to arrive at generalizations about 

the nature of the craft of American library history. Emphasis is on the 

characteristics of these historians who laid the groundwork for our contemporary 

discipline. 

Specific information about each seminar and its participants was 

entered into a spreadsheet and then arranged to reveal information not 

readily accessible otherwise. Long-time members of the LHRT likely 



162 L&C/The First Nine Seminars 

have an intuitive sense of the patterns that emerge from this approach; 

nevertheless, these findings should interest all members of the LHRT 

regardless of their length of association with our subspecialty. The tabular 

information that follows provides the framework for the narrative. 

Table 1 shows attendance by conference with data given for gender, followed 

by a column indicating the total number of participants, and 

finally by a column (LIS) that represents the percentage of presenters 

that are either practicing librarians or members of library science teaching 

faculty. It is common knowledge that women outnumber men in the 

library profession as a whole and have for a long time. 4 Indeed, this belief 

was affirmed in 1994 when the American Library Association conducted 

a survey of its members that showed 78 percent as female. 5 This figure 

approximates the U.S. government census data for the decades since the 

Library History Seminars began in 1961: for the years 1960, 1970, 1980, 

and 1990, women comprised 86, 82, 84, and 83 percent, respectively. 6 

When we move, however, from the library profession in general to its 

subdiscipline of library history, the demographics begin to shift from 

those that traditionally govern librarianship to those that describe the 

historical profession in the United States since World War II. 7 For example, 

membership data from the LHRT indicates that the percentages are 

moving in the direction of equality in gender representation, with the 

1998 LHRT membership split at 42 percent male and 58 percent 

female. 8 Compared with percentages of seminar presenters as revealed 

in Table 1, it becomes even clearer that men dominated, at least in the 

early years. While the numbers of attendees fluctuated, gender percent- 

TABLE 1 

ATTENDANCE CHARACTERISTICS 

% 

Conference Male | Female Total # LIS% 

1961 100% | 0% 7 17 

1965 70 | 30 13 38 

1968 100 | 0 11 45 

1971 84 | 16 25 44 

1976 73 | 27 15 66 

1980 68 | 32 34 47 

1985 75 | 25 28 36 

1990 72 | 28 29 45 

1995 43 | 57 28 50 

Average 76 | 24 21 43

TABLE 2 

ALISE MEMBERSHIP BY GENDER 

ALISE Male Female 

1976 59% 41% 

1980 58 42 

1985 57 43 

1990 53 47 

1995 51 49 

ages show a relatively steady increase in women as presenters after 1971 

until a substantial jump in 1995, when women become a clear majority. 

Whether the 1995 figure is an aberration or indicative of an emerging 

trend will become clearer in the future. 

Another way to understand the impact of gender is with a longitudinal 

view of the percentage of women faculty members in library and information 

science programs. Data from the Library and Information Science 

Education Statistical Report, for years in common with the Library History 

Seminars, appear in Table 2. 9 It is readily apparent that women have 

steadily increased their presence among LIS faculties to the point of near 

equality by 1995. The growth of women as a percentage of the total is 

further evidenced by data that represent the number of women and men 

earning Ph.D.’s in history during the same time period. These percentages 

are shown in Table 3 and again indicate a steady increase in the 

numbers of women who, especially beginning in the 1980s, earned doctorates 

in history. The inexorable increase of women as professional 

TABLE 3 

PH.D.’S GRANTED IN HISTORY 

Year Male Female 

1960–61 93% 7% 

1964–65 91 9 

1968–69 87 13 

1970–71 88 12 

1975–76 78 22 

1980–81 69 31 

1985–86 67 33 

1990–91 64 36 

1993–94 63 37 

Ave. 74% 26% 

163


historians and as members of LIS faculty over the past thirty years is 

mirrored in their involvement in Library History Seminars. Although 

women have long dominated librarianship, the opposite holds for the historical 

profession until recently. That women are enjoying a stronger 

presence among those presenting papers at the seminars should not be 

surprising given overall trends in the numbers of women earning doctorates 

in history or joining LIS faculties since 1960. 10 

Tables 4 and 5 offer more detailed information concerning the LIS presenters 

at the seminars. Table 4 identifies individuals who participated in 

at least two seminars. Robert V. Williams is the most active presenter, 

but Wayne Wiegand is a close second. Institutional affiliation fascinates 

investigators, and Table 5 shows this for the seminars’ LIS participants. 

Neither Mississippi State College for Women (now Mississippi University 

for Women) nor Purdue University has ever had LIS programs. 

Loughborough University is a British LIS school. The rest now have (or 

had at one time) LIS programs during the period under review. The preponderance 

of these institutions in Table 5 should not be surprising, 

since library school faculty are under greater pressure to engage in 

scholarly activity than librarians with nonteaching appointments. 

Although not supporting a library school, the library faculty at Purdue 

University, led by Mark Tucker, have for many years maintained an avid 

interest in library history. 

TABLE 4 

FREQUENT PAPER PRESENTERS BY NAME 

AND NUMBER OF TIMES PRESENTING 

Two Three Four Six 

Choldin Dain Wiegand Williams, R. V. 

Colson Gambee 

Harris, M. Jackson, E. 

Harris, N. Kaser 

Holley, E. Maack 

Johnson, D. McMullen 

Marcum Richards, P. 

Martin, R. Stieg (Darnton) 

Mishoff 

Rosenberg 

Rush 

Slavens 

Sturges 

Tucker

TABLE 5 

INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION FOR LIS OR LIBRARIANSHIP 

AND NUMBER OF TIMES AN INSTITUTION IS REPRESENTED 

Two Three Four Six Eight 

Catholic U. Case Western Res. Columbia Indiana U. U. of Illinois– 

MSt. for W. Kent State U. of Alabama U. of Chicago Chicago 

Rutgers U. Loughborough U. U. of Kentucky UNC–Chapel Hill 

UC-Berkeley Louisiana State U. 

UCLA Purdue 

Wayne St. Florida State 

U. of Michigan 

U. of Minnesota 

U. of South Carolina 

U. of Texas–Austin 

U. of Wisconsin–Madison 

A number of studies of library and information science scholars have 

considered institutional affiliation. 11 In library history, an examination of 

institutional affiliation for Libraries & Culture and its predecessor, the 

Journal of Library History, by Jean-Pierre Hérubel revealed that faculty at 

the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 

and the University of Kentucky were prominently featured as authors. 12 

Although it is obvious that participation in the seminars represents a different 

type of scholarly involvement with the requirement of travel to a 

specific site, it is nevertheless useful to compare attendance at the seminars 

with the results of a recent study of those who attended the ACRL 

triennial conferences between 1978 and 1992. In the ACRL study, the top 

five institutions were the University of Illinois–Chicago, Purdue 

University, Indiana University, Ohio State University, and Penn State 

University. 13 Table 5 shows that Purdue University, Indiana University, 

and the University of Illinois–Chicago appear on both lists. Ironically, all 

three universities are located within a radius of 200 miles. What is it 

about these three institutions that has led them to support conference 

attendance more than others? Since only Indiana University hosts a 

library school, it is difficult to compare the three, but the fact remains 

that these schools demonstrate high involvement in conference activity. 

Indeed, the question of geographic representation is the subject of the 

next group of tables. 

Table 6 distributes the nine seminar participants by state and by professional 

affiliation, either as teaching faculty or a library practitioner. It 

does not distinguish between library school faculty and non–library school 

faculty. The right-hand column indicates the percentage of participants 

from a state that are associated with librarianship. Table 7 further refines 

the data from the right-hand column of Table 6. Finally, Table 8 uses the 

165


United States Census regional categories (arranged by number, not percentage) 

of Seminar participants who were LIS faculty to provide more 

detailed information about the regional characteristics of seminar participants. 

We can see that over the years the eastern portion of the Midwest 

and the southeastern part of the United States supplied most of the participants. 

Since these are aggregate figures, it is important to mention 

that the early seminars were held in Florida, giving that region a preponderance 

of attendees that it did not enjoy in subsequent seminars. 

Examination of individual seminars more clearly reveals this shift. Tables 

6, 7, and 8 provide a somewhat different picture of the seminars, but the 

TABLE 6 

PARTICIPANTS BY STATE AND OCCUPATION 

State Total LIS Non-LIS % LIS 

Alabama 4 4 0 100 

Arizona 2 1 1 50 

California 10 7 3 70 

Florida 13 6 7 46 

Georgia 4 3 1 75 

Illinois 23 18 5 72 

Indiana 10 9 1 90 

Kentucky 6 6 0 100 

Louisiana 3 3 0 100 

Maryland 3 0 3 0 

Massachusetts 7 3 4 42 

Michigan 6 6 0 100 

Minnesota 3 2 1 66 

Mississippi 2 2 0 100 

New Jersey 2 2 0 100 

New York 18 10 8 55 

North Carolina 10 9 1 90 

Ohio 8 8 0 100 

Pennsylvania 2 2 0 100 

South Carolina 4 4 0 100 

Tennessee 2 1 1 50 

Texas 12 4 8 33 

Virginia 2 2 0 100 

Washington, D.C. 8 6 2 75 

Washington 1 1 0 100 

Wisconsin 3 3 0 100 

Total 168 122 (73%) 46 (27%)

TABLE 7 

GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION OF LIS PARTICIPANTS AS 

PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL PARTICIPANTS 

0–25% 26–50% 51–75% 76–100% 

Maryland Arizona California Alabama 

Florida Georgia Indiana 

Massachusetts Illinois Kentucky 

Tennessee Minnesota Louisiana 

Texas New York Michigan 

Washington, D.C. Mississippi 

New Jersey 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania 

South Carolina 

Virginia 

Washington 

Wisconsin 

dominance of the Midwest reflected in Table 5 is confirmed by these data 

as well. Moreover, when all nine seminars are examined, the West is 

poorly represented, with only California making much of a showing. 

Table 9 takes the subject matter of the presentations and categorizes 

them roughly into a matrix defined by chronology and topic. 14 The table 

reflects the primary historical periods of the presentations. By way of 

TABLE 8 

DETAILED CENSUS 

REGIONAL BREAKDOWN 

West/Pacific 11 

West/Mountain 2 

Midwest/West North Central 3 

Midwest/East North Central 50 

Northeast/Middle Atlantic 22 

Northeast/New England 7 

South/West South Central 15 

South/East South Central 14 

South/Atlantic 44 

Total 168 

167


TABLE 9 

PRESENTATIONS BY SUBJECT AND ERA 

SUB Gen Pre-16 16 17 18/1 18/2 19 19/1 19/2 20 20/1 20/2 Ttl 

Aca 3 3 

Ass 3 1 2 4 10 

Bio 1 1 1 2 4 1 8 18 

Bk 5 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 1 16 

Gen 12 1 2 1 16 

His 13 1 3 17 

LC 1 1 1 3 

LIS 1 3 4 

Pr 1 1 2 1 2 2 9 

Pu 7 1 1 8 2 1 20 

Sp 1 1 1 3 1 2 1 10 

Wo 1 2 3 

Ttl 44 1 2 2 5 1 4 12 25 9 19 5 

AcaAcademic; AssAssociations; BioBiography; BkBooks and Reading; 

GenGeneral; HisHistoriography; LCLibrary of Congress; LISLibrary and 

Information Science Education; PrPrivate Libraries; PuPublic Libraries; 

SpSpecial Libraries; WoWomen in Librarianship; TtlTotal 

further explanation, 19/1 means the period from 1800 to 1850, and 19/2 

covers the period from 1851 to 1899. It was not necessary to divide the 

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries since discussants treated them 

broadly. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which generated more 

detailed interest, required an entire column for papers whose subjectmatter 

treated those entire centuries. The subject areas to the left are 

derived from the arrangements used in the biennial Libraries & Culture 

literature reviews. Table 9 reveals that many of the papers were either on 

very broad topics that defied categorization or were devoted to large 

spans of time and thus fell into the General category; and the recent 

period garnered the most attention, which is not surprising since U.S. 

topics dominated the seminar papers, and our history is relatively short 

in duration. Nor should this be surprising since the latter part of the 

nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries comprise the bulk of 

the reported research. Most of our subdiscipline’s historiography has been 

focused on this formative era from around 1870 through World War II. 

Although the table does not show it, the five papers devoted to the last 

half of the twentieth century were all given at the 1995 seminar. As time 

progresses, the period after 1950 will increasingly become eligible for 

vigorous scholarly investigation. Table 9 also shows that presentations

devoted to public libraries and biographical topics have been plentiful 

over the years, with historiography and books and reading close behind. 

Indeed, Table 9 indicates that research into books and reading spans 

almost the entire chronology. Moreover, interest in this topic has grown 

steadily in the past ten years, with several presentations devoted to books 

and reading at both the 1985 and the 1990 seminars. 15 On the other 

hand, academic libraries, the Library of Congress, and women as librarians 

have been the least explored topics. It should be mentioned here, 

however, that the two papers on women in librarianship appeared at the 

1995 seminar. Increased interest in that topic will likely occur in future 

seminars. 

Analyzing the seminars by subject and historically significant time periods 

is difficult, and certainly more perspectives are possible. For example, 

the arrangement of Table 9 could be applied to each seminar, charting in 

more detail the shifting landscape of topics that intrigued library historians 

at each stop along the way. I will leave this task for future investigators. 

The Library History Seminars, launched in 1961 by the energetic 

Shores and his colleagues, are still alive and well as the century ends. The 

dozens and dozens of scholars who have shared their research at the nine 

seminars over the past four decades testify to the intellectual vigor that 

Shores, Shirley, and Milam believed possible for the fledgling American 

Library History Round Table. Building on a tradition of hearing learned 

presentations started in the middle of the seventeenth century by members 

of the Royal Society of London, the seminars have built a solid foundation 

of enduring scholarship. The diverse nature of the topics pursued 

over the years and the range of institutions represented reflect the 

expanding appeal of library history as a worthwhile intellectual endeavor 

for library scholars throughout not only the United States but other 

nations as well. This profile has sought to show who we were and where we 

came from between 1961 and 1995; future seminars should chart where 

our discipline will go in the next century. 

Notes 

169 

1. Louis Shores, Quiet World: A Librarian’s Crusade for Destiny (Hamden, Conn.: 

Linnet Books, 1975), 231. A good source for Shores’s views on the value of library 

history can be found in his “The Importance of Library History,” in John David 

Marshall, ed., An American Library History Reader: Contributions to Library Literature 

(Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961), 3–7. 

2. Shores, Quiet World, 231–34; Lee Shiflett, Louis Shores: Defining Educational 

Librarianship (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996), 213. Shores also reflected on 

Wayne Shirley’s influence in “Wayne Shirley: In Memoriam,” Journal of Library 

History 9 (October 1974): 291–92. 

3. The proceedings of the Library History Seminars have been published in 

the following: John D. Marshall, ed., In Pursuit of Library History, Library History


Seminar 1, Proceedings, 1961 (Tallahassee: Florida State University Library 

School, 1961); John D. Marshall, ed., Approaches to Library History, Library History 

Seminar 2, Proceedings, 1965 (Tallahassee: Journal of Library History, 1966); 

Martha Jane K. Zachert, ed., Library History Seminar, No. 3, Proceedings, 1968 

(Tallahassee: Journal of Library History, 1968); Harold Goldstein and John 

Goudeau, eds., Library History Seminar, No. 4, Proceedings, 1971 (Tallahassee: Florida 

State University School of Library Science, 1972); Harold Goldstein, ed., 

Milestones to the Present: Papers from Library History Seminar V (Syracuse, N.Y.: Gaylord 

Professional Publications, 1978); Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Libraries & Culture: 

Proceedings of Library History Seminar VI, 19–22 March 1980, Austin, Texas (Austin: 

University of Texas Press, 1981); Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Libraries, Books & 

Culture: Proceedings of the Library History Seminar VII, 6–8 March 1985, Chapel Hill, 

North Carolina (Austin: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 

University of Texas at Austin, 1986); Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Reading & Libraries: 

Proceedings of the Library History Seminar VIII, 9–11 May 1990, Bloomington, Indiana 

(Austin: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of 

Texas at Austin, 1991); and Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Libraries & Philanthropy: 

Proceedings of Library History Seminar IX, 30 March–1 April, 1995, University of 

Alabama, Tuscaloosa (Austin: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 

University of Texas at Austin, 1996). 

Reviews of several of the seminars are available: Elmer D. Johnson, review 

of Library History Seminar, No. 3, Proceedings, 1968, in Journal of Library History 6 

(October 1971): 376–79; Betsy Vantine, “Special Report: Library History Seminar 

Eyes Libraries & Culture [Library History Seminar, No. 6, 1980],” Library Journal 105 

(June 1980): 1254–58 (it should be noted that Vantine errs in saying this is the 

fourth seminar); Millicent Huff, “Libraries and Culture: A Brief Report of 

Library History Seminar VI,” Journal of Library History 15 (Summer 1980): 309–19; 

Mary Pound, “Libraries, Books & Culture: A Brief Report of Library History 

Seminar VII,” Journal of Library History 20 (Fall 1985): 434–38; Ralph Lee Scott, 

“Libraries, Books, and Culture,” North Carolina Libraries 43 (Summer 1985): 108–9; 

James V. Carmichael, Jr., “Reading & Libraries: A Brief Report of Library History 

Seminar VIII,” Libraries & Culture 26 (Summer 1991): 540–46; P. Toby Graham, 

“Libraries & Philanthropy: The Proceedings of Library History Seminar IX, 

Spring 1995, the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa,” Libraries & Culture 32 (Fall 

1997): 470–73; and John Feather, “Libraries & Philanthropy: The Proceedings of 

Library History Seminar IX,” Library Quarterly 68 (April 1998): 231–32. 

4. For general data, see Anita R. Schiller, “Women in Librarianship,” in 

Kathleen Weibel and Kathleen M. Heim, eds., The Role of Women in Librarianship 

1876–1976: The Entry, Advancement, and Struggle for Equalization in One Profession 

(Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1979), 222–56. Another good historical source is the 

collection of essays edited by Heim, The Status of Women in Librarianship: Historical, 

Sociological, and Economic Issues (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1983). 

5. Mary Jo Lynch and Gerald Hodges, “1993 ALA Member Opinion Survey 

Reveals One New Major Player,” American Libraries 25 (June 1994): 598. 

6. Census data for the period from 1870 to 1970 are summarized by Schiller, 

“Women in Librarianship,” 238, Table VII. Data for 1980 came from 1980 Census of 

Population. Detailed Occupation of the Experienced Civilian Labor Force by Sex for the United 

States Regions: 1980 and 1970. Supplemental Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1984), 26. The 1990 figure 

comes from “Census 90: Detailed Occupation by Race, Hispanic Origin and Sex,” 

Censtats: An Electronic Subscription Service http://tier2.gov/cgi-win/eeo/eeodata.exe.

171 

7. The best overall view of the historical profession, especially for the period 

after World War II, is by Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and 

the American Historical Profession (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 

Also useful is John Higham’s magisterial survey, History: Professional Scholarship in 

America, updated paperback ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 

1989). For women as historians from a broad perspective, see Joan Scott, Gender 

and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) and Bonnie 

G. Smith, The Gender of History: Men, Women, and Historical Practice (Cambridge, 

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998). In her book, Scott has an excellent chapter 

devoted to women historians from 1884 to 1994. Two older works that are still 

valuable are Jessie Bernard, Academic Women (University Park: Pennsylvania State 

University Press, 1964), and Lucille Addison Pollard, Women on College and 

University Faculties: A Historical Survey and a Study of Their Present Academic Status 

(New York: Arno Press, 1977). For more on the background to the development 

of modern women historians, see Jacqueline Goggin, “Challenging Sexual 

Discrimination in the Historical Profession: Women Historians and the American 

Historical Association, 1890–1940,” American Historical Review 97 (June 1992): 

769–802. 

8. Personal e-mail correspondence to the author from Catherine Sias, 

American Library Association, 13 July 1998. 

9. Timothy W. Sineath, ed., Library and Information Science Education Statistical 

Report 1995 (Raleigh, N.C.: Association for Library and Information Science 

Education, 1995), 5. 

10. In Table 3, the source for the years 1960–61 is Wayne E. Tolliver, Earned 

Degrees Conferred, 1960–1961: Bachelor’s and Higher Degrees (Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1963), 223. Data for the rest of 

the years in Table 3 were found in the appropriate volumes of Digest of Education 

Statistics (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health, Education and 

Welfare), with the publication date in parentheses: for 1964–65, p. 81 (1966); for 

1970–71, p. 102 (1972); for 1975–76, p. 113 (1977–78). For 1980 on, the sponsoring 

agency for this statistical series changed to the Department of Education: for 

1980–81, p. 117 (1983–84); for 1985–86, p. 201 (1988); for 1990–91, p. 254 (1993); 

for 1993–94, p. 284 (1997). 

11. Some recent studies that examine institutional affiliation include Paula D. 

Watson, “Production of Scholarly Articles by Academic Librarians and Library 

School Faculty,” College & Research Libraries 46 (July 1985): 334–42; John M. Budd 

and Charles A. Seavey, “Characteristics of Journal Authorship by Academic 

Librarians,” College & Research Libraries 51 (September 1990): 463–70; John M. 

Budd and Charles A. Seavey, “Productivity of U.S. Library and Information 

Science Faculty: The Hayes Study Revisited,” Library Quarterly 66 (January 1996): 

1–20; A. Neil Yerkey, “Publishing in Library and Information Science: Audience, 

Subjects, Affiliation, Source, and Format,” Library & Information Science Research 15 

(Spring 1993): 165–83; James L. Terry, “Authorship in College & Research 

Libraries Revisited: Gender, Institutional Affiliation, Collaboration,” College & 

Research Libraries 57 (July 1996): 377–83; and a comparison with all faculty can be 

found in John M. Budd, “Faculty Publishing Productivity: An Institutional 

Analysis and Comparison with Library and Other Measures,” College & Research 

Libraries 56 (November 1995): 547–54. 

12. Jean-Pierre V. M. Hérubel, “Authorship, Gender, and Institutional 

Affiliation in Library History: The Case of Libraries & Culture,” Behavioral & Social 

Sciences Librarian 11, no. 1 (1991): 53.


13. Anne L. Buchanan, Edward A. Goedeken, and Jean-Pierre V. M. Hérubel, 

“Scholarly Communication among Academic Librarians: An Analysis of Six 

ACRL Proceedings,” Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian 14, no. 2 (1996): 9. 

14. This table was created using a simplistic form of content analysis to assign 

categories for the presentations. The basic text for this methodology is Klaus 

Kripendorff, Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (Beverly Hills, Calif.: 

Sage Publications, 1980). Also quite useful is Robert Philip Weber, Basic Content 

Analysis, 2nd ed. (Newberry Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1990). A fine current 

literature review can be found in Daniel Riffe and Alan Freitag, “A Content 

Analysis of Content Analyses: Twenty-five Years of Journalism Quarterly,” 

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 74 (Winter 1997): 873–82. 

15. Wayne Wiegand provides an informative overview of the burgeoning literature 

devoted to the study of print culture in “Introduction: Theoretical 

Foundations for Analyzing Print Culture as Agency and Practice in a Diverse 

Modern America,” in James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Print Culture 

in a Diverse America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 1–13.

Advancing the Scholarship of Library History: 

The Role of the Journal of Library History and 

Libraries & Culture 

Jon Arvid Aho and Donald G. Davis, Jr. 

Founded in 1966 at Florida State University by Louis Shores, the quarterly 

Journal of Library History moved to the University of Texas at Austin in 

1976 and continues to be published by the University of Texas Press. It was 

renamed Libraries & Culture in 1988. While there has been some continuity 

in the Florida and Texas years, during the former period the journal 

seemed linked more to the library profession, whereas during the Texas 

years it has been linked more to the literary humanities and the history 

profession. A catalyst for promotion of its focus, it presently strives to be 

“an interdisciplinary journal that explores the significance of collections of 

recorded knowledge—their creation, organization, preservation, and utilization—in 

the context of cultural and social history, unlimited as to time 

or place.” The history of this unique journal is intertwined with the evolution 

of library history in the last third of the twentieth century. 

The idea for a journal devoted to library history came in a meeting of 

the American Library History Round Table. That is the way Louis Shores 

remembered it. In a 1974 memorial for his friend and colleague Wayne 

Shirley, Shores recalled events from decades before—events that would 

lead to the formation of three pivotal institutions for the study of library 

history in this country. 1 

First, Shores remembered how at the 1946 ALA Convention he had 

joined with Shirley in discussing with President Carl Milan the possibility 

of a greater role for library history in the ALA. The result of the conversations 

held by the trio of library leaders was the formation of a round 

table for all those interested in discussing and supporting library history. 

At the 1947 annual meeting of the ALA, the American Library History 

Round Table (ALHRT) gained official recognition. 2 Both Shirley and 

Shores continued to support the fledgling ALHRT for two decades, the 

former as chairman, the latter as secretary. For fifty years the Round 

Table has provided an institutional home in which those interested in the 

field of library history can gather together once or twice a year to read 

papers and, in general, to assess the state of the field. 



174 L&C/The Scholarship of Library History 

Later, the ALHRT played a significant role in the founding of another 

institution of library history in this country, one that provided an ongoing 

opportunity for the exchange of scholarly communication. For as Shores 

also recalled in the same memorial to Shirley, “It was at ALHRT meetings 

that the idea for the first library history journal was born and 

nursed. Out of repeated urgings, and encouragement from Wayne, I, as 

his ALHRT secretary, undertook to launch the Journal of Library History, 

Philosophy and Comparative Librarianship (JLH) at Florida State University 

in 1965.” 3 Throughout its thirty-four years of existence, the Journal has 

provided about 600 articles, 1,470 book reviews, and a continuous flow of 

current information in the field of library history. 4 

Shores also mentioned a third influential institution of library history, 

the Library History Seminars. That institution, too, emerged from meetings 

of the ALHRT and, in particular, from the personal urgings of 

Wayne Shirley. 5 Taking this cue, Shores collaborated with John David 

Marshall, and together they instituted the first seminar in 1961. 6 A total 

of nine seminars have been held between 1961 and 1995, with the tenth 

scheduled for the year 2000. They have provided periodic opportunities 

to read and discuss important papers and issues in the field. 

The original idea of Shores and Shirley to seek a larger role for library 

history bore enduring institutional fruit. The Round Table (1947–) provided 

the institutional framework and inspiration for the formation of 

the Library History Seminars (1961–) and, a few years later, for the foundation 

of the Journal of Library History (1966–). All three institutions 

remain important for the field of library history and, as their interrelated 

origins imply, continue to derive strength from one another. 

Of the three institutions, the Journal, because of its ongoing interaction 

with a relatively large number of individuals, has had the greatest 

opportunity to solidify and extend the efforts of the other two. Therefore, 

focusing this essay on the origin and subsequent history of the Journal of 

Library History may provide us with some insight into what role that scholarly 

journal has played in the development of the field. Over the last 

thirty years, the Journal has manifested itself as an institutional presence 

at two schools of library science, Florida State University (FSU) for the 

first ten years, followed by more than twenty years at the University of 

Texas at Austin (UT-Austin). That same geographical and chronological 

sequence—FSU (1966–76) and UT-Austin (1976–)—will be the framework 

of this paper. 7 

The Journal at Florida State University, 1966–1976 

Louis Shores, the individual so influential in the formation of a journal 

of library history, was a person of wide-ranging interests and talents. 

Ideas on reference works and service, the educational role of encyclope-

175 

dias, the library-college concept, media, and library history all jostled for 

preeminence in his fertile and protean thought. It was history, however— 

a philosophy of history essentially Hegelian and mystical—that formed 

the core of his deepest thought and sustained him throughout a professional 

career in librarianship that spanned more than fifty years. 

Shores, however, had not started out to become a librarian; his earliest 

efforts were devoted to the field of education. He began his graduate 

work by gaining a master’s degree at City College of New York in education 

following undergraduate work at the University of Toledo. It was 

only the lack of opportunities for him in education that turned him in the 

direction of librarianship, whereupon he decided to enter the new School 

of Library Service at Columbia University. He received the B.A. degree 

from that institution in 1928. A few years afterward, at George Peabody 

College for Teachers, Shores wrote a doctoral dissertation on the history 

of American Colonial college libraries. 8 It was an excellent work, one 

that some have cited “as the beginning of the current library history 

movement.” 9 Shores always believed that the historical research connected 

with his doctor’s degree molded his entire historiographical 

approach. 10 It is also reasonable that the research played a part in giving 

birth to what he called the “tangibles” of his Library History Crusade: 

the ALHRT in 1947, the Library History Seminars in 1961, and, finally, 

the formation of a journal for library history. 11 

After succeeding in founding the first two tangibles earlier in his 

career at FSU, Shores began to make plans for the journal in the mid- 

1960s. Despite his avowed love of library history, there is no indication 

that he harbored any grandiose conceptions of its academic status. In his 

estimation, the subfield of library history, though rarely exposed to open 

derision, was in reality the neglected child of the library science family. 

After the founding of the journal, Shores referred to this benign neglect 

when recalling “the previously neglected areas of library history, philosophy, 

and comparative librarianship.” 12 That neglect, he implied, was 

longstanding but in its current manifestation was traceable to a quixotic 

quest for novelty and change begun in the 1950s and 1960s by many 

American library leaders. In that trendy cultural milieu, the stolid writings 

of the historians “have found no outlet in professional journals that 

for the most part are committed to the current scene.” 13 In all likelihood, 

Shores believed that the broader and longer perspective engendered by a 

journal of library history would act as a voice of reason in the midst of 

the cacophony of the change agents. 14 Furthermore, the journal would 

assume a practical role by providing a convenient place for publishing 

some of the better papers originally read at the Round Table meetings. 

Based upon his extensive previous experience in journal publication, 

Shores estimated that three hundred subscribers were needed in order to 

sustain the new journal. When a comprehensive campaign for subscribers


finally raised the required number, he gave the approval to proceed. 15 

The inaugural issue of the Journal of Library History, Philosophy and 

Comparative Librarianship was published by the library school in January 

1966. Links with the past were maintained when Wayne Shirley, Shores’s 

friend and colleague, sent congratulations from the American Library 

History Roundtable of the ALA. 16 A new journal had been born. 

The editorial and advisory boards for the new journal were impressive. 

Shores had gathered a cadre of local volunteers around him, people like 

N. Orwin Rush, Richard A. Bartlett, Martha Jane K. Zachert, and, a few 

years later, Barbara McCrimmon. 17 All of these individuals were listed 

on the masthead of the first issue. Shores, of course, was listed as the 

editor, but six other editors were provided in the categories of associate, 

department, and consulting. In addition, an administrative assistant, 

Marguerite Sellars, was listed. As Shores’s secretary, she artfully handled 

a multitude of duties, including “bookkeeping and subscription services, 

the shuffling of manuscripts, and the organizational structure of the journal.” 

18 In addition to the editorial assistance, a second category, the faculty 

publications board, listed three chairmen. These individuals acted as 

referees for the articles submitted to the journal. A third category was 

the international advisory board, which listed eighteen advisors from five 

continents and the United Nations. 

The new journal published by the FSU team came off the press in an 

eighty-eight-page, saddle-stitched binding format, sporting a light green 

cover with the stylized logo “JLH” on it. 19 The cover of the first issue 

gave the name, the Journal of Library History. The title page, however, provided 

a fuller title: the Journal of Library History, Philosophy and Comparative 

Librarianship, but with the additional words of the expanded version in a 

smaller size type. When the title of the journal was given in the text, 

most writers used the short title, but others used the expanded version. 20 

Much to the consternation of catalogers, there was always some degree 

of ambiguity about the exact name of the Journal. 

The overall arrangement of the journal was a composite or mixed format, 

being comprised of both scholarly articles and editorial columns or 

departments. The six editorial departments were “Epitome,” “Of 

Librarians and Historians,” “Vignettes of Library History,” “Libraries 

Abroad,” “JLH Bookshelf,” and “Sources.” The editorial approach of the 

departments (except for the last two) was to present a personal view of 

the library world, stressing current events and conditions. 

The “Articles” section, though, was the centerpiece of the quarterly 

journal. Over the 11 volumes (44 issues) at FSU, there were a total of 

about 165 articles, though admittedly a few of the articles were simply 

brief informational pieces. The articles dealt with all of the varied 

aspects of the field, including books, libraries, librarianship, printing,

177 

library education, and a number of other areas. All periods of history 

were dealt with, including ancient and medieval. A striking number of 

overview articles on libraries and librarianship in an international context 

(Colombia, Thailand, Pakistan, West Germany, India-Pakistan, 

Johannesburg, Jamaica, Pretoria, National Diet Library of Japan, etc.) 

were included. 

The authors of the articles expressed an appreciation for viewing 

libraries within their surrounding cultures. Even with this view, however, 

the stress was strongly on the library as an institution of society, and 

decidedly less stress was placed upon the connections or nexus between 

the culture and the library. For instance, in the premier issue, Frank 

Woodford made the astute observation that “a history of a library reflects 

clearly the history of the community it serves, and it does it better than 

can the history of almost any other local institution.” 21 Despite this 

understanding, Woodford retreated to the tried-and-true approach of 

writing library history, focusing narrowly on the institutional histories of 

individual libraries. Woodford envisioned the task of library historians as 

being the compiling of more and more histories of libraries. It may not 

be too much to say that the understanding of “library history” during the 

FSU years placed a heavy stress upon the word “library” and less upon 

“history.” 

As for the departments themselves, oversight of the premier one, 

“Epitome,” was the responsibility of Louis Shores. Featured at the beginning 

of each issue, it was laid out in sequentially numbered paragraphs 

in which Shores commented and exhorted on matters relating to library 

history, comparative librarianship, philosophy, and other aspects of the 

field. 

In the back of each issue was “Of Librarians and Historians” under the 

editorship of Richard A. Bartlett of the Department of History at FSU. 

Bartlett commonly featured librarians or aspects of bibliophilic lore. 

Some of the beginning topics were “Ask about Values,” “Historians at the 

Huntington,” “How Strange about Books!” and “Treasures in the Attic.” 

“Vignettes of Library History” was under the editorial responsibility of 

John E. Clemons. This department was similar to Bartlett’s department, 

providing brief stories or anecdotes about libraries or librarians. 

Beginning with “The Library That Saved a University” and “Dewey in 

Florida,” the column produced the much-discussed “Casanova, Lover of 

Books and Libraries” and, later, “A Regimental Library in the 

Confederate Army.” 

“Libraries Abroad” was a department featuring comparative librarianship. 

Under the editorship of Miles Jackson, the department would 

describe newsworthy happenings in libraries around the world, including 

building projects and the like. There were often several pages devoted to


the department, in most cases categorized under the geographical headings 

of America, Europe, Asia, Australasia, and Africa. Sometimes, 

though, the entire column would concentrate on the building or renovation 

of a single library. Robert V. Williams, who assumed responsibility 

for this topic, discussed the issues in a 1973 editorial. 22 

John David Marshall was the editor of “JLH Bookshelf,” which 

reviewed about two hundred books during the eleven years of the Journal 

at FSU. Each issue featured some four or five current works in the field 

of library history that were selected for review. Some of the reviews were 

two pages or more in length, though a few were cited with only a brief 

descriptive paragraph provided. 

A new department, “Sources,” was introduced several years later. 

Under the direction of Martha Jane Zachert, it was a valuable column 

that pointed library historians to the historical sources necessary for 

undertaking their work. “It will,” the editor indicated, “from time to 

time, publish source material as examples of types or as specific items of 

interest to the community of library historians.” It even began the innovative 

approach of making comments on the sources actually utilized by 

library historians in their published work, whether in the Journal or published 

elsewhere. 23 

As so often happens with a new journal, there were the inevitable personnel 

and format changes. Shores, for instance, held his editorship in 

“Epitome” through volume 4 (1966–69) and offered sporadic guest editorials 

thereafter. The department “Of Librarians and Historians,” 

under the direction of Richard A. Bartlett, was active only through the 

first six volumes. “Vignettes of Library History” (edited by John E. 

Clemons) was a part of the first four volumes but appeared only occasionally 

thereafter. The situation was very similar with “Libraries 

Abroad” under the guidance of Miles Jackson. 

The physical format of volumes 1 through 7 remained unchanged in 

typography and layout. However, the Journal was forced by financial pressures 

to experiment with a larger physical format with volume 8 (1973). 

The Journal’s editorial board and subscribers were embarrassed by the 

resulting quality. Volume 9 reverted to the original specifications. 

Each of the departmental editors used his column to make personal 

editorial comments in an open and forthright manner. The result was 

both a bane and a blessing. On the one hand, the columns could manifest 

a personal, direct, and human quality, useful in drawing together 

supporters of the field; on the other hand, the columns could be used by 

some to perpetuate the stereotype that library history was insufficiently 

scholarly. In addition, the juxtaposition of editorial departments and 

scholarly articles in such close proximity gave the Journal a mixed quality 

that was sometimes jarring. Given the status of library history in the pro-

179 

fession during the mid-1960s, the editorial board saw this approach as 

the best possible way to reach the broadest constituency. 

The initial subscription statistics for the new journal were encouraging. 

Editor Shores noted that 650 subscriptions had been received as of 

the first issue. This gave promise of bright days ahead. One year later, in 

1967, Shore announced the even more impressive fact that “over 1,000 

subscribers have confirmed their interest in the previously neglected 

areas of library history, philosophy, and comparative librarianship.” 24 The 

1967 subscription level has probably never been exceeded. 

By that same year, Louis Shores was in his early sixties and had been 

dean of the Library School at FSU for more than twenty years. He had 

been general editor of the Journal for its first two years, setting it on a 

course it would retain for the remainder of its years in Tallahassee. 

Shores retired in September 1967. After his retirement, though, he still 

retained a departmental editorship for two additional years and wrote 

sporadic guest editorials after that. He was in the background more or 

less through 1974. 25 It seems fair to say that Shores was the primary personality 

behind the new journal during its tenure at FSU. As a professional 

courtesy after his retirement, the masthead of the Journal 

continued to list him as the editor emeritus for the next nine years. 26 

Shores’s successor as dean of the Library School was Harold Goldstein, 

who had come from a professorship at the University of Illinois. He held 

the position of editor of the Journal throughout the remainder of its days 

at FSU. By all accounts, Goldstein carried out his duties with professional 

skill and knowledge, with “a management style that got things 

done with dispatch.” 27 In its tone and format, the Journal under Goldstein 

continued in the path laid out by Shores. 

In many respects, that path more often than not led out into an academic 

wilderness, giving the Journal the opportunity to make a lonely witness 

to a scholarly world that seemed more preoccupied with other 

matters. To the Journal, library history, philosophic librarianship, and 

comparative librarianship mattered, and librarians who neglected the 

study of these areas maintained a truncated view of their own field. In a 

technological world that less and less saw the need for these types of nostrums, 

the Journal was determined to continue its lonely witness. Along 

with these concerns, it even had to contend with disputes from within the 

ranks of library historians. 28 Considering these difficult circumstances, 

the Journal’s efforts take on an almost heroic quality. Dispensing library 

anecdotes from here and abroad, good solid, informative articles, and 

exhortations, it took its stand and made its case. Though there were no 

doubt detractors, the Journal persevered in its mission. 

By any fair appraisal, then, the Journal of Library History was a success 

in what it tried to do. A scholarly journal had begun and continued for


over a decade. The writing of library history was being supported. 

Moreover, individuals interested in the field had a rallying point from 

which they could gain strength and encouragement. Those from outside 

the field could gain a clearer understanding of what it was that library 

history could say to the larger field of librarianship. One particularly 

interesting effort was beginning a program to publish bibliographies of 

library history for all fifty states; only fourteen actually appeared, some 

within journal issues, others as separate publications. 29 A glance at the 

Journal demonstrates that it promoted extensively the Round Table and 

the Library History Seminars. All of these facts are indicative that the 

Journal had made a good beginning, one that would provide the foundation 

for further growth in the future. 

A similar assessment of the beginning of the Journal has been provided 

by library historian Lee Shiflett. “By any standard except financial,” 

Shiflett proposes, “The Journal of Library History was successful. It was well 

received and immediately became a reputable scholarly journal attracting 

contributions from a wide variety of authors.” 30 As Shiflett avers, it 

was in the area of finances that trouble arose. From the very beginning, 

the Journal had made a conscious decision to undertake its mission without 

pressuring FSU for financial assistance. The school provided space 

and some minimal level of financial assistance, but certainly not enough 

to support completely the scholarly effort. Without that level of complete 

institutional support, Shores was placed in the position of securing his 

own financial backing through a combination of subscriptions and advertisements. 

He later described it as starting a journal “on a shoestring 

with no subsidy.” 31 The difficulties involved in undertaking such a project 

became more apparent over time. 

Shores began the first issue with the relatively expensive subscription 

rate of $10 per year (1966–72). 32 This figure was increased to $12.50, 

beginning with volume 8 in 1973, after a notice of the price increase was 

given in the last issue of the preceding volume. Even this increase was not 

enough; just two years later the subscription price was raised to $15, but 

this time no advance notice or reason was given. 33 In seeking to place the 

Journal on a solid financial footing, Shores sought more than just subscription 

funds. He also solicited backing from advertisers, and his initial 

efforts gave some opportunity for hope. For the initial issue, Shores filled 

the last six pages with advertising and the back cover as well. Regrettably, 

though, some of the advertisers later dropped their support. 34 

Despite all these efforts, the financial position of the Journal declined 

steadily, becoming critical by the mid-1970s. With regret, the decision 

was made to find a new home for the Journal. During the early part of 

1976, letters were written to other departments of library science. 

Included in these potential sites were the University of Texas at Austin,

the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and, in all likelihood, 

the University of Illinois. It is also persistently rumored that a prominent 

commercial journal publisher was ready to take over the new responsibilities. 

Out of this flurry of activity, a new candidate for sponsorship of 

the Journal emerged as a likely successor. It was the University of Texas 

at Austin. 

The Journal at the University of Texas at Austin, 1976– 

181 

The initial letter to the Graduate Library School at the University of 

Texas at Austin could not have come at a more propitious time. A confluence 

of three critical individuals came together to bring the Journal to 

UT-Austin. 

The first was a potential new editor in the person of Donald G. Davis, 

Jr., who assumed his teaching duties at the UT-Austin Library School 

beginning in 1971. The new professor arrived with an appreciation of history 

and a solid background in its study. He first earned an undergraduate 

degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, following that 

with master’s degrees in history and library science at the University of 

California at Berkeley. After working in a college library for a few years, 

Davis was ready for advanced study in the doctoral program at the 

University of Illinois. His dissertation was a historical study of the 

Association of American Library Schools. 35 When, some five years later, 

the possibility of moving the Journal to UT-Austin surfaced, the young 

professor leaped at the new opportunity. 

The second critical figure was the dean of the Library School, C. Glenn 

Sparks. Initially, the dean was not overly enthusiastic about the opportunity 

to be involved with the Journal. He read the letter from FSU in a faculty 

meeting of the Library School with a degree of cool detachment. 

Even after hearing of Davis’s interest in the proposal, the dean expressed 

reservations about whether the young professor could handle the myriad 

details of editing a scholarly journal. After some discussion, however, 

Sparks became convinced that Davis was the right person for the job. 

The dean became an enthusiastic partner in the project, joining the 

Journal’s editorial board as well as juggling academic schedules to free up 

time for the editor. 

The third critical individual was Philip D. Jones, who had recently 

assumed the position of director of the UT Press. Having recently arrived 

from the lush journal-publishing fields at the University of Chicago, 

Jones was in an expansive mode of operation as he entered upon his new 

duties at UT-Austin. The sponsorship of new scholarly journals would 

add a measure of scholarly prestige to his new university. Thus, Jones, 

along with Ann Reinke, manager of the journals department, maintained


a consistently supportive attitude about bringing the Journal to UT- 

Austin. Therefore, when the proposition for a new journal was broached, 

the press director accepted the opportunity with some degree of alacrity. 

The importance of this ownership and support on the part of the UT 

Press can scarcely be overestimated. As the owner of the journal, the 

press was responsible for all financial obligations, copyediting, design, 

marketing, and bookkeeping. Editing responsibilities would be undertaken 

by Davis, with space requirements and part-time assistance provided 

by the Library School. This publishing arrangement, much more 

supportive than at FSU, proved of inestimable value to the Journal. 

The confluence of these three critical individuals proved decisive. 

Within a matter of months of the first inquiries by FSU, a decision was 

made to move the Journal to UT-Austin. Once the decision had been 

made, the transition took place with minimal problems, despite occasional 

awkward moments. FSU agreed to send all typescript submissions 

to UT-Austin beginning in June. While Davis, the new editor, was hard at 

work for the journal edition of early 1977 (vol. 12, no. 1, winter 1977), the 

old editor was working on his final issue of late 1976 (vol. 11, no. 4, 

October 1976). In addition, FSU still retained responsibility for coordinating 

activities at Library History Seminar V, held in Philadelphia in 

October. 

It was during the transition period that Davis began thinking about 

possible changes for the Journal. Taking for his example the redoubtable 

Library Quarterly and its editor, Boyd Rayward, the new editor envisioned 

a thoroughly objective and scholarly periodical—one that would place it 

within a broader conceptualization of the role of libraries within history. 

He was seeking a wider focus for the field of library history, in which the 

interpenetration of social, cultural, and intellectual history with libraries 

would be stressed. Once his thoughts had solidified and actually were 

implemented, they would result in the appearance of a number of 

changes in the Journal. 

The most obvious change was cosmetic. The Journal’s leadership 

changed the cover of the perfect-bound journal to a dark blue. Also, the 

Journal dropped the stylized JLH on the cover and instead depicted a 

bookplate. Each issue provided an explanatory essay on the bookplate. 

Each succeeding issue has featured a different bookplate, in the process 

representing many areas of the world. 

Other changes were more substantial. Davis jettisoned the departmental 

format in an attempt to attain the academic tone he was seeking. The 

role of the editor was placed more in the background than it had been previously, 

yet at the same time Davis was thoroughly involved in every phase 

of decision making and production. Davis’s plan was to structure the journal 

in three sections: “Articles,” “Notes and Essays,” and “Book Reviews.”

With the first and last sections self-evident, the “Notes and Essays” section 

would provide brief essays that did not meet the length standards for 

articles. Second, he enlarged the book review section, both in quantity and 

in scope of coverage. Thus, 1,270 book reviews have been published in the 

Journal while at UT-Austin, an average of 13.8 reviews per issue, compared 

to the earlier 4.5 reviews per issue at FSU. Third, Davis instituted a policy 

of publishing periodic thematic issues, in which all or most articles were 

devoted to a particular topic. 36 All of these changes developed out of the 

conceptual approach taken by the new editor. 

A change in the name of the Journal, adopted somewhat later in 1988, 

was more apparent than real. 37 Beginning with volume 23, the new title 

became Libraries & Culture with the descriptive subtitle, “a journal of 

library history.” This change did not indicate a shift from the original 

purpose of the Journal but rather a “broadening recognition” of the role 

of libraries within culture. Thus Libraries & Culture began describing itself 

as “an interdisciplinary journal that explores the significance of collections 

of recorded knowledge—their creation, organization, preservation, 

and utilization—in the context of cultural and social history, unlimited 

as to time or place” (vol. 23, no. 1 [1988]). 

The broader conception envisioned by Davis is clearly demonstrated in 

the approximately 430 articles published in the Journal. The international 

perspective of the Journal of Library History is confirmed and 

expanded with numerous articles on international topics with an emphasis 

on their history and not current events. 38 In addition, all types of cultural 

and intellectual history related to libraries and their influence are 

regularly present. 39 A recent review of the Journal provides us with a good 

overview of its articles through an analysis of an index of its contents: 

culture has twenty-one subheadings; history, ten; and intellectual 

history, nine. . . . By type of library, the public library (215 entries) 

has been written about most often, followed by academic libraries 

(117) and, finally, special libraries (forty-seven), not counting law, 

medical, or presidential libraries. Other frequently written about 

subjects include library education (seventy-eight entries), printing 

(fifty-seven), publishing industry (fifty-three), oral history (thirtysix), 

and archives (thirty-two). Furthermore, one can find extensive 

entries for bibliographies and literature reviews. 40 

183 

One of the strengths of the Journal at UT-Austin has been the degree 

of stability and continuity in editorial practice and collegial relationships 

within the university. This is clearly evident in the day-to-day editorial 

assistance required to produce a scholarly journal. For most of the last 

fifteen years, Bette W. Oliver has served as assistant editor. She has


provided professional expertise, scholarly discernment, and editorial 

skill, all essential to the success of the Journal. During this period she also 

earned a Ph.D. in European history, thus strengthening her abilities and 

enhancing the Journal’s academic and collegial relationships. 

The same stability and continuity seen in the day-to-day editorial work 

is evident as well in the editorial board of the Journal at UT-Austin. Even 

with the inevitable changes in the board during the last two decades, 

continuity has been maintained, providing a secure foundation for the 

entire enterprise. Moreover, the board has become increasingly interdisciplinary, 

mirroring the interests of the Journal. Currently, the board is 

comprised of nine members, all but one of whom are at the University of 

Texas at Austin. Four of the members are in library and information science 

education, one is a librarian, and there is one each from the 

Departments of Art and Art History, English, French and Italian, and 

History. 41 

The stability and continuity, however, have not proven sufficient to 

stem a slow slippage in the numbers of subscriptions to the Journal. 

When Davis assumed control in 1976, the total subscriptions were 

approximately 900. By the mid-1990s, this figure had dropped to about 

700. It is probable that this subscription decline over the last two decades 

follows the same declining trajectory as the status of library history 

among library educators. One can point to several encouraging factors in 

this otherwise distressing situation. First, the overall decline appears to 

have reached a plateau. In addition, there have been some gains in personal 

subscriptions, with the majority of the decreases coming from institutional 

subscriptions. 42 

From the beginning of its tenure at UT-Austin, the Journal has initiated 

a greater array of new professional relationships, both individually 

and institutionally, in an attempt to solidify its academic standing. It was 

not long before the Journal began attracting article contributions from 

various scholars outside librarianship, including cultural historians and 

those representing various international perspectives. Inevitably, therefore, 

the individual readers of the Journal have become an eclectic group 

of scholars, including librarians, historians, classicists, art historians, and 

others. 

On the institutional level, the Journal has formed new relationships 

with other associations, both outside and within the field of library history. 

One example of this external outreach was the decision to join the 

Conference of Historical Journals, an association of scholarly history 

journals. Moreover, Libraries & Culture sought and gained recognition with 

other scholarly journals and is listed in the “Recent Scholarship” section 

of the Journal of American History and indexed in Historical Abstracts and 

America: History and Life. 43

185 

For institutional linkages more directly related to the field of library 

history, there have been a number of notable developments. Beginning 

about 1978, the Journal appeared to become a conduit in which its 

broader conception of history flowed into both the ALHRT and the 

Library History Seminars. The first indication of this broader conception 

on the part of the round table became evident when the word “American” 

was dropped from the official name. At the same time, the name change 

also appeared to signal a greater interest in the international aspects of 

library history. Much of this broadening in the focus of the LHRT can be 

traced to Davis’s service as LHRT chair from 1978 to 1979. In much the 

same way, the broader conception flowed into the seminars. Concurrent 

with his chair at the round table, Davis was preparing for Library History 

Seminar VI (1980). Conspicuously, the theme of that seminar was 

“Libraries and Culture.” Mary Niles Maack, in preparing a chronology 

for the fiftieth anniversary of the LHRT, concluded that the Journal was 

influential in bringing about a renewed international focus for library 

history. 44 

A second institutional linkage not only connects the Journal to the field 

but also links its two manifestations at FSU and at UT-Austin. The biennial 

literature reviews of American library history, having begun at FSU 

by Michael Harris, have been continued and expanded at UT-Austin by 

Wayne Wiegand and Ed Goedeken. The literature reviews cover books, 

articles, and dissertations. 45 

A further institutional development within the field was the decision 

to publish material from the Library History Seminars in the Journal of 

Library History. Beginning with Library History Seminar VI (1980)—the 

first seminar for the UT-Austin Journal—the seminar proceedings 

appeared as two oversized issues of the Journal prior to separate publication 

in indexed clothbound volumes. This practice indicates the rich 

intermixing of the round table, the Library History Seminars, and the 

Journal. 46 With the return to these three tangibles of library history, the 

story has come around full circle. 

Meanwhile, the Journal continues within the environmental context of 

its professional home and of the economics of scholarly publishing. For 

many years it has tried to emulate the scholarly leader in the field—the 

Library Quarterly, published quarterly by the University of Chicago Press 

beginning in 1931. From its inception, this venerable publication has 

included some historical articles and reviews dealing with books, 

libraries, and librarianship, even as its editorial offices moved from professional 

schools at Chicago to Indiana and currently UCLA. However, 

especially in recent decades, the thrust of this research organ has been 

toward other interests. Though the prestige for publication is great, the 

audience is very diverse. Library History, published semiannually under


the aegis of the Library History Group of the Library Association (U.K.) 

since 1967, is more similar to the Journal because of its focus and audience. 

Though it was a slender publication in its early years, with some 

aberrations from its earlier pattern during the 1990s, in 1998 it was reorganized 

as a more international organ and has taken a serious new turn 

under its new publisher, Maney Publishing of Leeds. Its attractive new 

format and broader vision make it a companion of the Journal, and 

together they provide a richer diet for library historians everywhere. 

Though friendly competition among these fairly priced scholarly journals 

with a historical perspective prevails, they all face challenges for serial 

acquisitions funds as the commercially produced scientific journals 

demand a greater share of research library budgets and as popular 

treatments of historical topics seem to suffice for much of the profession. 

The economics of scholarly publishing and the popular taste of the profession 

thus present their threats. Alas, the value of serious scholarship 

and historical perspectives in the profession cannot be assumed at the 

turn of this century. 47 

Conclusion 

A journal for the library history community was born thirty-four years 

ago and assumed the name the Journal of Library History. The new journal 

grew in stature and in strength, and its understanding matured and 

developed over the years. That same journal continues today in adulthood 

as Libraries & Culture. The adult journal looks at its earlier life and 

there sees evidence for everything that it has become. That life, like any 

life, can scarcely be summed up in a few words. Yet perhaps there are a 

few transcendent themes in the life of the Journal to which one can point. 

One can point, first of all, to the way that it has striven for continuity. 

The Journal—both at Tallahassee and Austin—has manifested a continuing 

interest in the rich and variegated history of libraries. Though other, 

more popular topics have arisen during that time, they have not diverted 

the Journal from its specific goal of enriching our understandings of 

library history. Significantly, this enrichment has been pursued not by 

rejecting the research of the past but by a conscious desire to build upon 

it. Somewhat surprisingly, this striving for continuity has emerged with a 

concurrent appreciation of the need for change. To a greater degree, 

library historians see the need to analyze current topics in library and 

information science from historical perspectives and, in the process, 

demonstrate history’s relevance. Attempts by library historians to distance 

our craft from the wider world of librarianship have been counterproductive. 

One can point as well to the theme of a growth in 

contextuality—an ever-increasing appreciation of the library as a cultural

and social institution and the desire to link this study with better established 

areas of historical research. A final transcendent theme is the 

collaboration that has evolved among the institutional components established 

for study and research in library history. The ALA Library History 

Round Table, the Library History Seminars, and the Journal have each 

mutually strengthened the other two. Exploring ways to make this collaboration 

even more fruitful and perhaps devising new institutional 

components can only benefit the entire field. The building up of that 

field—the field of library history—has been the whole role of JLH/L&C. 

Together they have sought to advance the scholarship of library history. 

When one considers the striking work that has been accomplished by 

“historians of the book” over the past three decades, one can see similar 

and perhaps even greater opportunities for the “historians of the 

library.” The opportunity exists for library historians to provide a clearer 

picture of the rich and complex ways in which the library interacts with 

the intellectual, cultural, and social elements of its society. Libraries & 

Culture will continue to lead, nurture, and promote this endeavor. 

Notes 

187 

A draft copy of this article was sent to the following individuals: Drs. Edward 

A. Goedeken, O. Lee Shiflett, John Mark Tucker, Robert V. Williams, and Martha 

Jane K. Zachert. Andrew B. Wethheimer, doctoral student at the University of 

Wisconsin–Madison, also supplied assistance. Their comments, provided with 

great insight, grace, and dispatch, are very much appreciated and have made this 

a better article than it would have been without them. 

1. Louis Shores, “Wayne Shirley: In Memoriam,” Journal of Library History 9, 

no. 4 (1974): 291–92. Wayne Shirley (1900–73) was librarian and dean of the 

Library School at Pratt Institute from 1938 to 1955. Louis Shores (1904–81) was 

dean of the Library School at Florida State University from 1946 to 1967. 

2. In 1978 the American Library History Round Table (ALHRT) removed 

“American” from its name, becoming simply the Library History Round Table 

(LHRT). 

3. Shores, “Wayne Shirley,” 292. According to Shores, he expressed the desire 

to have a journal for the field at the initial meeting of the ALHRT: “At that very 

first meeting, I expressed the hope that we could one day publish a journal” 

(Quiet World: A Librarian’s Crusade for Destiny [Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 

1975], 232). 

4. Thirty-four volumes of the Journal have been published between 1966 and 

1999. Until volume 22 (1987), it retained the title Journal of Library History 

(Philosophy and Comparative Librarianship). Beginning with volume 23 (1988), it has 

been published under the title Libraries & Culture with the descriptive subtitle “a 

journal of library history.” The brief title, Journal, is used throughout this paper 

to refer to the publication both before and after the name change. 

5. Shores, “Wayne Shirley,” 292. 

6. Lee Shiflett, s.v. “Shores, Louis,” in Supplement to the Dictionary of American 

Library Biography, ed. Wayne A. Wiegand (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 

1990), 128.


7. Important source materials for the study of the Journal are the individual 

issues of the journal, as well as the archival material located at the Center for 

American History, University of Texas at Austin, and in the office files of the 

Libraries & Culture office. Other material can be gleaned from a review essay by 

Laurel Grotzinger in Library and Information Science Annual 3 (1987): 203–5. 

Important overviews can be found in Hermina G. B. Anghelescu and Elizabeth A. 

Dupuis, eds., Libraries & Culture: Twenty-five-Year Cumulative Index, Volumes 1–25, 

1966–1990 (Austin: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, UT- 

Austin, 1995) and in the review of the same work by John Richardson, Jr., in 

Library Quarterly 67, no. 1 (January 1997): 87–88. For biographical information, 

see the relevant entries in Bohdan S. Wynar, ed., Dictionary of American Library 

Biography (DALB) (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1978). It contains over 

three hundred biographical sketches of prominent American library leaders 

deceased as of June 1976. Among the sketches, John David Marshall has contributed 

one on William Wayne Shirley (1900–1973). For material on Louis 

Shores, one can examine with great profit the biographical sketch by Lee Shiflett 

in Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography 

(Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1990). The Supplement contains fifty-one 

biographical sketches not contained in the original DALB and extends the coverage 

date to June 1987. See also the full-length work by Shiflett, Louis Shores: 

Defining Educational Librarianship (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996). Louis 

Shores’s autobiography, Quiet World, is an illuminating account of his entire professional 

life and contains a chapter on his views on historiography and the 

beginning of the Journal (224–36). 

8. Louis Shores, Origins of the American College Library, 1638–1800 (New York: 

Barnes and Noble, 1934). 

9. Shores, Quiet World, 224. 

10. Ibid., 230. 

11. Shores considered the Round Table, seminars, Journal, and visual-oral history 

as the “four tangibles of my Library History Crusade” (Shores, Quiet World, 

236). 

12. Shores, “Epitome,” Journal of Library History 2, no. 1 (1967): 4. 

13. Shores, Journal of Library History 1, no. 1 (1966): 5. This view is also the 

theme of the chapter on library history in his autobiography, Quiet World, esp. 231, 

236. 

14. In Shores’s memoriam to Wayne Shirley, Shores lauded most of all 

Shirley’s “courageous commitment to constants in an age of perpetual celebration 

of change.” Shores returned to that theme in his peroration: “Much as death 

seems to enforce change, the memory of Wayne Shirley reinforces faith in the 

constants of the eternal verities” (“Wayne Shirley,” 291–92). 

15. Shores, Quiet World, 234. 

16. Shirley, Journal of Library History 1, no. 1 (1966): 33. 

17. The editorial assistance listed for the first issue included the following: 

associate editors: Richard A. Bartlett and Martha Jane K. Zachert; department 

editors: Miles M. Jackson and John David Marshall; consulting editors: John E. 

Clemons and N. Orwin Rush; administrative assistant: Marguerite Sellars. 

18. Shiflett, Louis Shores, 215. In personal correspondence, Shiflett relates that 

“she almost singlehandedly held the journal together” (correspondence with 

Donald G. Davis, Jr., dated 21 January 1999). 

19. Shores expressed disappointment over the format and printing of the first 

issue. “We had taken the lowest bid. It came from a small printing establishment 

with limited resources, and among other things, a font of type without italics.

189 

Volume one, number one looks amateurish. We shifted to another type style in 

issue two, and to another printer later” (Quiet World, 234). 

20. Shores used the expanded version in vol. 9, no. 4, p. 292. 

21. Frank Woodford, “Second Thoughts on Writing Library History,” Journal of 

Library History 1, no. 1 (1966): 41. 

22. Robert V. Williams, “The Journal of Library History, Philosophy and . . . ; 

An Informal Report on an Informal Self-Study,” Journal of Library History, 

Philosophy, and Comparative Librarianship 8, nos. 3–4 (1973): 110–12. 

23. Martha Jane K. Zachert, “Sources,” Journal of Library History 3, no. 3 (1968): 

266. 

24. Shores, “Epitome,” 4. 

25. In October of that year Shores fell and broke his hip; his mobility was 

impaired thereafter. 

26. Shiflett notes the dropping of Shores’s name as editor emeritus in the 

Supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography, 129. See also the correspondence 

from Shores to Davis dated 14 August 1977, requesting the listing of 

his name on the masthead for the sake of “continuity with the past.” In a letter 

to Shores dated 12 September 1977, Davis did not allude to this request but did 

promise to “share your letter with the editorial board at its next meeting.” There 

is no record of any action in this matter, but Shores’s request was not granted. 

27. Personal correspondence of Martha Jane K. Zachert to Donald G. Davis, 

Jr., undated [January 1999]. 

28. See the observations of Michael Harris: “Library history remains by and 

large, like the Library History Round Table, a playground for amateurs” (“Two 

Years Work in American Library History, 1969–1970,” Journal of Library History 7, 

no. 1 [1972]: 45). In an editorial, Ron Blazek also expresses strong reservations 

about the state of research in library history and adds what appears to be an irresolvable 

division over what actually constitutes a credible piece of research. Some 

historians advocate the use of a hypothesis while others do not. See Journal of 

Library History 8, no. 2 (1973): 50–52. 

29. See editor Goldstein’s comments in “From the Editor: Take Five,” Journal 

of Library History 5, no. 1 (1970): 3. There he contemplates “a series of state bibliographies 

of library history which will encompass all fifty units of this country.” 

This project is discussed in the “Historiography and Sources” chapter of Donald 

G. Davis, Jr., and John Mark Tucker, American Library History: A Comprehensive Guide 

to the Literature (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1989), 5. The states include 

Alaska (1972), California (1976), Connecticut (1972), Florida (1970), Hawaii 

(1970), Illinois (1976), Minnesota (1973), Mississippi (1973), New York (1971), 

North Carolina (1971), Ohio (1972), South Carolina (1973), Virginia (1971), and 

Wisconsin (1976). 

30. Shiflett, Louis Shores, 215. 

31. Letter of Louis Shores to Donald G. Davis, Jr., dated 26 February 1978, in 

the administrative correspondence file located at the Libraries & Culture office at 

FSU. See also the comments of Shiflett, Louis Shores, 214. 

32. This subscription price of $10 per year in 1966 should be seen in the context 

of an average annual salary for entry-level librarians of perhaps $5,000. In 

January 1966 the quarterly journals Library Quarterly and Library Trends both had 

subscription rates of $6 per year. 

33. Journal of Library History 10, no. 1 (1975). 

34. Letter of Donald G. Davis, Jr., to Louis Shores dated 15 March 1978. Davis 

comments: “We have begun to attract advertisers back again as you can see from 

the three paid full-page ads in the Fall 1977 issue.”


35. Donald G. Davis, Jr., The Association of American Library Schools, 1915–1968: 

An Analytical History (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974). 

36. Library History Seminars: Library History Seminar VI, “Libraries & 

Culture” (Austin, Tex.), Journal of Library History 16, no. 1 (1981) and 16, no. 2 

(1981); Library History Seminar VII, “Libraries, Books & Culture” (Chapel Hill, 

N.C.), Journal of Library History 21, no. 1 (1986) and 21, no. 2 (1986); Library 

History Seminar VIII, “Reading & Libraries” (Bloomington, Ind.), Journal of 

Library History 26, no. 1 (1991) and 26, no. 2 (1991); Library History Seminar IX, 

“Libraries & Philanthropy” (Tuscaloosa, Ala.), Journal of Library History 31, no. 1 

(1996) and 31, no. 2 (1996). 

Other special issues: “Women in Library History: Liberating Our Past,” Journal 

of Library History 18, no. 4 (1983); “Library and Information Science in France: A 

1983 Overview,” Journal of Library History 19, no. 1 (1984); “Library and 

Information Science: Historical Perspectives,” Journal of Library History 20, no. 2 

(1985); “Libraries at Times of Cultural Change” (Proceedings of an International 

Seminar . . . Organized by the Library History Group of the [British] Library 

Association and the Round Table on Library History of the International 

Federation of Library Associations and Institutions), Libraries & Culture 24, no. 1 

(1989); “Library History Research in the International Context” (Proceedings of 

an International Symposium . . . Organized by the Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis 

für Bibliotheksgeschichte and the Round Table on Library History of the International 

Federation of Library Associations and Institutions), Libraries & Culture 

25, no. 1 (1990); “Libraries and Librarianship in Italy,” Libraries & Culture 25, no. 

3 (1990); “The History of Reading and Libraries in the Nordic Countries” 

(Proceedings of an International Seminar . . . Organized by the Round Table 

on Library History and the Round Table on Research in Reading of the 

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions), Libraries & 

Culture 28, no. 1 (1993); “The Public Library Inquiry: Reminiscences, 

Reflections, and Research” (A Collection of Papers from the Library History 

Round Table . . . Dedicated to Professor Alice I. Bryan), Libraries & Culture 29, 

no. 1 (1994); “The History of Reading and Libraries in the United States and 

Russia” (Proceedings of an International Conference . . . Organized by the IFLA 

Roundtables on Library History and Research in Reading), Libraries & Culture 33, 

no. 1 (1998); “Orientalist Libraries and Orientalism” (Proceedings of an 

International Workshop . . . Organized by the Round Table on Library History 

of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and the 

Department of Library Science, University of Istanbul), Libraries & Culture 33, 

no. 3 (1998). 

37. Davis discusses the impending change in the final issue of the journal 

under the old name, Journal of Library History 22, no. 4 (1987). 

38. John Richardson, Jr., review of Libraries & Culture: Twenty-Five-Year 

Cumulative Index, Volumes 1–25, 1966–1990, Library Quarterly (January 1997): 87–88. 

Also of importance are Jean-Pierre V. M. Hérubel and Edward A. Goedeken, 

“Journals Publishing American Library History: A Research Note,” Libraries & 

Culture 29, no. 2 (1994): 205–9, and Jean-Pierre V. M. Hérubel, “Authorship, 

Gender, and Institutional Affiliation in Library History: The Case of Libraries & 

Culture,” Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian 11, no. 1 (1991): 49–54. 

39. Ibid. 

40. Ibid. 

41. Associate editors: Robert L. Dawson, Department of French and Italian, 

UT-Austin; Alison K. Frazier, Department of History, UT-Austin; David B. Gracy

191 

II, GSLIS, UT-Austin; Joan A. Holladay, Department of Art and Art History, UT- 

Austin; David Hunter, Fine Arts Library, UT-Austin; Robert S. Martin, SLIS, 

Texas Women’s University; Francis L. Miksa, GSLIS, UT-Austin; Irene Owens, 

GSLIS, UT-Austin; Michael B. Winship, Department of English, UT-Austin. As a 

further indication of the interdisciplinary nature of the board, one can note that 

Davis himself received a courtesy appointment as professor in the Department of 

History in 1998. 

Advisory board: Cheryl Knott Malone, University of Illinois at Urbana- 

Campaign, representing the LHRT, ALA; John Y. Cole, Library of Congress; 

Phyllis Dain, Columbia University; D. W. Krummel, University of Illinois at 

Urbana-Champaign; Mary Niles Maack, University of California, Los Angeles; 

Peter F. McNally, McGill University; Wayne A. Wiegand, University of 

Wisconsin–Madison; Ian R. Willison, British Library. 

42. The subscription rate in 1999 was $30 per year for individuals and $54 per 

year for institutions. The student rate was $18 per year. Members of the ALA 

LHRT receive a 20 percent discount, paying $24 per year. 

43. The Journal of American History is a quarterly publication of the 

Organization of American Historians. 

44. Mary Niles Maack, “Chronology of Events and Publications Relating to the 

International Dimensions of Library History.” Prepared for the 50th Anniversary 

Celebration of the LHRT (1998). 

45. The following list provides the author, the year(s) covered, followed by the 

volume and number of the Journal of Library History: Harris, 1967, 3, no. 4, 1968, 

5, no. 2, 1969–70, 7, no. 1; Davis and Harris, 1971–73, 9, no. 4, 1974–75, 11, no. 

4; Davis, 1976, 13, no. 2; Wiegand, 1977–78, 14, no. 3, 1979–80, 17, no. 3, 

1981–82, 19, no. 3, 1983–84, 21, no. 4, 1985–86, 23, no. 3, 1987–88, 25, no. 4; 

Passet, 1989–90, 27, no. 4, 1991–92, 29, no. 4; Goedeken, 1993–95, 31, nos. 3–4, 

1995–96, 33, no. 4. 

46. It could also be noted that Libraries & Culture has solidified the longstanding 

arrangement of publishing works read at the LHRT. In addition, the journal 

publishes the winning essay in honor of Justin Winsor. 

47. Donald G. Davis, Jr., “Ebla to the Electronic Dream: The Role of Historical 

Perspectives in Professional Education,” Journal of Education for Library and 

Information Science 39, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 228–35. See also Margaret F. Stieg, 

The Origin and Development of Scholarly Historical Periodicals (University: University of 

Alabama Press, 1986).

Clio’s Workshop: Resources for Historical 

Studies in American Librarianship 

John Mark Tucker 

The sources for historical research in American librarianship are the 

same tools that provide the foundations for American history. The formative 

years of American library practice (approximately 1876 through World 

War I) were marked by a rising professional consciousness and the birth of 

a professional reference literature. The bibliographic and documentary 

tools compiled since that time have continued to facilitate new levels of 

maturity in library historical scholarship. Thus scholarly communication 

and organizational structures are moving library history beyond earlier 

stages of isolation into relationships that are at once becoming more multiand 

interdisciplinary. 

The two motifs suggested by the title of this essay seem appropriate to 

the limitations of space and format since they provide a general direction 

rather than a full explication. The goddess of history from classical 

antiquity, Clio was among the nine Muses who presided over all intellectual 

activity. She subsequently appeared in numerous paintings and 

sculptures, generally holding a tablet and stylus, scroll, or book but also 

sometimes a trumpet or laurel crown and occasionally accompanied by a 

swan. She symbolizes the work of those devoted to history, the discovery 

and reclamation of old tales, the interpretation of them in fresh ways, or 

the shaping of them into new narratives. A recent online search of twelve 

years of the Arts & Humanities Citation Index and the Social Sciences Citation 

Index under the term “clio” resulted in 149 hits, the vast majority of 

which indicate historical allusions. 

The workshop, perhaps less engaging to many than the Muse herself, 

must also claim our time and attention. Its tools include essentials for 

the craft: manuscripts and memoranda, letters and reports, artifacts, 

photographs, oral history transcripts, financial transactions, logs of telephone 

calls, journal articles, monographs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, 

bibliographies, and much more. Records and documents such as these 

that describe human activity have become constants in the hands of the 

surest historian even as many of them undergo transformation from fragile 

paper into fluid, digitized formats instantly accessible throughout the 



world. Yet the limited scope of this essay requires a reference to a small 

number of carefully selected tools—a workshop only—rather than to the 

entire universe of resources potentially at the historian’s disposal. This 

article represents my attempt to identify those tools most useful in the 

library historian’s workshop, particularly those of a bibliographic, reference, 

or documentary nature. 

Bibliographic Tools and the Formative Years of Librarianship 

193 

The foundational sources have been disseminated widely due to 

advances in the microformatting of materials in the mid–twentieth century. 

Retrospective bibliographies such as Joseph Sabin’s Dictionary of 

Books Relating to America and Charles Evans’s American Bibliography function 

as cornerstones for the history of American librarianship as they 

functioned similarly for American history in general. 1 And the full-text 

microform collections based on Sabin, Evans, and related compilations 

have allowed scholars in remote regions to continue their work begun in 

graduate school even without direct access to the rich Americana in 

Boston, Chicago, New York, or Philadelphia. Whether or not one makes 

first-hand use of these resources, the library historian is nonetheless 

dependent on their function as building blocks in the structures of historical 

and bibliographical scholarship. 

Reprographic advances further facilitated the technical aspects of 

gathering notes and documentary materials. Historians were no longer 

relegated to handwritten notes but could make photocopies of publications 

and manuscripts from both paper and microformats, greatly 

expanding the capacity to develop personal files of important materials. 

Another version of photographic processing, offset lithography, facilitated 

the creation of book catalogs issued by G. K. Hall and other publishers. 

Subsequently, in the 1960s and 1970s researchers benefited from 

the re-emergence of the book catalog as a source of vast retrospective 

holdings, supplementing the National Union Catalog, in ways that greatly 

enhanced interlibrary borrowing and lending. 2 The specialized printed 

book catalog for the American library historian, the Dictionary Catalog of 

the Library of the School of Library Service, based on library collections at 

Columbia University, appeared in seven volumes in 1962, followed by a 

four-volume supplement in 1976. 3 The Dictionary Catalog represents especially 

strong retrospective holdings because Melvil Dewey had begun collecting 

materials in 1883 when he was appointed Columbia College 

librarian. 

Historians of American librarianship take as axiomatic the significance 

of the year 1876, which has become synonymous with the professional 

consciousness of library workers. The American Library

194 L&C/Clio’s Workshop 

Association, devoted to the development, improvement, and promotion 

of libraries and the profession of librarianship, was established that year 

and has organized conferences and issued publications ever since. That 

same year, Richard Bowker, Melvil Dewey, and Frederick Leypoldt established 

the Library Journal; Dewey issued his classification scheme and subject 

index for the arrangement of library materials; and the United 

States Bureau of Education under the directorship of John Eaton issued 

its massive document, Public Libraries in the United States of America: Their 

History, Condition and Management, Special Report. 4 Thus the professional literature 

began flowing at much higher levels in the national centennial 

year, marking 1876 as a watershed in the growth and development of 

librarianship as a profession. And while much American library historiography 

treats the period of the early republic, the vast majority focuses 

on the years since 1876 and especially various periods of the twentieth 

century. 

Access to the professional literature produced in the formative stages 

of American librarianship begins with Harry George Turner Cannons’s 

Bibliography of Library Economy . . . 1876 to 1920 published in 1927. 5 This 

volume is not limited, of course, to sources written consciously as history 

but, rather, like Columbia’s Dictionary Catalog, serves as a guide to the literature 

for all aspects of the profession. Anne Harwell Jordan and 

Melbourne Jordan prepared an author index to Cannons issued by 

Scarecrow Press in 1976. 6 For the periods before, during, and after 

Cannons, researchers occasionally rely on or perhaps overlook indexes of 

the general periodical literature such as Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature, 

1802–1906, the Nineteenth Century Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, 

1890–1899, and Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature. 7 One of the most 

remarkable sources for the library historian, Libraries in American 

Periodicals before 1876, was compiled by Larry J. Barr, Haynes McMullen, 

and Steven G. Leach. 8 The compilers scoured research libraries, performing 

tedious spadework among hundreds of periodicals, and produced 

more than 1,400 annotated or abstracted entries. 

In using these tools, one assumes a definition of “library history” that 

would begin with the history of individual libraries, of groups of libraries, 

or of libraries in given geographical regions or periods of time. Yet the 

definition of “library history” is simple only in a deceptive way and 

embraces numerous other connotations. American Library History: 

1876–1976, edited by Howard Winger, for example, features contributions 

on topics as diverse as historiography, research collections, 

demographics, library buildings, education for librarianship, library associations 

and publications, librarians, cataloging, subject analysis, and 

bibliographic systems, as well as services to children and youth, college 

students, adults, and special library clienteles. 9 A Century of Service:

Librarianship in the United States and Canada, another product of the centennial 

year, includes studies of ethnic minorities, library personnel, 

women in librarianship, library technology, library research, national 

libraries, and the book trade. 10 

As the quality of the scholarly output has advanced in recent decades, 

so have concepts of what library history ought to embrace. A number of 

authorities are stretching the boundaries of previous conceptions of the 

term. Topics such as the history of printing, book culture, and reading 

provide library historians with links to broader issues in intellectual history. 

The value of such links to other disciplines and subfields is most 

often underscored in the proceedings of national and international conferences. 

Trends toward multicultural and gender-based perspectives and 

other social historical issues (i.e., the history of architecture, labor, philanthropy, 

urban life) that have enriched American studies and American 

history are beginning to enrich library history as well. 

Sources of Current Scholarship 

195 

Critical reviews of current research in the history of librarianship stem 

from an essay by Michael Harris in the Journal of Library History, volume 2 

(1967). 11 Harris continued to review the literature for several years, publishing 

essays in volumes 3, 5, and 7 (1968, 1970, and 1972), and was 

joined by Donald G. Davis, Jr., as co-author in volumes 9 and 11 (1974 

and 1976). Wayne A. Wiegand maintained the series at regular intervals 

with essays in volumes 14, 17, 19, and 21 (1979, 1982, 1984, and 1986). 

Wiegand also prepared essays for volume 23 in 1988 when JLH was retitled 

Libraries & Culture and again for volume 25 (1990). Wiegand was succeeded 

by Joanne E. Passet for volumes 27 and 29 (1992 and 1994) and 

Edward A. Goedeken for volumes 31 and 33 (1996 and 1998). Goedeken 

continues as essayist but also provides an additional service; when he and 

David M. Hovde were appointed co-editors of the LHRT Newsletter in 

1990, they greatly expanded the column identifying recent scholarship 

with Goedeken serving as bibliographer. Goedeken’s semi-annual 

columns have become an essential resource for historians scanning the 

literature in search of current writings and, on request, he provides readers 

with a computer disk that accumulates his Newsletter entries, now 

totaling about 2,000; he also makes these entries available on the ALA 

Library History Round Table webpage. 12 

Harris incorporated many of the citations collected for his early bibliographic 

essays in JLH into sourcebooks on library historiography. 

His Guide to Research in American Library History featured three bibliographic 

essays on the state of the art and annotated entries of dissertations 

and theses. 13 Harris and Davis further expanded the concept of a


bibliographic sourcebook when they published American Library History: A 

Bibliography. 14 Identifying more than 3,000 articles, books, theses, and 

dissertations, the Harris-Davis bibliography quickly became the first 

source to consult before beginning a research project. Davis collaborated 

with John Mark Tucker on the subsequent edition, American 

Library History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature, which provided 

more than 7,150 entries introduced by fifteen bibliographic essays. 15 

Arthur P. Young’s American Library History: A Bibliography of Dissertations 

and Theses also succeeds Harris’s 1974 Guide and complements Davis- 

Tucker by annotating nearly 1,000 entries and identifying another 200 

unpublished papers and reports. 16 

Reference Sources 

Foundational sources that offer basic information include scholarly 

and popular indexes and biographical dictionaries. Among those most 

fruitful for library history are America: History and Life, American National 

Biography, Biography Index, Humanities Index, MLA International Bibliography, 

and Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, most of which are available in 

online as well as printed versions. A growing corps of scholarly biographical 

sources supplements the general sources and underscores the emerging 

recognition of the role of women in American life. Notable American 

Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary and Notable American Women: 

The Modern Period are now complemented by Notable Black American Women, 

Notable Black American Women: Book II, and Black Women in America: An 

Historical Dictionary. 17 

As scholarly biography has expanded, so too has access to information 

about African-Americans. Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston 

edited the Dictionary of American Negro Biography as a partial corrective to 

the Dictionary of American Biography, and Jessie Carney Smith compiled 

Notable Black American Men. The major retrospective biographical source, 

a collection of directories and dictionaries, was issued in microfiche by 

Chadwyck-Healey as Black Biographical Dictionaries, 1790–1950. Broad coverage 

of retrospective and current scholarly and popular literature is provided 

by the Index to Black Periodicals, In Black and White: A Guide to 

Magazine Articles, Newspaper Articles and Books Concerning More Than 15,000 

Black Individuals and Groups, and—now available on the World Wide 

Web—the Kaiser Index to Black Resources, compiled by the Schomburg 

Center for Research in Black Culture from more than 150 publications 

relevant to the black experience and African diaspora. 18 

Specialized publications with a professional focus have proven most 

beneficial to the library historian. From its inception in 1968 the

197 

Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (ELIS) has charted an ambitious 

course. It includes numerous volumes beyond the original set of 

thirty-four issued over fifteen years (volume 61, supplement 24 appeared 

in 1998). 19 ELIS provides hundreds of historical articles on individual 

libraries, on library associations and organizations, on the growth and 

development of library and information services in various countries, and 

on the evolution of types of libraries and library-related functions. Many 

of its contributions, even those without a consciously historical focus, present 

much background, containing retrospective and chronological features 

that are uncommon in the literature generally. The major 

drawback of ELIS, the inconsistency of treatment that marks many 

anthologies, results from author selection. Accomplished historians could 

not be found to write the definitive narrative about each institution that 

deserved treatment. Often, then, a library administrator or a library 

school director or professor would produce the article, with mixed 

results. Some essays are little more than brief reports, while others are 

richly analytical and extensive enough for separate publication. 

Whatever its faults, the ELIS represents a large vision and a magnificent 

achievement, and without it many of our professional institutions would 

not have received the historical study they deserve. Serving as a kind of 

one-volume complement to ELIS, the ALA World Encyclopedia of Library 

and Information Services was issued in 1980, 1986, and 1993. For the historian 

of librarianship, the ALA Encyclopedia serves most capably as a source 

of biographical information. 20 

Pride of place among reference works belongs to the Dictionary of 

American Library Biography (DALB), edited in 1978 by George S. Bobinski, 

Jesse Hauk Shera, and Bohdan Wynar, and its Supplement, edited in 1990 

by Wayne A. Wiegand. The DALB signaled a new level of maturity in 

scholarly writing about librarianship. The authors researched their subjects 

well, basing their narratives in the contexts of documentary materials 

and institutional history. Subjects included persons deceased before 

1976 and, for the Supplement, before July 1987. Edward A. Goedeken analyzed 

the 301 subjects of the original volume in combination with the 51 

subjects of the Supplement. He categorized individuals according to gender, 

race, place of birth, type and level of education, place of employment, 

and father’s occupation and confirmed our presuppositions that 

the historiography of librarianship has been dominated by white, middleclass 

males. He also confirmed our sense that as librarianship and cultural 

maturity generally spread from the Northeast to the Midwest in 

the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they combined with 

collegiate coeducation to produce significant employment opportunities 

for women. 21 Since so many of the subjects—and their institutions—


overlap, the DALB and its Supplement together illustrate the maze of 

interconnections among individuals and institutions that makes the historical 

study of librarianship a fascinating prospect. 

The Encyclopedia of Library History (ELH) aims for international coverage. 

Editors Wayne A. Wiegand and Donald G. Davis, Jr., scoured the literature 

in search of topics for approval by an international advisory 

board. The editors solicited authorities from throughout the world for 

essays of predetermined length. Historical articles focus on the library as 

an institution within a specified time and, like articles that deal with 

library programs or user groups, extend across geographical boundaries 

and time periods. Geographical articles focus on the development of the 

library as an institution within nations or regions. That the ELH omits 

biographical articles stems from its holistic, well-integrated conception, 

which features thorough indexing. Contributors adopted pluralistic perspectives, 

and their collective essays make the ELH an essential summative 

and interpretive companion for the devoted historian. 22 

Chronologies maintain the ancient tradition of lauding the exploits of 

warriors and the administrative achievements of kings and queens. In 

their modern manifestations chronologies may supplement the reading 

and learning of library history if not necessarily its research and writing. 

Their most effective use may be as objects of perusal in life’s occasional 

leisurely moments, perhaps then to plant a seed for future inquiry. Two 

chronologies appeared in the late 1960s, those by Elizabeth W. Stone and 

Josephine Metcalfe Smith. Stone published “Historical Approach to 

American Library Development: A Chronological Chart,” which focuses 

on the American library as a social institution from 1629 to 1966. She 

arranged entries into the categories of (1) public, (2) federal and special, 

(3) educational, (4) technical processes, (5) publications, and (6) professional 

activity. 23 

Smith began with the first century, continuing through 1959, and thus 

presents an international perspective, although the twentieth-century 

entries are decidedly American. Like Stone, Smith cites the source for 

each entry, but unlike Stone, she enhances the work with more than fifty 

pages of subject and name indexing. 24 

Stone’s massive American Library Development 1600–1899 establishes a 

standard unlikely to be met again in our lifetime. She devotes one section 

to a chronological chart and a second section to her entries, presenting 

them within a context sufficient to understand the significance of the 

event described. She expanded the original six categories into eight by 

adding legislation and buildings/miscellaneous. Stone also provides an 

introductory essay on historiographical and methodological issues, thorough 

indexing, and an extensive list of sources consulted. 25

Reference Sources: Minority Voices 

Women dominate the demographics of librarianship but have not dominated 

its historiography. Kathleen Weibel, Kathleen Heim, and Diane 

Ellsworth sought redress for this grievance in The Role of Women in 

Librarianship 1876–1976: The Entry, Advancement, and Struggle for Equalization 

in One Profession. 26 The compilers issued a collection of historically significant 

readings, but their most important contribution, a chronologically 

arranged annotated bibliography, features books, articles, and “letters to 

the editor” of journals identified in sources from the formative period of 

librarianship (i.e., Cannons’s Bibliography of Library Economy). The Role of 

Women in Librarianship signaled a new level of consciousness about the 

contributions of women to a male-dominated yet feminized profession. 

Subsequent scholarship has focused as much on sociology and economics 

as history, with some notable exceptions. 27 The Handbook of Black 

Librarianship, edited by E. J. Josey and Ann Allen Shockley, features biographical 

entries, historical essays (including one on black library associations), 

and a chronology of black American librarianship compiled by 

Josey and Casper LeRoy Jordan. 28 

Documentary Materials 

199 

Experienced historians tend to use the term “original” synonymously 

with the terms “manuscript” and “archival.” While the term “original,” 

according to Louis Gottschalk in Understanding History, suggests a number 

of meanings, those most important for historians are that an original 

source (1) is uncopied, untranslated, perhaps unpolished, as issued from 

the hand of the author, and/or (2) provides the “earliest available information 

(i.e. the origin) regarding the question under investigation. . . . 

Primary sources need not be original in either of these two ways. They 

need be ‘original’ only in the sense of ‘underived or first hand as to their 

testimony.’” 29 To Gottschalk, the “primary” source is the testimony of an 

eyewitness or a witness by any other of the senses or even a mechanical 

device such as an audio tape recorder. A “secondary” source is the testimony 

of someone not an eyewitness, someone not present at the events 

under consideration. Obviously, then, a manuscript source is no more 

likely to be “primary” than “secondary,” and it may be a copy rather than 

the “original.” Once these distinctions are understood, however, historians 

may be forgiven the occasional interchangeable use of “manuscript,” 

“archival,” and “original” as a type of verbal shorthand for the documentary 

evidence most needed, that of sources as close as possible to the 

events being investigated.


American historians have produced a number of printed collections of 

key documentary sources; the papers of presidents of the United States 

and other significant figures routinely undergo textual analysis and 

appear in multivolume editions. American library historians, however, 

have nothing that serves comparably other than Raking the Historical 

Coals: The A.L.A. Scrapbook of 1876, edited by Edward G. Holley. 30 At the 

Conference on Historical and Bibliographical Methods in Library 

Research, Holley discussed the textual problems he encountered in 

assembling the Scrapbook and expressed concerns about the “absence of 

many records which would be considered primary and/or original, in 

Gottschalk’s sense.” 31 In his Scrapbook, Holley set an example that no one 

seems to have emulated, and one wonders at the lack of interest from the 

library history community in this aspect of historical scholarship. 

While the character of primary source material varies according to the 

nature of the subject, most likely such material must consist at its core 

of manuscripts such as letters, memoranda, internal reports, notes, and 

diaries produced by and for individuals and institutions. The major 

source for this genre is the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections 

(NUCMC), compiled by the Manuscript Section of the Descriptive 

Cataloging Division of the Library of Congress. 32 Having served as the 

historian’s primary inroad into documentary materials for four decades, 

the NUCMC is now greatly enhanced by the Index to Personal Names in the 

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, 1959–1984. 33 

Additional sources that respond to the historian’s need to locate documentary 

materials have, like previous improvements, stemmed partly 

from technological advances. In 1983 Chadwyck-Healey launched the 

National Inventory of Documentary Sources (NIDS), which covers fewer repositories 

than NUCMC but goes one step further by reproducing (on thousands 

of microfiche) the registers, indexes, and finding aids for each 

depository. NIDS is updated in microfiche and CD-ROM formats. In 1984 

NUCMC and NIDS began cross-referencing each other’s catalog numbers 

in its own entries. Another vital resource for records of archival holdings 

is contained within the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN), 

an online database created and maintained by the Research Libraries 

Group (RLG), which represents major libraries, archives, and museums 

both public and private (including, for example, those of Harvard and 

Stanford Universities). Cooperative work by the National Historical 

Publications and Records Commission, the Society of American 

Archivists, and RLG with support from the National Endowment for the 

Humanities resulted in RLIN’s Archival and Manuscripts Control 

(AMC) file, implemented in 1984. The AMC provides for bibliographic 

descriptions of archival holdings based on protocols accepted by major 

constituencies in the archival, historical, and library communities. As a

201 

result, the RLIN online database, which contains (among millions of others) 

approximately 500,000 records from 2,000 archive repositories, has 

become a valuable tool for historians. 34 

Historians find documentary evidence in any number of libraries, 

archives, and public or private agencies. The vast possibilities range from 

the National Archives to the filing cabinets in the director’s office of the 

local public library. Yet one special archive has proven very fruitful over 

a period of years, that of the American Library Association. In the early 

1990s, the ALA included “943 committees, 46 subcommittees, 92 task 

forces, 107 discussion or interest groups, 11 associations or divisions, 15 

round tables, 51 sections, 23 offices, 243 chapters and affiliates, and 13 

editorial boards.” 35 Maynard Brichford asserts that, due to its rich social 

and organizational attributes, the ALA archives should appeal to scholars 

in a wide range of disciplines. Studies of library services and institutions 

or even broader topics such as reading and history represent only a limited 

selection of what could be researched. 36 

Prior to 1973, scholars examining the ALA archives had to travel to 

the North Pier Terminal Warehouse on the Chicago waterfront. The ALA 

then transferred its holdings to the archives of the University of Illinois 

at Urbana-Champaign under Brichford’s direction. Illinois was an appropriate 

location due, in part, to Brichford’s success in placing Illinois 

among the national leaders in college and university archival programs. 

Especially rich manuscript holdings in the university’s archives feature— 

as one example that complements the ALA materials—the papers of 

Phineas L. Windsor, director of the library and the library school from 

1909 to 1940, who corresponded with hundreds of early-twentiethcentury 

librarians and library educators. The manuscripts are further 

enhanced by the university library’s rich retrospective collections in the 

field of library and information science, a collection that was begun and 

greatly expanded under the leadership of both Windsor and Robert B. 

Downs (1946–71) and that is likely unparalleled in North America. 

In addition, Illinois possesses the largest total library collection of any 

public university in the United States, and its collections, services, patterns 

of organization, and automation projects have been subjected to 

much study. Moreover, the university’s faculty of library administration 

routinely ranks at the top in studies of scholarly production by academic 

librarians, and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science 

is among the oldest and most prominent of its type. 

The university archives at Illinois had been one of the earliest to 

develop an automated database for archival holdings and, having added 

the ALA materials, secured a grant from the National Endowment for 

the Humanities to improve their accessibility. Results of these efforts 

became apparent in 1979 when the ALA published the Guide to the


American Library Association Archives. By 1987, when the Guide was revised, 

the research potential of ALA materials was emphasized by reviewers 

who noted that, in the eight years between editions, the various series of 

ALA records had expanded by 39 percent and the volume of material by 

45 percent. Meanwhile, the 1979 Guide had become the foundation for 

the National Catalog of Sources for the History of Librarianship (NCSHL), published 

three years later. The NCSHL features an introductory essay by 

Marion Casey, who underscored the relative infancy of library history, the 

difficulties historians encounter in relating library historical studies to 

contemporary times, and the gaps and deficiencies in a number of documentary 

collections. Casey indicated that librarians on a “mission” of 

public service engaged in selective preservation of materials in order to 

influence future interpretation, an assertion that merits further 

research. At any rate, the rich resources identified in the NCSHL should, 

according to Casey and reviewer Edward G. Holley, lead to numerous 

additional primary sources. 37 

Due to continued growth and expansion, the ALA archives has 

emerged as the centerpiece collection of “the major North American 

research center for the history of librarianship.” 38 As of 1997, the collection 

had grown to almost 2,000 cubic feet, the equivalent of nearly 1,200 

file drawers. The archives attracted additional collections and thus is further 

complemented by the archives of the American Association of Law 

Libraries, the Association for Library and Information Science 

Education, the Geoscience Information Society, the Health Sciences 

Librarians of Illinois, and the Map and Geography Division of the Special 

Libraries Association. 

The library history community has not ignored newer historical methods 

such as oral history. In fact, a rare imprint of the ALA Library 

History Round Table is devoted to this topic, Doris Cruger Dale’s 

Directory of Oral History Tapes of Librarians in the United States and Canada. 

This volume grew out of Jesse Shera’s vision of a major oral history project 

that would assemble the recollections of library leaders of the twentieth 

century. While Shera’s plan was never realized, an important result 

of his efforts was that the round table sponsored the survey from which 

Dale compiled her directory. She provided essential information for more 

than 200 interviews of librarians and library educators as well as name 

and subject indexes. 39 

Access to documentary resources continued to advance in the form of 

two remarkable collections published in microfiche. John Y. Cole edited 

The Library of Congress: A Documentary History, and Kenneth E. Carpenter 

edited The Harvard University Library: A Documentary History. These collections 

hold potential for encouraging scholars to re-examine the

203 

development of two eminent libraries as well as to seek connections 

between these institutions and more specialized topics. Cole assembled 

his materials in order to facilitate research into the relationship between 

the Library of Congress and cultural nationalism; he sought to provide 

insight into the evolution of the Library as a “legislative, national, and 

international institution” and to “stimulate research about the Library and 

its relation to American politics, scholarship, librarianship, and culture.” 40 

John Richardson projects Cole’s collection as most appealing to researchoriented 

library school students and to mainstream historians concerned 

with institutional history, tacitly acknowledging that the collection may 

hold minimal appeal for the accomplished historian of librarianship. 41 

Carpenter’s collection on Harvard is slightly smaller in size (463 

microfiche compared to 549 for the Library of Congress) but no less 

ambitious. Carpenter explores the issue of why histories of academic 

libraries have lagged far behind those of public libraries, positing a number 

of explanations. He suggests that the public library offers historians 

the possibility of examining the large theme of American democracy. He 

reasons, however, that the great academic research libraries exist in wonderfully 

rich research environments where the tools, the support, and the 

potential authors are readily at hand. Perhaps, though, potential authors 

are influenced not to consider academic library history by professional 

historians (who may place little value in narrative chronologies with an 

apparently inevitable outcome) and so choose not to recount events that 

lead to a seemingly obvious present. 

Carpenter takes heart from events such as the 1987 conference on 

Libraries and Scholarly Communication in the United States: The 

Historical Dimension and the renaming of the Journal of Library History as 

Libraries & Culture. To Carpenter, these developments signal the movement 

of library history more fully into the realm of the history of the 

book with its potential for multiple variations. He views library history as 

evolving much like business history. He challenges earlier views that a 

critical mass of company histories would facilitate synthesis. When company 

histories continued to accumulate without the subsequent development 

of explanatory synthesis, historians turned directly to the 

relationship between businesses and society and shed new light on comparative 

and conceptual possibilities. 42 Thus, he concludes, historians 

who advance library historiography theoretically will closely examine 

institutional interactions with the surrounding social context. 

Carpenter and Cole have made accessible materials that would have 

taken months or even years of painstaking research for outside scholars 

to assemble. While the ready availability of these materials far 

exceeds anything the library history community had a right to expect,


the specialized nature of the topics raises questions about the ultimate 

utility of these collections. After all, how many historians choose the 

Library of Congress or Harvard University as the primary subjects for 

their research? Richardson raises this issue in his review of Cole. One 

hopes, however, that with the passage of time more scholars will examine 

these resources and begin to make connections between comprehensive 

historical issues and the nation’s two richest research 

collections. 

From the time of their widest use in the nineteenth century, photographs 

have been collected by libraries, archives, and historical societies 

of all types. Photographs verify and enhance the nature of human 

existence and have become essential to historical record keeping and 

interpretation. Two books stand out as photographic records of a particular 

kind and illustrate the value of photographs to library historical 

interpretation. In The Library in America: A Celebration in Words and Pictures 

(a coffee-table book that only a commercial publisher could produce), 

Paul Dickson celebrates his love affair with public libraries and enriches 

the imagination of anyone tempted to engage in a research project. 43 

Dickson reproduced scores of black-and-white photographs of people visiting 

reading rooms and bookmobiles, listening to stories in libraries, and 

reading books while riding to work or just sitting on the front porch. His 

fascination with libraries began in childhood with regular visits to his 

hometown Carnegie Public Library in Yonkers, New York, and eventually 

yielded the present volume, which begins the story with Harvard College 

and moves quickly to subscription libraries as antecedents of free public 

libraries. Most of the photographs appear in chronological order by 

twentieth-century decade. 

In The Carnegie Library in Illinois, Raymond and Linda LaPuma Bial 

record the rich legacy of Carnegie philanthropy through photographs of 

the eighty-three Carnegie buildings still in use. The brief essays on each 

of the buildings, plus the twenty-two no longer in existence, are based on 

the original correspondence that these Illinois towns conducted with 

Andrew Carnegie or his representatives. 44 The Bial and Bial photographs 

enliven the Carnegie historiography and remind us of that wonderful 

convergence of private philanthropy and municipal pride that made the 

public library building an important feature on the landscape of 

Progressive era America. 

The sense of achievement that these photographs might elicit in 

library practitioners and historians should be mitigated, however, by the 

ahistorical mindset of our service-intensive profession. In terms saddening 

and alarming, Dickson corroborates Marion Casey’s concerns about 

the selective preservation of internal records. Dickson asserts that

some big blunders are being committed by libraries. It would not 

do to name names . . . but the public relations director for one 

large urban system told me that all the event and publicity photographs 

having to do with the library before 1980 had been disposed 

of—I was too cowardly to ask how—because they were taking 

up too much room. I was told by a librarian who had recently gotten 

rid of several file folders of photographs that I would not have 

been interested in them anyway because they were “old and obsolete.” 

An administrator for another large system told me on the 

morning we had an appointment to see her institution’s picture collection 

that she had just been informed that the collection was “off 

limits” to the public. 45 

Historians in Association 

205 

Library historians, in gathering for conferences and seminars, engage 

in activities that sociologists would characterize as a highly specialized 

community. Members of this community, constituted largely of library 

educators and academic librarians, conduct research and share the 

results of that research at conferences and through books and articles. 

Much of this activity—though perhaps only a solid fraction of it—is concentrated 

in the ALA’s Library History Round Table. A loosely knit group 

of about 400 members, the LHRT functions as much through informal 

personal connections as through the formal sharing of mutual intellectual 

and professional pursuits. 

The LHRT was founded in the late 1940s by Wayne Shirley and Louis 

Shores. Members presented papers as part of the ALA’s annual summer 

conference. Program attendance could occasionally draw as many as 150, 

though it typically has drawn fewer. Program sessions usually feature two 

or three speakers; in the early 1990s the LHRT added a research forum, 

sometimes developed with refereed rather than contributed papers and 

occasionally designed to complement the program session. The papers 

presented may appear in scholarly journals; they may also summarize 

extended research such as dissertations or theses. 

Through the years the LHRT has gradually become more bureaucratized 

without losing its clublike informality or its ability to absorb newly 

minted scholars and to provide them with meaningful tasks. In 1978 the 

LHRT established a semi-annual newsletter that took on an enlarged 

format in 1992, the same year the LHRT issued its own Handbook for 

Officers. The LHRT maintains liaisons to a number of organizations; its 

members report most consistently about the activities of the ALA 

Library Research Round Table, the International Federation of Library


Associations and Institutions, the National Coordinating Committee for 

the Promotion of History, the Society of American Archivists, and the 

Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing. 

Perhaps the LHRT’s most significant achievement is the sponsorship, 

once every five years, of an international seminar on library historical 

topics. Seminars are cosponsored by Libraries & Culture, the quarterly 

journal edited since 1977 by Donald G. Davis, Jr., of the University of 

Texas at Austin, to which the LHRT maintains a permanent liaison. 

Davis works closely with seminar planners to issue proceedings both as 

special numbers of Libraries & Culture and as separate volumes published 

by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at UT- 

Austin. 46 Often the seminars attract external sponsorship or related support; 

the last four have been hosted by library schools at the University 

of Texas, the University of North Carolina, Indiana University, and the 

University of Alabama, respectively. 

Members of the library history community have not, of course, confined 

their activities to the LHRT. Indeed, such scholars seek the opportunity 

to present findings in many other professional settings. These 

would include other ALA organizations such as the Library Research 

Round Table and the Association of College and Research Libraries. 

They also include such information-intensive groups as the Association 

for Library and Information Science Education; the Special Libraries 

Association; the American Society for Information Science; the Society 

for the Bibliography of History; the Society for the History of Authorship, 

Reading, and Publishing; and the International Federation of Library 

Associations and Institutions. Library historians occasionally seek the 

opportunity to present papers devoted to reading, printing, publishing, or 

libraries at meetings of state, regional, or national historical societies. 

Two significant conferences mentioned above resulted in collections of 

published proceedings, the Conference on Historical and Bibliographical 

Methods in Library Research (1970) and the Conference on Libraries 

and Scholarly Communication in the United States: The Historical 

Dimension (1987). The former was conducted by the Graduate School of 

Library Science at the University of Illinois and the latter by the Library 

of Congress Center for the Book and the School of Library Service at 

Columbia University. These proceedings stand out as devoted to 

American library history and closely related topics; both owe much to the 

energy of key individuals who mentored generations of historians at their 

respective universities, Rolland E. Stevens at Illinois and Phyllis Dain at 

Columbia. 47 

Beyond these two stellar collections and the cosponsored seminars, 

conferences have yielded little that would point to the historical study of 

librarianship as worthy of significant scholarly interest. One notable

207 

exception resulted from the efforts of Wilson Luquire, who ingeniously 

brought together Keyes D. Metcalf, Robert B. Downs, David Kaser, and 

Jesse H. Shera for one day at Eastern Illinois University to recall the 

past, question the present, and predict the future. 48 While a number of 

library historians present papers on individual panels in a variety of settings, 

little else of a published nature would suggest that library historians 

assemble regularly to present and critique the results of research. 

Only the quinquennial conferences with proceedings published by 

Libraries & Culture combined with the LHRT’s annual program session 

and research forum provide consistent platforms for historians of 

American librarianship. 

Scholarly communication through published proceedings, while widely 

accepted, has been greatly complemented by Internet-based electronic 

communications. Vast numbers of webpages and listservs await the 

online explorer who can search for hours on end without suffering from 

eyestrain, a sore neck, or carpal tunnel syndrome. The History Highway: A 

Guide to Internet Resources offers a glimpse into possibilities that have 

emerged in the past five years. The compilers discuss e-mail, Internet 

providers, newsgroups and discussion lists, Internet sites for historians, 

hardware and software specifications, and online etiquette. 49 

Since publication of The History Highway, library historians have 

established H-LIS under the umbrella of H-Net, sponsored by Michigan 

State University. A moderated discussion forum established by Suzanne 

Hildenbrand and Cheryl Knott Malone and edited by Hildenbrand, 

H-LIS serves those with an abiding interest in the interdisciplinary study 

of libraries and information broadly defined. H-LIS grew out of discussions 

at LHRT’s summer and midwinter meetings; participants hope to 

attract archivists, librarians, historians, and information specialists to 

discourse on the organization and dissemination of the culture and history 

of library and information science. 50 

For the library historian, disappointment due to inadequate recognition 

on the part of professional historians is only a moment away. This 

concern is most apparent in the lack of visibility for library history in 

standard bibliographies devoted to American history. Although important 

journals like Libraries & Culture and Library Quarterly (plus a number 

of others) are included in widely used indexes, historical monographs 

and reference sources about library history are not represented in those 

reference tools among which first-year graduate history students begin 

their professional acculturation. 51 

This circumstance is particularly depressing given the dependence of 

historians on libraries for their livelihood. Historians may rhapsodize 

about the library, referring to it as the “heart of the university” or as a 

“workshop for the liberal arts” or as the “arsenal of democracy,” and


historians often express gratitude to librarians and their staffs for assistance 

in obtaining materials. But libraries and the myriad developments 

that brought libraries into existence must seem as invisible to historians 

as any service bureau that functions efficiently; that is, it would merit special 

attention only when it is dysfunctional or is about to close its doors. 

The responses most often cited that would move the craft of library 

history more acceptably into the sphere of American historiography 

involve linkages with other subdisciplines such as book culture, the history 

of printing, and the history of reading. Much library historiography 

has moved beyond hagiography into solid administrative and institutional 

accounts. Following the continuum suggested by Kenneth 

Carpenter, the next logical direction for historians involves relating a 

given library or a group of libraries to larger functions in society. Thus, a 

library’s meaning would be found in its social or political purposes (to be 

determined possibly through cultural studies, comparative analyses, and 

social historical or prosopographical methods), explanations in the best 

traditions of intellectual history. During the past twenty-five years, some 

suggestions have been made, primarily in the selected writings of 

William Birdsall, Phyllis Dain, David W. Davies, Rosemary R. Du Mont, 

Michael H. Harris, Dee Garrison, Suzanne Hildenbrand, and Wayne A. 

Wiegand, but their work has yet to elicit a rich historiographical 

response. With some key exceptions, histories of libraries are not being 

presented within frameworks these scholars have identified. 

Studies of reading and publishing offer library historians a fresh opportunity 

to see where social and cultural connections might be made. Thus, 

for example, Wayne A. Wiegand of the University of Wisconsin has recommended 

to the library history community the work of Harvey J. Graff 

and Carl F. Kaestle. The interdisciplinary character of their work is apparent 

in the titles of selected contributions: Graff published The Literacy 

Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth-Century City, and Kaestle 

published Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading since 1880. 52 

In 1992 the University of Wisconsin at Madison collaborated with the 

State Historical Society of Wisconsin to establish the Center for the 

History of Print Culture in Modern America under the direction of 

James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand. (Fruits of their early labors 

appeared in Print Culture in a Diverse America.) 53 The Center encourages 

the interdisciplinary study of print culture history and the use of print 

culture collections, promotes the development of international perspectives 

on American print culture, and seeks consortial arrangements in 

support of exhibits, conferences, and publications. Wiegand has also consulted 

with scholars at the University of North Carolina and the 

University of Texas about the establishment of similar programs. These

efforts complement the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress 

under the direction of John Y. Cole and the Center for the History of the 

Book at Pennsylvania State University under the direction of James L. 

West III. While such programs are relatively new, and their long-range 

impacts have yet to be evaluated, one hopes that these alliances will 

expand and further enrich the narratives from which we continue to 

learn more and more about how books and libraries challenge the intellect 

and enliven the soul. 

Notes 

209 

1. Joseph Sabin, ed., Dictionary of Books Relating to America, from Its Discovery to 

the Present Time, 29 vols. (New York: Sabin, 1868–92 and Bibliographical Society of 

America, 1928–36); John Edgar Molnar, ed., Author-Title Index to Joseph Sabin’s 

“Dictionary of Books Relating to America,” 3 vols. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 

1974); and Lawrence Sidney Thompson, ed., The New Sabin: Books Described by 

Joseph Sabin and His Successors, Now Described Again on the Basis of Examination of 

Originals, and Fully Indexed by Title, Subject, Joint Authors, and Institutions and Agencies, 

11 vols. (Troy, N.Y.: Whitston, 1974–83). See also Charles Evans, ed., American 

Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets, and Periodical 

Publications Printed in the United States of America from the Genesis of Printing in 1639 

Down to and Including the Year 1800; with Bibliographical and Biographical Notes, 14 

vols. (Chicago: Evans, 1903–59). Since completion of Evans’s bibliography, a 

number of scholars have produced corrections, additions, or indexes. A few major 

research libraries issued bibliographies identifying local holdings of imprints 

listed in Evans. Sources such as Evans and Sabin will become even more readily 

accessible when they are converted into digital formats for delivery in web-based 

environments. 

2. National Union Catalog: A Cumulative Author List Representing Library of Congress 

Printed Cards and Titles Reported by Other American Libraries, 1953–1957, 22 vols. (Ann 

Arbor, Mich.: Edwards, 1958). The NUC was published in book form for a number 

of years; since 1983 it has been published by the Library of Congress in 

microfiche. See also National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints: A Cumulative Author 

List Representing Library of Congress Printed Cards and Titles Reported by Other American 

Libraries, 754 vols. (London: Mansell, 1968–81). Klaus Musmann recounts the 

impact of technological developments on how libraries have conducted their work 

in Technological Innovations in Libraries, 1860–1960: An Anecdotal History (Westport, 

Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993). 

3. Columbia University Libraries, Library Service Library, Dictionary Catalog of 

the Library of the School of Library Service, 7 vols. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1962); and 

Supplement, 4 vols. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1976). Bonnie Nelson demonstrates the 

research potential of book catalogs in A Guide to Published Library Catalogs 

(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1982). More recently, Robert Singerman 

issued his richly retrospective “American Library Book Catalogues, 1801–1875: A 

National Bibliography,” University of Illinois Occasional Papers 203–204 (1996). 

4. United States, Office of Education, Public Libraries in the United States of 

America: Their History, Condition, and Management, Special Report, Part I (Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1876).


5. Harry George Turner Cannons, Bibliography of Library Economy: A Classified 

Index to the Professional Periodical Literature in the English Language Relating to Library 

Economy, Printing, Methods of Publishing, Copyright, Bibliography, etc. from 1876 to 1920 

(Chicago: American Library Association, 1927; reprinted by B. Franklin, 1970). 

6. Anne Harwell Jordan and Melbourne Jordan, eds., Cannons’ Bibliography of 

Library Economy, 1876–1920: An Author Index with Citations (Metuchen, N.J.: 


7. Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature, 1802–1906, 7 vols. (Boston: Houghton, 

Mifflin, 1882–1908); C. Edward Wall, ed., Cumulative Author Index for “Poole’s Index 

to Periodical Literature, 1802–1906” (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pierian Press, 1971); 

Nineteenth Century Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, 2 vols. (New York: H. W. 

Wilson, 1944); Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature (New York: H. W. Wilson, 

1901–). 

8. Larry J. Barr, Haynes McMullen, and Steven G. Leach, comps., Libraries in 

American Periodicals before 1876: A Bibliography of Abstracts and an Index (Jefferson, 

N.C.: McFarland, 1983). 

9. Howard W. Winger, ed., American Library History: 1876–1976 (Urbana: 

University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science, 1976), also issued as 

Library Trends 25, no. 1 (1976). 

10. Sidney L. Jackson, Eleanor B. Herling, and E. J. Josey, eds., A Century of 

Service: Librarianship in the United States and Canada (Chicago: American Library 

Association, 1976). General library history readers are not plentiful. Collections 

with a comprehensive focus include those by John David Marshall, ed., An 

American Library History Reader: Contributions to Library Literature (Hamden, Conn.: 

Shoe String Press, 1960); Thelma Eaton, ed., Contributions to American Library 

History (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Edwards Brothers, 1961); Michael H. Harris, ed., 

Reader in American Library History (Washington, D.C.: NCR Microcard Editions, 

1971); and Richard D. Johnson, ed., Libraries for Teaching, Libraries for Research: 

Essays for a Century (Chicago: ALA, 1976). For the latter volume Johnson assembled 

essays originally published in College & Research Libraries. 

11. Michael H. Harris, “Library History: A Critical Essay on the In-Print 

Literature,” Journal of Library History 2 (1967): 117–25. 

12. Readers interested in receiving a computer disk of bibliographic entries 

should contact Ed Goedeken at the Parks Library, Iowa State University. Joy 

Kingsolver maintains the LHRT webpage from the Asher Library, Spertus 

Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago; the current web address is 

http://www.spertus.edu/library-history/. See also American Library Association, 

Library History Round Table, LHRT Newsletter, n.s. (Chicago: ALA, LHRT, 1992–). 

The LHRT Newsletter began in 1978 as ALHRT: American Library History Round Table 

Newsletter. 

13. Michael H. Harris, A Guide to Research in American Library History (Metuchen, 

N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1968; 2nd ed., 1974). 

14. Michael H. Harris and Donald G. Davis, Jr., American Library History: A 

Bibliography (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978). 

15. Donald G. Davis, Jr., and John Mark Tucker, American Library History: A 

Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1989). 

16. Arthur P. Young, American Library History: A Bibliography of Dissertations and 

Theses, 3rd rev. ed. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988). 

17. Notable American Women 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, 3 vols. 

(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard University, 1971); Notable American 

Women: The Modern Period (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard University,

211 

1980); Jessie Carney Smith, ed., Notable Black American Women (Detroit, Mich.: 

Gale Research, 1992) and Notable Black American Women: Book II (Detroit, Mich.: 

Gale Research, 1996); and Darlene Clark Hine, ed., Black Women in America: An 

Historical Dictionary, 2 vols. (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1993). 

18. Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American 

Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982); Jessie Carney Smith, ed., Notable Black 

American Men (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research, 1999); Randall K. Burkett, Nancy 

Hall Burkett, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds., Black Biography: A Cumulative Index, 

1790–1950, 3 vols. (Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck-Healey, 1991); Index to Black 

Periodicals (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984–), which continues an index begun in the 

mid-1950s at the Hallie Q. Brown Library at Central State University in 

Wilberforce, Ohio; Mary Mace Spradling, ed., In Black and White: A Guide to 

Magazine Articles, Newspaper Articles, and Books Concerning More Than 15,000 Black 

Individuals and Groups, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research, 1980) plus 

related volumes issued in 1971, 1976, and 1985; and New York Public Library, 

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Kaiser Index to Black Resources, 

1948–1986, 5 vols. (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1992). 

19. Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (New York: Marcel Dekker, 

1968–). 

20. ALA World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services (Chicago: ALA, 

1980; 2nd ed., 1986; 3rd ed., 1993). 

21. George S. Bobinski, Jesse Hauk Shera, and Bohdan S. Wynar, eds., 

Dictionary of American Library Biography (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 

1978); Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Supplement to the Dictionary of American Library 

Biography (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1990); and Edward A. 

Goedeken, “The Rainbow Survivors of Some Vanished Grey Moment of Reality’: 

A Prosopographical Study of the Dictionary of American Library Biography and Its 

Supplement,” Libraries & Culture 30 (Spring 1995): 153–69. Goedeken did not assert 

that the history of librarianship itself is male-dominated but rather that the writings 

about the history are. Scholars who wrote about librarianship tended to 

choose male subjects, and most accomplished historians of this subject would 

agree that women have been seriously underrepresented as subjects and that 

much work remains to be done in order to correct this imbalance. For additional 

biographical entries, see Rudolph Engelbarts, Librarian Authors: A Bibliography 

(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1981) and Donald C. Dickinson, Dictionary of 

American Book Collectors (New York: Greenwood, 1986). 

22. Wayne A. Wiegand and Donald G. Davis, Jr., eds., Encyclopedia of Library 

History (New York: Garland, 1994). 

23. Elizabeth W. Stone, “Historical Approach to American Library 

Development: A Chronological Chart,” University of Illinois Occasional Papers 83 

(1967). 

24. Josephine Metcalfe Smith, A Chronology of Librarianship (Metuchen, N.J.: 


25. Elizabeth W. Stone, American Library Development 1600–1899 (New York: 

H. W. Wilson, 1977). 

26. Kathleen Weibel, Kathleen M. Heim, and Diane J. Ellsworth, eds., The Role 

of Women in Librarianship 1876–1976: The Entry, Advancement, and Struggle for 

Equalization in One Profession (Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1979). 

27. The present essay emphasizes bibliographic, reference, and documentary 

sources rather than individual essays or monographs. Readers interested in the 

history of women in librarianship should consult selected writings of Barbara


Brand, James V. Carmichael, Jr., Lora D. “Dee” Garrison, Laurel A. Grotzinger, 

Kathleen Heim, Suzanne Hildenbrand, Mary Niles Maack, and Joanne E. Passet. 

Most notable among recent collections are those edited by Suzanne Hildenbrand, 

Reclaiming the American Library Past: Writing the Women In (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 

1996) and James V. Carmichael, Jr., Daring to Find Our Names: The Search for 

Lesbigay Library History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998). 

28. E. J. Josey and Ann Allen Shockley, eds., Handbook of Black Librarianship 

(Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1977). See also Donald Franklin Joyce, 

Black Book Publishers in the United States: A Historical Dictionary of the Presses, 

1817–1990 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991). Additional authors who 

have enriched our understanding of the historical development of African- 

American librarianship include but are not exclusive to Rosemary R. Du Mont, 

Arthur C. Gunn, Annette L. Phinazee, Jessie Carney Smith, Benjamin F. Speller, 

Jr., and Dorothy Porter Wesley. 

29. Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method (New 

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), 53–55. 

30. Edward G. Holley, ed., Raking the Historical Coals: The A.L.A. Scrapbook of 

1876 (N.p.: Beta Phi Mu, 1967). 

31. Edward G. Holley, “Textual Criticism in Library History,” in Rolland E. 

Stevens, ed., Research Methods in Librarianship: Historical and Bibliographical Methods 

in Library Research (Urbana: University of Illinois Graduate School of Library 

Science, 1971), 96. 

32. Library of Congress, Descriptive Cataloging Division, Manuscript Section, 

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (Washington, D.C.: Library of 

Congress, 1962–). 

33. Harriet Ostroff, ed., Index to Personal Names in the National Union Catalog of 

Manuscript Collections, 1959–1984, 5 vols. (Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck-Healey, 

1988). 

34. Mary McCampbell Bell, Clifford Dwyer, and William Abbot Henderson, 

“Finding Manuscript Collections: NUCMC, NIDS, and RLIN,” National 

Genealogical Society Quarterly 77 (September 1989): 208–18; and H. Thomas 

Hickerson, “RLG: A Vital Force in the Archival Community,” Library Hi Tech 12, 

no. 2 (1994): 22–24. 

35. Maynard Brichford, “The Context for a History of the American Library 

Association,” Libraries & Culture 26 (Spring 1991): 348. 

36. Ibid., 350–51. 

37. Marion Casey, “On the Use of Primary Sources in Writing Library 

History,” in Maynard Brichford, ed., National Catalog of Sources for the History of 

Librarianship (Chicago: ALA, 1982), 6; Maynard J. Brichford, Guide to the 

American Library Association Archives (Chicago: ALA, 1979); National Catalog of 

Sources for the History of Librarianship, reviewed by Edward G. Holley in Libraries & 

Culture 19 (Spring 1984): 325–27; and Maynard J. Brichford and Anne Gilliland, 

Guide to the American Library Association Archives, 2nd ed. (Chicago: ALA, 1987), 

reviewed by Donald G. Davis, Jr. in Library Quarterly 58 (October 1988): 415–16 

and Frederick J. Stielow in Libraries & Culture 23 (Summer 1988): 394. The 

homepage address for the ALA archives, featuring a searchable database, is 

http://www.library.uiuc.edu/ ahx/ala/default.asp. 

38. Elizabeth Cardman, “Preview of the Past: The American Library 

Association Archives,” College & Research Libraries News 10 (November 1997): 688. 

39. Doris Cruger Dale, comp., A Directory of Oral History Tapes of Librarians in the 

United States and Canada (Chicago: ALA, LHRT, 1986). Collected works dependent

213 

in part on oral history include Edward G. Holley and Robert F. Schremser, The 

Library Services and Construction Act: An Historical Overview from the Viewpoint of Major 

Participants (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1983); Wayne A. Wiegand, ed., Leaders 

in American Academic Librarianship: 1925–1975 (Pittsburgh: Beta Phi Mu, 1983); and 

John Mark Tucker, ed., Untold Stories: Civil Rights, Libraries, and Black Librarianship 

(Champaign: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Graduate School of 

Library and Information Science, 1998). Significant autobiographical collections 

were assembled by E. J. Josey, ed., The Black Librarian in America (Metuchen, N.J.: 

Scarecrow Press, 1970) and The Black Librarian in America Revisited (Metuchen, 

N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994). 

40. John Y. Cole, ed., The Library of Congress: A Documentary History, Guide to the 

Microfiche Collection (Bethesda, Md.: CIS Academic Editions, 1987), ix. Cole was 

reviewed by John V. Richardson, Jr., in Libraries & Culture 23 (Summer 1988): 

385–87. 

41. Richardson review, 386–87. 

42. Kenneth E. Carpenter, ed., The Harvard University Library: A Documentary 

History, Bibliographic Guide (Bethesda, Md.: University Publications of America, 

1990), ix–xi. Carpenter was reviewed by Herbert J. Spiro in Libraries & Culture 27 

(Summer 1992): 336–37. Spiro makes the remarkable statement that he had not 

viewed the microfiche in the Harvard collection, and he fails to mention 

Carpenter’s historiographical analysis, acknowledging only the latter’s interpretation 

of the term “scholar-librarian.” 

43. Paul Dickson, The Library in America: A Celebration in Words and Pictures (New 

York: Facts on File Publications, 1986). 

44. Raymond Bial and Linda LaPuma Bial, The Carnegie Library in Illinois 

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991). 

45. Dickson, The Library in America, xiii. 

46. The work of Donald G. Davis, Jr., and, in particular, his editorship of 

Libraries & Culture have played important roles in the growth and development 

of the LHRT. As chair of the LHRT, Davis was instrumental in the establishment 

of the LHRT Newsletter; as a faculty member at Texas, he hosted Library History 

Seminar VI; and since 1980 he has edited and published seminar proceedings. 

Not surprisingly, the LHRT supported the publication of Hermina G. B. 

Anghelescu and Elizabeth A. Dupuis, eds., Libraries & Culture: Twenty-Five-Year 

Cumulative Index (Austin: University of Texas, Graduate School of Library and 

Information Science, 1995). 

47. Rolland E. Stevens, ed., Research Methods in Librarianship: Historical and 

Bibliographical Methods in Library Research (Urbana: University of Illinois, Graduate 

School of Library Science, 1971); and Phyllis Dain and John Y. Cole, eds., Libraries 

and Scholarly Communication in the United States: The Historical Dimension (New York: 


48. “Metcalf, Downs, Kaser, & Shera at Eastern Illinois University April 10, 

1981,” LJ Special Report, no. 21 (1981). 

49. Dennis A. Trinkle et al., The History Highway: A Guide to Internet Resources 

(Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1997). 

50. “Announcing H-LIS,” LHRT Newsletter, n.s. 3, no. 4 (Spring 1998): 6. See 

also “Library History on the Web,” LHRT Newsletter, n.s. 3, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 1. 

51. Historical monographs about librarianship as well as bibliographies and 

other reference sources about library history are not cited in Frank Burt Freidel, 

ed., Harvard Guide to American History, rev. ed., 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap 

Press of Harvard University Press, 1974) or in Mary Beth Norton and Pamela


Gerardi, eds., The American Historical Association’s Guide to Historical Literature, 3rd 

ed., 2 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 

52. Harvey J. Graff, The Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the 

Nineteenth Century City (New York: Academic Press, 1979); and Carl F. Kaestle et 

al., Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading since 1880 (New Haven, Conn.: 

Yale University Press, 1991). 

53. James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds., Print Culture in a Diverse 

America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998).

Fifty Years of Promoting Library History: A 

Chronology of the ALA (American) Library 

History Round Table, 1947–1997 

Andrew B. Wertheimer and John David Marshall 

Programs 

1947, Summer, San Francisco 

Monday, 30 June, 10:00 A.M. 

“Topic to Be Announced” (outlining the ALHRT goals), Louis Shores, 

Florida State University, Tallahassee 

“The Decline and Fall of Adult Education,” Wayne Shirley, Pratt 

Institute Library, Brooklyn 

1948, Midwinter, Chicago 

Friday, 30 January, 2:30 P.M. 

“Recollections of W. F. Poole,” Carl Roden, Chicago Public Library 

“Long Life to the Library History Round Table,” Stanley Pargellis, 

Newberry Library, Chicago 

“Report on Illinois and New York Library History” 

1948, Summer, Atlantic City 


“The Struggle for Sunday Openings,” Sidney Ditzion, City College of 

New York 

“Sunday School Library in America,” Francis W. Allen, Congregational 

Library, Boston 

“The Trenton Library Company, 1750–1850,” Howard L. Hughes, Free 

Public Library, Trenton 

“Recollections of R. R. Bowker,” Frederic G. Melcher, R. R. Bowker Co., 

New York 


Thursday, 20 January, 10:00 A.M. 

“Some Notes on Florida Library History,” Paul Kruse, University of 

Chicago 



216 L&C/Promoting Library History 

“A History of the New Harmony Workingmen’s Institute,” Dan A. 

Williams, Public Library, Muncie, Indiana 

“Recollections of Josephine Adams Rathbone, and Miss Rathbone’s 

Narrative on Library Pioneers,” Nordica Fenneman, Public Library, 

Chicago 

1949, Summer 

No meetings scheduled 


Thursday, 26 January, 10:00 A.M. 

“Thomas Jefferson—His System of Library Classification,” James 

Servies, University of Miami Library, Coral Gables 

“Melvil Dewey and the ‘Steam Engine in Pants (William Raney 

Harper),’” Stanley E. Gwynn, University of Chicago 

1950, Summer, Cleveland 

Monday, 17 July, 10:00 A.M. 

“The California Gold Rush Libraries,” Hazel Pulling, Florida State 

University, Tallahassee (read by Louis Shores, Florida State University, 

Tallahassee) 

“Ohio’s Coonskin Library,” Vinnie J. Mayer, State Archeological and 

Historical Society, Ohio State Museum, Columbus 

“W. H. Brett, Man and Librarian,” Carl Vitz, Cincinnati Public Library 


Tuesday, 30 January, 10:00 A.M. 

“Notes on a History of American Libraries,” Robert B. Brown, Clements 

Library of Americana, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 

“Charles Kendall Adams and the Early Development of Three University 

Libraries,” Jackson E. Towne, State College Library, East Lansing, Mich. 

“Informal Remarks on Andrew Carnegie,” Robert M. Lester, Carnegie 

Corp. of New York 

1951, Summer, Chicago 


“Our Pioneers,” Charles H. Brown, Iowa State College, Ames 


Tuesday, 29 January, 2:30 P.M. 

The History of the Special Library Movement in Minneapolis and St. 

Paul,” Sister Christina Varner, College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minn.

217 

“The Centennial Conference of Librarians, Philadelphia, 1876,” William 

L. Williamson, Graduate Library School, University of Chicago 

1952, Summer, Columbia University, New York 


“A Worm’s-Eye View of the Pioneers,” Marian C. Manley, Public Library, 

Newark, N.J. 

“Professional Recollections of E. H. Anderson, F. F. Hopper, and H. M. 

Lydenberg,” Keyes D. Metcalf, Harvard University Library, Cambridge, 

Mass. 


Tuesday, 3 February, 10:00 A.M. 

“Recollections of Arthur H. Bostwick,” Margery Doud, Public Library, 

St. Louis, Mo. 

“ALA and Intellectual Freedom,” David K. Berninghousen, Cooper 

Union, New York 

1953, Summer, Los Angeles 


“Stop Thief! A Nocturnal Episode in Library History,” Lawrence Clark 

Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library and University of 

California Library, Los Angeles 

“I Take My Pen in Hand,” Colton Storm, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 

[“Cooperation between British and American Librarians,” Louis J. 

Shores, Florida State University, Tallahassee, scheduled, not delivered] 


Tuesday, 2 February, 10:00 A.M. 

“Sydney B. Mitchell,” Lawrence Clark Powell, University of California, 

Los Angeles 

“Personalities in Public Affairs Information Service,” Marian C. Manley, 

Public Library, Newark, N.J. 

“Memories of Electra Collins Doren,” Virginia Hollingsworth, Public 

Library, Dayton, Ohio 

1954, Summer, Minneapolis 


“H. W. Wilson, Friend of Libraries,” Howard Haycraft, H. W. Wilson Co., 

New York 

“Frank Avery Hutchins, Promoter of the Wisconsin Idea,” Alan E. Kent, 

State Historical Society, Madison, Wis.


“Frederick Crunden, Library Statesman,” Bertha Doane, Public Library, 

St. Louis, Mo. 

“Herbert Putnam, Librarian of the United States,” David C. Mearns, 

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 


No meetings listed 

1955, Summer, Philadelphia 


“Northern Libraries in the Civil War: Survival and Progress,” George 

Winston Smith, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque 

“William E. Foster: A Liberal Librarian in a Conservative Country,” 

Clarence E. Sherman, Public Library, Providence, R.I. 

“Early Choice of Books for the Library Co. of Philadelphia,” Edwin Wolf 

II, Library Company of Philadelphia 



1956, Summer, Miami Beach 

Tuesday, 19 June, 10:00 A.M. 

“Southern University Librarians in the Civil War,” Benjamin E. Powell, 

Duke University, Durham, N.C. 

“The Contributions of Louis Round Wilson to American Librarianship,” 

Maurice F. Tauber, Columbia University, New York 

“The Carnegie Corporation and the Library Renaissance in the South,” 

Robert M. Lester, Chapel Hill, N.C. 



1957, Summer, Kansas City, Mo. 


“William Warner Bishop,” Foster E. Mohrhardt, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture Library, Washington, D.C. 

“Books on a Changing Frontier,” R. Richard Wohl, University of Chicago 


No meetings listed


Wednesday, 16 July, 4:30 P.M., California State Historical Society 

“James L. Gillis,” Peter T. Conmy, Oakland Public Library, 

Oakland, Calif. 

“Mary Isom, Creative Pioneer and Leader in the Northwest, Librarian of 

the Library Association of Portland, Ore., 1901–1920,” Bernard W. Van 

Horne, Library Association of Portland 



1959, Summer, Washington, D.C. 

Wednesday, 24 June, 4:30 P.M. 

“Mr. ALA: Carl Hastings Milam,” Emily Miller Danton, Public Library, 

Birmingham, Ala. [Published in the ALA Bulletin 53 (1959): 753–62.] 

“Josephine Adams Rathbone,” Wayne Shirley, Finch College Library, 

New York 

“My Favorite Library School Teachers,” Louis Shores, Florida State 

University, Tallahassee 



1960, Summer, Montreal 


“The Multilateral Approach Required of French-Canadian Librarianship,” 

M. Jean-Charles Bonenfant, Legislative Reference Librarian, 

Province of Quebec 

“A Distinguished Ghost and the National Library,” H. Pearson Gundy, 

University Librarian, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario 



219 

1961, Summer, Cleveland 

Wednesday, 12 July, 4:30 P.M. 

“Life as a Weekend Anthologist,” John David Marshall, University of 

Georgia, Athens 

“The Astor Library Ghost,” Gerald D. McDonald, New York Public 

Library


“Douglas C. McMurtie, 1888–1944: His History of Printing; His Library 

Contacts: His Manuscripts and Memorabilia,” Jackson E. Towne, Michigan 

State University, East Lansing 





“A Military Book Buying Tour in Europe, 1815–1817,” Sidney Forman, 

U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y. 

“Miami’s Public Library,” Frank B. Sessa, Miami Public Library 




Monday, 15 July, 4:30 P.M. 

“ALA Headquarters—When!—Past, Places, Personalities,” Everett O. 

Fontaine, Crowell Collier Publishing Co., New York 

“Deeds Not Words (Essae Martha Culver),” Sallie J. Farrell, Louisiana 

State University, Baton Rouge 



1964, Summer, St. Louis, Mo. 

Monday, 29 June, 4:30 P.M. 

“The Librarians of Harvard Law School Library,” Earl Bogeson, Harvard 

Law School Library, Cambridge, Mass. 

“The Archoons of Colophon and the Melvil Chowder and Marching 

Association,” Wayne Shirley, Wentworth Institute, Boston 



1965, Summer, Detroit 


“William Stetson Merrill: Reminiscences of a Centenarian,” D. W. 

Krummel, Newberry Library, Chicago 

“Libraries, Librarianship, and the Negro,” Virginia Lacy Jones, School of 

Library Service, Atlanta University

“The First Centenary of the Detroit Public Library,” Frank Woodward, 

Detroit 



1966, Summer, New York 


“Fred Melcher as I Knew Him,” Daniel Melcher, R. R. Bowker Co., New 

York 

“New York: The Convention of ’53,” John Frost, New York University, 

New York 

1967, Midwinter, New Orleans 




“Oral Library History: An Opportunity,” Elizabeth Dixon, Oral History 

Program, University of California, Los Angeles, assisted by Frances 

Richardson and Catherine Chadwick, Ventura County Library, and Vice- 

President, California Library Association 

“Ida Kidder, Pioneer Western Land Grant Librarian,” W. H. Carlson, 

Oregon State System of Higher Education Libraries, Corvallis 

“Mabel Ray Gillis, California State Librarian,” Peter T. Conmy, Public 

Library, Oakland, Calif. 

1968, Midwinter, Bal Harbor, Fla. 


1968, Summer, Kansas City, Mo. 


“Edward Christopher Williams—A Librarian’s Librarian,” E. J. Josey, 

Bureau of Academic and Research Libraries, New York State Library, 

Albany 

“Reflections on School District Libraries,” Richard B. Sealock, Kansas 

City Public Library 

1969, Midwinter, Washington, D.C. 


221


1969, Summer, Atlantic City 


“Program to Be Announced” 




Thursday, 2 July, 4:30–6:00 P.M. 

“The American Library in Paris,” Foster Mohrhardt, Council on Library 

Resources, Washington, D.C., and Theodore Walker, Grolier Educational 

Corporation, New York 

1971, Midwinter, Los Angeles 


1971, Summer, Dallas 




1972, Chicago 

25th Anniversary Program of the ALHRT 

Presiding: N. Orwin Rush, Florida State University, Tallahassee 

“The Library and Society,” Louis Shores, Tallahasee 

“Carl Milam and the American Library Association,” Peggy A. Sullivan, 

University of Pittsburgh 

Election of Officers 

ALHRT’s Part in the Centennial Celebration 

1973, Midwinter, Washington, D.C. 

Monday, 29 January, 4:30–6:00 P.M. 

ALHRT Nominating Committee 


ALHRT Program Committee 

Tuesday, 30 January, 4:30–6:00 P.M. 

ALHRT Constitution and Bylaws Committee 

Wednesday, 31 January, 10:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. 

ALHRT Centennial Committee (ad hoc)

1973, Las Vegas, N.M. 

“The American Library Association Centennial—1976” 

Presiding: Michael H. Harris, University of Kentucky, Lexington 

“Ainsworth Rand Spofford, the Library of Congress, and the ALA,” John 

Y. Cole, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 

“Charles Ami Cutter, Melvil Dewey and the ALA,” Francis Miksa, 

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 


Sunday, 20 January, 8:30–10:30 P.M. 

ALHRT Centennial Committee (ad hoc) 

1974, New York 

Tuesday, 9 July, 4:30–6:00 P.M. 

“Women in the Past as Leaders in the Library Profession” 

Presiding: Russell Eugene Bidlack 

“Katherine Sharp and Margaret Mann,” Laurel A. Grotzinger, Western 

Michigan University 

“American Association of School Librarians,” Patricia Brown Pond, 

University of Oregon 


Tuesday, 21 January, 8:30–10:30 P.M. 

ALHRT Executive Committee 

1975, San Francisco 

“Historical Development of the American Library Association” 

Presiding: George S. Bobinski, State University of New York, Buffalo 

“Research on the History of the A.L.A.: Problems and Findings,” Dennis 

Thomson, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 

“A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to a Dissertation: Library Work 

with Children and the A.L.A.,” Peggy Sullivan, University of Chicago 




1976, Centennial Conference, Chicago 

Monday, 19 July, 10:00–12:00 P.M. 

“The Service Ethos in American Libraries, 1876–1976” 

223


(cosponsored by Circulation Services Division, Library Administration 

Division) 

Panel of speakers representing academic libraries: Richard W. Boss, 

Princeton University; public libraries: C. Lamar White, Memphis–Shelby 

County Public Library and Information Center; school libraries: Coleen 

Salley, University of New Orleans 

Tuesday, 20 July, 4:30–6:00 P.M. 

“Historical Writing: Editorial Problems and Pleasures” (panel) 

Presiding: Sarah K. Vann, University of Hawaii 

Speakers: George S. Bobinski, State University of New York at Buffalo; 

Sidney L. Jackson, Kent State University; Howard W. Winger, University 

of Chicago 

Greetings from Godfrey Dewey on tape 

Thursday, 22 July, 10:00–12:00 P.M. 

ALHRT Business Meeting 

1977, Midwinter 



Sunday, 19 June, 4:30–6:00 P.M. 

“The Nature and Use of Library History” 

Presiding: Margaret F. Maxwell, University of Arizona, Tucson 

Speakers: Edward G. Holley, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; 

Michael H. Harris, University of Kentucky, Lexington; Phyllis Dain, 

Columbia University, New York; Jesse H. Shera, Case Western Reserve 

University, Cleveland; Peggy Sullivan, Chicago Public Library 





Monday, 26 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

Presiding: Jean Key Gates, University of South Florida, Tampa 

“The University of Chicago Graduate School: The First 25 Years,” John 

Richardson, Jr., University of Indiana, Bloomington 

“Recollections,” Jesse H. Shera, Case Western Reserve University, 

Cleveland

“Global Book Crusade: The American Library Association and World 

War I,” Arthur P. Young, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa 

Comments, Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Kentucky, Lexington 


LHRT Executive Committee 


Tuesday, 26 June, 2:00–5:30 P.M. 

“The Library of Congress: Past, Present and Future,” Daniel J. Boorstin, 

Library of Congress 

“Libraries and Scholarship: Past, Present and Future,” Ian Willison, 

British Library, London 




Monday, 30 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

“Library History and Oral History: An Introduction and Challenge” 

Chair: Philip Metzger, University of Texas at Austin 

“History and Procedures of Oral History,” Elizabeth B. Mason, Columbia 

University, New York 

“Review of Work in Library History: Using Oral History Techniques,” 

John V. Richardson, Jr., University of California at Los Angeles 

“What Needs to Be Done in the Field Using Oral History,” Laurel A. 

Grotzinger, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo 



225 


Monday, 29 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

“Libraries under Communism: The U.S.S.R. and the People’s Republic of 

China” 

“The Historical Development of Soviet Librarianship, 1917–1980,” Boris 

Raymond, Dalhousie University 

“Chinese Libraries and Library Education, 1949–1980: Truth and Myth 

in the People’s Republic of China,” Lee-hsia Ting, Western Illinois 

University


Comments: Edward Kasinec, University of California, Berkeley; 

Raymond N. Tang, University of California, Berkeley 

Tuesday, 30 June, 9:30–11:00 A.M. 

“Leaders in American Academic Librarianship, 1925–1975: An 

Experience in Oral History” 

Panel Chair: Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Kentucky, Lexington 

“Focus on Robert Downs, Keyes Metcalf, Louis Round Wilson, Ralph 

Ellsworth, Charles Harvey Brown, Lawrence Clark Powell and Jerald 

Orne” 

Panelists: Arthur P. Young, Peter Hernon, John V. Richardson, Jr., Edward 

R. Johnson, Edward G. Holley, Wayne A. Wiegand, Rosemary R. DuMont 

1982, Midwinter, Denver 

Saturday, 23 January, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 


1982, Summer, Philadelphia 

Monday, 12 July, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

“Images of Librarianship; or, What Collecting Librariana Can Tell Us 

about Library History” 

Panel Chair: Norman D. Stevens, University of Connecticut, Storrs 

“Sam Walter Foss and His Poetry: A Reading,” George Parks, Colgate 

University 

“Panel Discussion on the Ways Which Libraries, Librarians, and 

Librarianship Are Depicted in Various ‘Media’” 

Introduction, Norman D. Stevens, University of Connecticut, Storrs 

“Cartoons,” Gail Grill, Garden Spot High School 

“Images,” Catherine Heinz, Broadcast Pioneers Library, Washington, D.C. 

“Film,” Raymond Tevis, Ball State College, Muncie, Ind. 

“Postcards,” Marjorie A. Markoff, Millersville State College; Billy Ray 

Wilkonson, University of Maryland, Baltimore County 

“Postage Stamps,” John Henry Richter, University of Michigan, Ann 

Arbor 

“Commemoratives,” David C. Libbey, Southern Connecticut College, 

New Haven 

“Librariana,” Norman D. Stevens, University of Connecticut, Storrs

Tuesday, 13 July, 9:30–11:00 A.M. 

“Women in Library History: Liberating Our Past” 

Presiding: Mary Niles Maack 

“Biographical Research,” Laurel A. Grotzinger, Western Michigan 

University, Kalamazoo 

“Librarianship and Other Female Intensive Professions,” Barbara Brand, 

State University of New York, Stony Brook 

“Theoretical Perspectives,” Suzanne Hildenbrand, State University 

College, Geneseo, N.Y. 

“Cross Cultural Research,” Mary Niles Maack, University of Minnesota, 

Minneapolis 

1983, Midwinter, San Antonio 



1983, Los Angeles 

Monday, 27 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

(cosponsored by ACRL-RBMS) 

“ ‘So Good and Worthy a Designe’: Library Services to the Public in 

17th, 18th Centuries: Archbishop Tennison’s Library and Public Library 

Provision in England, 1660–1715” Peter A. Hoare, University of 

Nottingham 

“Philadelphia Readers and Libraries in the 18th Century,” Marie E. 

Korey, Free Library of Philadelphia 


LHRT Research Forum 

Presiding: Donald G. Davis, Jr., University of Texas at Austin 

“Tauber’s Wilson: Biography or Autobiography,” Robert Sidney Martin, 

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

“Adelaide Haase and the Origin of the SuDoc Scheme,” Gail Nelson, 

University of California, Los Angeles 

“Establishing Public Libraries in New England, 1850–1900,” William L. 

Olbrich, Jr., Baylor University, Waco, Tex. 

1983 Justin Winsor Prize Paper 




227



Monday, 25 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

“Censorship and the Dilemma of a Moral Culture,” Frederick Stielow, 

University of Maryland 

“Early Library Education as ‘Gatekeeping,’” Lee Shiflett, Louisiana State 


1984 Justin Winsor Prize Paper 


“Library and Information Science: Historical Perspectives” 

“Library and Information Science: The Integration of Complementary 

Fields,” W. Boyd Rayward, University of Chicago 

“Jesse Shera as an Interface between the Library and Information Science 

Fields,” H. Curtis Wright, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 

“Malchup’s Categories of Knowledge as a Framework for Viewing 

Library and Information Science History,” Francis Miksa, Louisiana 

State University 





Saturday, 6 July, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

(cosponsored with LRRT) 

“The Dialectic of Defeat: Antinomies in Research in Library and 

Information Science” 

Speaker: Michael H. Harris, University of Kentucky 

Moderator: Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Kentucky 

Panel: Charles McClure, Jane Robbins-Carter, Don Swanson 


LHRT Research Forum 

“Tackling Early Public Libraries in Texas or Wow! Is Texas a Big State 

and the Early Libraries Are Spread All Over,” Gretchen L. Lake, University 

of Texas at Austin 

“The American Library Profession and U.S. Cultural Diplomacy,” Gary 

Kraske, University of Maryland, College Park

“Bringing Books to the People: The First Generation of Graduates from 

the Illinois Library School, 1898–1908,” Loriene Roy, University of Illinois 

at Urbana-Champaign 




1986, Summer, New York 

Monday, 30 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

“The Social Service Professions: New Approaches to Historical 

Scholarship” 

Chair: Arthur P. Young, University of Rhode Island 

“Rethinking the History of the Professions,” John H. Ehrenreich, SUNY 

College at Old Westbury 

“ ‘Not Merely a Profession’: Nurses and Conflict over Professionalization,” 

Barbara Melosh, National Museum of American History, 

Smithsonian Institute 

Commentary: Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Kentucky, Lexington 



“Research Paper Presentation” (Justin Winsor Prize Essay) 


Saturday, 17 January, 9:30–11:00 A.M. 


229 

1987, San Francisco 

Monday, 29 June, 2:00–5:30 P.M. 

“Carnegie Denied: Communities Refusing Construction Grants, 

1898–1920” 

Chair: Robert S. Martin 

“Indiana,” J. Mark Tucker, Purdue University, West Lafayette 

“New York,” Fredrick Stielow, University of Maryland, College Park 

“The South,” Donald G. Davis, Jr., University of Texas at Austin, and 

Ronald C. Stone, University of Texas at Austin 

“Michigan, Illinois and Ohio,” Daniel Ring, Oakland University, Calif. 

“The Pittsburgh Case,” Rosemary DuMont, Kent State University, Ohio 

“Pennsylvania,” Pamela Spence Richards, Rutgers University, N.J. 

(presented by Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Wisconsin, Madison)


Monday, 29 June, 11:30–12:30 P.M. 


1988, Midwinter, San Antonio 



1988, New Orleans 

Sunday, 10 July, 9:30–11:00 A.M. 



Monday, 11 July, 2:00–5:30 P.M. 

“ ‘The Creation of Patriarchy’: Its Implications for Librarianship,” Gerda 

Lerner, University of Wisconsin, Madison 

[Implications for Female School Librarians], Rebecca T. Bingham, 

Jefferson County Public Schools, Ky. 

[Implications for Female Academic Librarians], Sharon Hogan, 

Louisiana State University 




1989, Dallas 

Monday, 25 July, 9:30–11:00 A.M. 



Monday, 25 June, 2:00–5:30 P.M. 

“Reflections on the Future of Humanistic Scholarship: Humanistic 

Scholarship in the Context of Cultural Policy,” Bernhard Fabian, 

Münster University, Federal Republic of Germany 

Respondents: Michael Ryan, Stanford University Libraries; Thomas F. 

Staley, University of Texas at Austin 



LHRT Executive Committee

1990, Chicago 

Monday, 25 June, 9:30–12:30 P.M. 

“To Plead Our Own Cause: Black Publishing in American History and 

Library Programs” 

Chair: Suzanne Hildenbrand, SUNY-Buffalo 

“Black Literature in the 19th Century: The Role of the Periodical Press,” 

Henry Louis Gates, Cornell University 

“The Anatomy of a College-Community Series on the History of Black 

Book Publishing,” Betty Jenkins, City College, University of New York 




1991, Atlanta 

Monday, 1 July, 8:30–11:00 A.M. 

“Technology, Information Science and Libraries in the 20th Century” 

“The Library Bureau and Office Technology,” Gerri Flanzraich, New 

York College of Osteopathic Medicine 

“Information Scientists and Graduate Schools of Librarianship: The First 

Generation,” John V. Richardson, Jr., University of California at Los 

Angeles 

“Issues in Formulating Library and Information Science History,” Francis 

Miksa, University of Texas at Austin 



231 


Monday, 29 July, 2:00–5:00 P.M. 

LHRT Program: “The Old History and the New: Reflections on the 

Historic Role of Libraries” 

Chair: Mary Niles Maack, University of California at Los Angeles 

Presenter: Phyllis Dain, Columbia University 

Commentators: John Y. Cole, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; 

Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Wisconsin, Madison 


LHRT Research Forum: “The Public Library Inquiry: Reminiscences, 

Reflections and Research”


Chair: Mary Niles Maack, University of California at Los Angeles 

“The Public Library Inquiry: Purpose, Procedures and Participants,” 

Alice Bryan, Columbia University 

“The Public Library Inquiry: Search for Professional Legitimacy,” 

Douglas Raber, University of Missouri 

“The Relationship between the Public Library Inquiry and Library 

Planning,” Kathleen Molz, Columbia University 

“Research on Public Libraries: Reflections of a Historian,” Mary Niles 

Maack, University of California at Los Angeles 



1993, Summer, New Orleans 

Monday, 28 June, 2:00–5:30 P.M. 

LHRT Program: “Perspectives on the Scholar’s Workshop: Papers in 

Honor of Edward G. Holley” 

Moderator and Commentator: Robert S. Martin 

“Andrew Carnegie and the Black College Libraries,” David Kaser, 

Indiana University 

“Change and Tradition in Land-Grant University Libraries,” J. Mark 

Tucker, Purdue University, and Donald G. Davis, Jr., University of Texas 

at Austin 

“Big Stakes in a Big Fight: Holley and Service to the Profession,” James 

V. Carmichael, Jr., University of North Carolina, Greensboro 


LHRT Research Forum: “Women’s Work: Vision and Change in 

Librarianship” 

(cosponsored by University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and 

Information Science) 

Moderator: Joanne E. Passet, Indiana University 

“Invisible, Indestructible Network: Women and the Diffusion of 

Librarianship at the Turn of the Century,” Laurel Grotzinger, Michigan 

State University 

“Southerners in the North and Northerners in the South: The Impact of 

the University of Illinois Library School on Southern Librarianship,” 

James V. Carmichael, Jr., University of North Carolina, Greensboro 

“Women’s Work: Vision, Influence, and Power for Change,” Mary Niles 

Maack, University of California at Los Angeles




Monday, 27 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

LHRT Program Session: “Libraries, Books and the Civil Rights 

Movement” 

Moderator: J. Mark Tucker, Purdue University 

“Freedom Libraries,” Donald G. Davis, Jr., University of Texas at Austin 

and Cheryl Knott Malone, University of Texas at Austin 

“Racial Integration at the University of Houston: A Personal 

Perspective,” Edward G. Holley, University of North Carolina and 

Charles D. Churchwell, Clark Atlanta University 

“Black Women, Civil Rights & Libraries,” Jessie Carney Smith, Fisk 



LHRT Research Forum: “The History of Black Librarianship in 

America” 

Moderator: Casper LeRoy Jordan, Atlanta University 

“The Founding and Prevalence of African-American School Libraries and 

Historical Societies, 1918–1928: Gatekeepers of Early Black History, 

Collections and Literature,” Rosie L. Albritton, Wayne State University 

“From Segregation to Integration: A History of Library Service to Blacks 

in South Carolina,” Dan Lee, Lander University 

“ACRL’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Libraries Projects, 

1972–1994,” Beverly P. Lynch, University of California at Los Angeles, 

and Casper L. Jordan, Atlanta University 



233 


Saturday, 24 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

(cosponsored by ALA-SRRT) 

“The Importance of LesbiGay Library History” 

Presiding: James V. Carmichael, Jr., University of North Carolina, 

Greensboro 

“The Silence Surrounding LesbiGay Library History,” James V. Carmichael, 

Jr., University of North Carolina, Greensboro


“Biographical Research on LesbiGay Subjects: The Case of Lillian 

Smith,” Rose Gladney, University of Alabama 

“The Silence Surrounding Gay and Lesbian Library History,” Polly 

Thislewaite, Hunter College, New York, and James Carmichael 

“Difficulties in Establishing the Archival Record,” Brenda Marston, 

Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 

“Multimedia Celebration,” Marie Kuda, Chicago 

[no research forum] 




Monday, 8 July, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

LHRT Research Program “The History of ‘Trash’ in the Library,” Joe 

Raiola, Mad Magazine 

Respondents: Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Wisconsin, Madison; 

Judith A. Overmier, University of Oklahoma 

Sunday, 7 July, 9:30–12:30 P.M. 

LHRT Research Forum: “Women of Influence: Implications of Feminist 

Leadership Research for Library Historians” 

“Women Leaders: Power as Empowerment,” Helen Astin, University of 

California at Los Angeles 

“Women in Librarianship: Identifying the Leaders,” Mary Niles Maack, 

University of California at Los Angeles 

“Seizing the Day: The Powerful Impact of Mildred L. Batchelder,” 

Dorothy J. Anderson, University of California at Los Angeles 

“Courage of the Inconspicuous: Children’s Librarians as Leaders,” 

Christine Jenkins, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 

Respondent: Nancy Becker Johnson, Wayne State University 




Saturday, 28 June, 2:00–4:00 P.M. 

LHRT Research Forum: “Reading for Moral Progress” 

Moderator: Mary Kay Duggan, University of California, Berkeley 

“Bread upon the Waters: The Printed Word in Sunday Schools in 19th

Century England and the United States,” Donald G. Davis, Jr., 

University of Texas at Austin 

“The Library Is a Valuable Hygienic Appliance,” David M. Hovde, 

Purdue University 

“Wide Awakening: Political and Theological Impulses for Reading and 

Libraries at Oberlin College, 1883–1908,” J. Mark Tucker, Purdue 


Sunday, 29 June, 9:30–11:00 A.M. 

LHRT/LRRT Joint Program: “Library History as Research” 

Moderator, Nancy Becker Johnson, Wayne State University 

“Romancing the Muse of History,” Christine A. Jenkins, University of 

Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Rebecca Watson-Boone 

Sunday, 29 June, 11:30–12:30 P.M. 

Justin Winsor Prize Essay Award 

“Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library, 1907–1922,” Cheryl Knott Malone, 

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 

Justin Winsor Prize 

LHRT Awards 

235 

1981 “Women Librarians in France: The First Generation,” 

Mary Niles Maack, University of California at Los Angeles 

1982 (Tie) “Aryan Librarianship: Academic and Research Libraries 

under Hitler,” Pamela Spence Richards, Rutgers 

1983 


“British Propaganda in American Public Libraries, 

1914–1917,” Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Wisconsin, 

Madison 

“Maurice F. Tauber’s Louis Round Wilson: An Analysis of a 

Collaboration,” Robert S. Martin, University of North 

Carolina at Chapel Hill 

1984 “Library Culture and the Role of Libraries in Democratic 

America: Baltimore, 1815–1840,” Joseph Lawrence Yeatman, 

Towson High School, Baltimore 

1985 Not awarded


1986 “Adult Education and Economic Opportunism in the 

Gilded Age: The Library, the Chautauqua and the 

Railroads in DeFuniak, Florida,” Ronald Blazek, Florida 

State University, Tallahassee 

1987 “American Nervousness and Turn of the Century 

Librarians,” Rosalee McReynolds, Loyola University, New 

Orleans 

1988 “Library Service to the American Commission to Negotiate 

Peace and to the Preparatory Inquiry, 1917–1919,” Brother 

Thomas O’Connor, Manhattan College, New York 

1989 “Rapprochement: Carl Milam, Archibald Macleish, and 

World War II,” Frederick J. Stielow, Catholic University of 

America 

1990 “Teaching General Reference Work: The Essential 

Paradigm, 1890–1990,” John V. Richardson, Jr., University 

of California at Los Angeles 

1991 “The Postwar Purge of German Public Libraries, 

1992 

Democracy and the American Reaction,” Margaret F. 

Stieg, University of Alabama 

“Men in a Feminized Profession: The Male Librarian, 

1887–1921,” Joanne E. Passet, Indiana University 

1993 Not awarded 



1996 “The ‘Amherst Method’: The Origins of the Dewey 

Decimal Classification Scheme,” Wayne A. Wiegand, 

University of Wisconsin, Madison 

1997 “Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library, 1907–1922,” Cheryl 

Knott Malone, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 

Source: Wayne A. Wiegand, “Library History Research in 

the United States,” Libraries & Culture 25 (1990): 113. 

Phyllis Dain Library Dissertation Award 

1993 “American Public Library Service to the Immigrant 

Community, 1876–1948: A Biographical History of the 

Movement and Its Leaders,” Plummer Alston Jones, Jr., 

Elon College, Elon College, NC

1996 “From Altruism to Activism: The Contributions of 

Women’s Organizations to Arkansas Public Libraries,” 

Marilyn J. Martin, Texas Woman’s University 

Honorable Mention 

[History of Microfilming], Susan Cady, Lehigh University 

Leadership 

1947–67 Chair: Wayne Shirley 

Secretary: Louis Shores 

1967–68 Chair: Wayne Shirley 

Secretary: Louis Shores 

Editor: John David Marshall 

1969 Chair: N. Orwin Rush 

Secretary: John David Marshall 

ALA Staff Liaison: Flora D. Colton 







1972 Chair: Michael H. Harris 

Secretary: David Carleton Libbey 


1973 Chair: Russell Eugene Bidlack 

Secretary: Laurel A. Grotzinger 


1974 Chair: George S. Bobinski 

Secretary-Treasurer: Doris C. Dale 


1975 Chair: Sarah K. Vann 

Secretary-Treasurer: Sidney L. Jackson 


1976 Chair: Margaret F. Maxwell 

Secretary-Treasurer: Susan O. Thompson 


237


1977 Chair: Budd L. Gambee 

Secretary-Treasurer: Wayne A. Wiegand 

ALA Staff Liaison: Joel M. Lee 

1978 Chair: Donald G. Davis, Jr. 

Secretary-Treasurer: Phyllis Dain 


1979 Chair: Donald E. Oehlerts 

Secretary-Treasurer: Arthur P. Young 


1980 Chair: Phyllis Dain 

Secretary-Treasurer: Marion Casey 


1981 Chair: Doris Cruger Dale 

Secretary-Treasurer: Mary Niles Maack 


1982 Chair: Anna Lou Ashby 

Secretary-Treasurer: Philip A. Metzger 


1983 Chair: Lee Shiflett 

Secretary-Treasurer: Betty Young 


1984 Chair: Laurel A. Grotzinger 

Secretary-Treasurer: Robert V. Williams 


1985 Chair: Arthur P. Young 

Secretary-Treasurer: Gordon B. Neavill 


1986 Chair: Robert M. Martin 

Secretary-Treasurer: James V. Carmichael, Jr. 

ALA Staff Liaison: Emily I. Melton 

1987 Chair: Wayne A. Wiegand 

Secretary-Treasurer: Jane A. Rosenberg 

ALA Staff Liaison: Emily I. Melton 

1988 Chair: Gordon B. Neavill 

Secretary-Treasurer: Charles A. Seavey 

Members at Large: Arthur P. Young, R. Kathleen Molz 

ALA Staff Liaison: Emily I. Melton

239 

1989 Chair: Suzanne Hildenbrand 

Secretary-Treasurer: Joanne E. Passet 

Members at Large: R. Kathleen Molz, Mary Niles Maack 

ALA Staff Liaison: Charles T. Harmon 

1990 Chair: Francis Miksa 

Secretary-Treasurer: Judith A. Overmier 

Members at Large: Richard Hume Werking, Margaret F. Steig 


1991 Chair: Mary Niles Maack 

Secretary-Treasurer: Rosalee McReynolds 

Members at Large: Margaret F. Steig, Laurel A. Grotzinger 


1992 Chair: Joanne E. Passet 

Secretary-Treasurer: Nancy Becker Johnson 

Members at Large: Laurel A. Grotzinger, Barbara B. Brand 


1993 Chair: John Mark Tucker 

Secretary-Treasurer: Betty Hanson 

Members at Large: Barbara B. Brand, Judith A. Overmier 


1994 Chair: James V. Carmichael, Jr. 

Secretary-Treasurer: Nancy Becker Johnson 

Members at Large: Barbara B. Brand, Michele V. Cloonan 


1995 Chair: Judith A. Overmier 

Secretary-Treasurer: Louise S. Robbins 

Members at Large: Michele V. Cloonan, Deanna Marcum 

ALA Staff Liaison: Renee Prestegard 

1996 Chair: Nancy Becker Johnson 

Secretary-Treasurer: David M. Hovde 

Members at Large: Deanna Marcum, Christine Jenkins 

ALA Staff Liaison: Mary Jo Lynch 

1997 Chair: Louise S. Robbins 

Secretary-Treasurer: Ann Moss 

Members at Large: Christine Jenkins, Holly G. Willett 

ALA Staff Liaison: Mary Jo Lynch

The Historical Sensibility 

Phyllis Dain 

Library historians, most of them librarians themselves, bring identity, 

context, and continuity to librarianship, as well as situating libraries and 

librarianship in the general stream of history. They do this mainly through 

exploring historical topics. They can also apply their historical insight 

directly to contemporary issues and problems and thereby contribute a 

valuable perspective to the practice of librarianship today. 

It’s a pleasure to celebrate with you the fiftieth anniversary of LHRT, 

and I congratulate all who have participated through the years in the 

very successful effort to promote the scholarly study of library history. 

Special recognition is due to two good friends and colleagues: Don Davis 

for his indefatigable work for the cause in so many key ways, and John 

Cole (and the Center for the Book) for always faithful support. 

In stimulating and supporting new historical work LHRT has served as 

a forum for library historians, a place to find kindred spirits and form 

good friendships. This has been immensely important. Library historians 

can feel somewhat intellectually isolated. Mainly professional librarians, 

they either teach at library schools or work out in the field; few work at 

history full time. In library schools (or, to be up to date, schools of information 

studies), unless things have changed, historians will usually be 

lucky to teach a history of libraries course; at most they cover history in 

a general backgrounds course or incorporate it into the contemporary 

subjects they teach. Out in the library field, although historical work is 

respected, and much more so now than fifty years ago, that’s of course 

not where the action is (about which more later). In the history profession 

proper, so to speak, we still stand somewhat at the margins, though 

less so now than earlier. 

Still, we librarians continue to do historical research and writing. Why? 

As many have said, such work can delineate the role of libraries in society, 

supply the profession with perspective, help build a realistic, critical 

sense of professional identity and continuity, inculcate professional traditions 

and culture, point to accomplishments and failings, and so on. That 

is all quite valid, but it applies to the significance of historical work, not 



241 

why we really do it. In a personal sense it begs the question. We do history 

because we want to. It’s interesting. We love it. We have a historical 

cast of mind. We’re humanists and historians by inclination and training; 

probably most of us were history majors in college, many did graduate 

work in history, and almost all did a historical doctoral dissertation. 

Librarianship has always attracted historians, and there’s been a natural 

affinity between librarians and historians. Whatever else it may be, history 

is a humanistic discipline that uses the records of human activity 

and thought. Librarianship has been, and remains, a humanistic 

endeavor, concerned with preserving and organizing those records and 

with serving the human need for cultural continuity and intellectual 

nourishment as well as practical information. 

Library historians, with their love for history and their understanding 

of its winding course, can make a special contribution to the humanistic 

role of libraries as it is played out today. The fact that we’re involved in 

current professional affairs as well as historical research offers us a 

unique opportunity. In the intensely practical profession of librarianship 

to which we are committed and which we also love, the historical sensibility 

can be very valuable. History is a mode of “thinking in time,” as 

Richard Neustadt and Ernest May put it in their book on “the uses of history 

for decision-makers.” 1 Human beings live in time and through time. 

Historians explore that experience, and with awareness of all the contradictions 

and complexities and unknowables that such study presents. 

History yields context, and those of us who do history can’t help but 

think in contextual terms. We’re trained to do so. 

Historical perspective powerfully informed classic works on contemporary 

issues in librarianship—for example, Carleton Joeckel’s 1935 study 

of the government of the American public library, or the post–World 

War II Public Library Inquiry. Library historians today can enrich current 

professional discourse by providing similar context, by pointing out 

both continuums and disjunctions between past and present and by analyzing 

and assessing, in our time of rapid change, processes of change. 

This is not a matter of learning lessons from the past, though there are 

lessons to be drawn. People seldom do so, it seems, or they learn the 

wrong lessons or the right ones at the wrong times. Nor does “thinking 

in time” about present issues imply a presentist view of history. Rather, 

it is the opposite—taking a historical view of the present, seeing where 

the present stands in the stream of time. It means thinking backward 

to go forward. I’m not saying that historians/librarians should focus on 

the present at the expense of their historical research. And I know 

some of them have addressed contemporary issues from a historical 

viewpoint. I would encourage more of that. The profession would both 

welcome and benefit from historians more often applying historical

242 L&C/The Historical Sensibility 

insight and contextual thinking directly to the contemporary situation, 

not by preaching the value of historical perspective and context but by 

furnishing it. 

I speak, if I may, from personal experience. A few years ago R. 

Kathleen Molz, my colleague at Columbia University’s late School of 

Library Service (and now on the faculty of the university’s School of 

International and Public Affairs), and I undertook to co-author a book on 

the current state and prospects of the American public library, very 

broadly considered, and in terms of both national public policy and local 

institutional practice. That book, Civic Space/Cyberspace: The American 

Public Library in the Information Age, published in the fall of 1999 by the 

MIT Press, is an essayistic work, based on various sources: published and 

unpublished documents and data; field visits around the country; and 

interviews and conversations with several hundred librarians and others 

interested in libraries and information policy. We also drew upon our own 

years of reading, teaching, and professional practice and, very significantly, 

our historical knowledge and cast of mind. That historical outlook 

lent to our work a depth of understanding and breadth of scope that, 

frankly, surprised even us. It helped us, I think, to give a sense of what is 

similar now to the past and what is different from it and of the problems 

and opportunities that both the traditional and the new evoke. Even if we 

had not already had the habit of thinking in time, we would soon have 

seen that we should cultivate it, for to comprehend what is going on now 

is impossible without that historical vista. 

To take one broad example among many: public libraries today are 

institutionally and fiscally very diverse at the same time as they are in 

many ways alike. The classic, fairly simple models of public libraries— 

independent municipal institutions and a scattering of many small town 

libraries, plus, later, county libraries in a few rural states—didn’t apply 

across the board in Joeckel’s kaleidoscopic picture, and they apply much 

less so now. The current scene reflects profound changes in American 

society over the past fifty years and the superimposition on individual 

library entities of new consolidated and interlibrary systems that grew 

out of the work of Joeckel, the Public Library Inquiry, and other promoters 

of universal, equitable access to libraries. Library access is now ubiquitous, 

and services around the country are quite similar and can 

transcend, through technology and cooperation, local resources. But this 

development was neither neat nor consistent nationwide, and all the talk 

about globalism notwithstanding, services and resources are not equal or 

equally funded. This is very much because of potent local variations and 

boundaries that may contradict the regional way we live now but are 

deeply rooted in history—in how libraries were first formed, their organic 

connections with home communities, our federal, multitiered govern-

mental system, demographic shifts, public funding systems, and the politics 

of public policy. 

To be more specific: two leading American public library systems, Los 

Angeles County and King County in Washington state, are both big, successful, 

and progressive, with annual circulations among the highest in 

the country. Both systems originated in efforts to serve rural communities 

that have since evolved into urban, suburban, and exurban components 

of major metropolitan areas. But Los Angeles County Library has 

been in big fiscal trouble and has had to be quite entrepreneurial, while 

King County Library has continued to flourish without much interruption. 

Los Angeles County Library, dating from 1912, operates in functional 

buildings in a heterogeneous, populous service area; the somewhat 

smaller King County Library, established in 1943, serves far-flung, more 

or less homogeneous, albeit changing communities in many beautiful 

new or renovated buildings. The Los Angeles system is a creature of the 

county, and California counties have suffered from the state’s economic 

vicissitudes, antitax measures, and the decline in its historic commitment 

to educational institutions. King County Library is an independent 

taxing district in a state with no direct state aid for libraries and in a 

region still experiencing economic boom times and with many independent 

districts delivering public services. History . . . Context . . . 

The book did divert me to an extent from my historical projects, but I 

can honestly say that everything I had previously done informed the work 

on the book and that that work made me think more deeply about historical 

issues. The traveling and interviews and reading also gave me a 

wider range of knowledge about the evolution of public libraries. And it 

was all very inspiring, even to such sharp-eyed critics as Kathleen Molz 

and I tend to be. We met wonderful people and saw very effective 

libraries, some operating under difficult conditions. I also have to say 

that many librarians expressed appreciation for the chance to step back 

from their everyday work and discuss larger professional and, yes, historical 

issues with us. For our part, we hope we’ve contributed toward an 

understanding of an “old” institution that remains vital in the “new” 

American life. 

Note 

1. Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History 

for Decision-Makers (New York: Free Press, 1986). 

243

The Cover—The Cavagna Collection: A Case 

Study in Special Collections 

Designed for the Cavagna Collection at the University of Illinois in 

Urbana-Champaign, the black-and-white bookplate depicts at its center 

the Cavagna family crest. The Cavagna family, from the Lombardy 

region of Italy, traces its name to 1112. Their crest consists of a gold 

lion on a red background. Crossing the lion is a blue band with a cestus 

in gold. Set above is a golden-crowned, two-headed black eagle on a 

gold background. Surrounding the crest is an ornate Italian 

Renaissance design, as befits the collection, with the university’s motto, 

Bookplate courtesy of the Cavagna Collection 



245 

“Learning and Labor,” modestly emblazoned across the bottom of the 

bookplate. 

Acquired in 1921, the Cavagna Collection belonged to Count Antonio 

Cavagna Sangiuliani di Gualdana (1843–1913), Italian nobleman, writer, 

and bibliophile from Pavia. Born in Piedmont on 15 August 1843, he was 

the last of the Cavagna counts. In 1853 his cousin Antonio Sangiuliani, 

who had no heir, adopted him, thus allowing Cavagna to add the name of 

Sangiuliani to his surname. 

Cavagna fought for the unification of Italy, which interrupted his study 

of law at several universities. Eventually he received the laurea in legge 

from the l’Universitá Pontificia in Rome in 1871. Active in public life 

until his death, he was also a member of many learned societies, academies, 

and institutions. He wrote over 160 publications, from short newspaper 

articles and obituaries to full-length books. Topics were chiefly on 

art, local and regional history, biography and genealogy, and catalogs of 

his own library and archives. He was a recognized authority on the local 

history of Lombardy and Piedmont. 

Starting in the early 1860s, Cavagna built a library that centered 

around his research interests, with manuscripts on the study of the 

local history of Italian cities and towns, institutions, societies, and families. 

Spanning 1116 to 1913, the collection consists of approximately 

30,000 volumes and 90 cubic feet of 138 portfolios of unbound manuscripts 

arranged alphabetically by place, 290 bound volumes of manuscript 

material (some 50 items predate 1600), and 100 volumes of 

later transcripts from Italian archives. It includes legal documents, 

maps, investitures, official documents on Italian local history, statutes 

of Italian communes and cities, regulations on banks and banking, and 

bibliographical, biographical, and genealogical accounts of Italian families 

and individuals. Other individual interests of Cavagna reflected in 

his library are opera and theater, education and health care for the 

poor and handicapped, travel literature, information on Italian spas 

and mineral waters, and literary pieces in celebration of marriage. 

The focus is primarily on Lombardy and Piedmont and secondarily on 

Tre Venezie, Emilia-Romagna, and Tuscany, with other regions less 

represented. 

Covering such diverse fields, most of the works are in Italian, but there 

are also Italian editions of French publications, Latin works, Italian 

translations from the Latin, and German publications. The oldest item 

in the collection dates to 1116. An original parchment document of 

Henry V, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, it concerns his disagreements 

with Pope Paschal II over the right of investiture. 

Cavagna died on 5 April 1913. His four daughters, to whom he had 

willed the library, were unsuccessful in selling their father’s library

246 L&C/The Cover 

locally. Neither the Pavia Historical Society nor the Ministry of Public 

Instruction had the funds to buy it. In 1914 a book dealer in Leipzig first 

alerted the University of Illinois Library to the availability of the collection 

for a princely sum. The University of Illinois librarian, Phineas L. 

Windsor, directed David Carnahan, chair of the Romance Languages 

Department at Illinois, to examine the collection while on a research trip 

in Europe. Windsor hoped that dealing directly with the family and 

bypassing the book dealer would lower the price. A direct quote from the 

family was indeed less than that of the book dealer. 

The war prevented further negotiations. Illinois remained patient, 

thinking it might negotiate an even better price after the war. In 1919 

the price remained the same, but the devaluation of the lire made it a 

more realistic purchase. By May 1919 Kenneth McKenzie, now chair of 

the Romance Languages Department, personally inspected the collection. 

In June the Senate Library Committee of the university unanimously 

recommended the purchase. Shortly thereafter, the university’s 

board of trustees authorized a special appropriation. Only negotiations 

to arrange boxing, shipping, and insuring the collection remained. At 

this point the deal was nearly shelved, with the family threatening to 

back out and Italian authorities complicating the process. Permission to 

export finally came in March 1921. 

By July 1921 the last of the 117 boxes, weighing 20 tons altogether, 

arrived in Illinois. Windsor appraised the collection: “looked at from a 

money point of view it is a great bargain, and looked at from the point of 

view of its influence on Italian studies here in Urbana [Illinois] it is difficult 

to overestimate the value of the collection.” 1 Over fifty years later, 

a scholar echoed Windsor’s assessment, considering the Cavagna 

Collection “one of the most remarkable and rich collections of its kind 

outside of Italy. And I would not be surprised if it surpassed even those 

single collections available for consultation in northern Italy.” 2 

Despite the amount of material that did arrive, not all the items in 

Cavagna’s library reached Illinois. There is evidence of items known to 

have been in the library that have since surfaced in communal archives 

in Italy. Suspicions have been aimed at Cavagna’s son-in-law, who represented 

the family in its negotiations and in all likelihood sold some items 

locally. Other material identified as from the Cavagna library has 

appeared in other U.S. libraries. 

Cataloging the collection began immediately after its arrival in 

Illinois. A lone librarian, Meta M. Sexton, devoted nearly her entire 

career to the project. By the time she retired in 1951, she had cataloged 

over 20,000 items. The remaining uncataloged items, mostly pamphlets, 

went into storage. Not until Illinois received an NEH grant in the early 

1980s was funding available to catalog the balance of the collection and 

publish a comprehensive guide. 3

Special Collections and the Making of a Research Library 

247 

The bookplate of the Cavagna Collection is one of the earliest at 

Illinois designed for a specific collection bought by the library. In the first 

quarter of the twentieth century, the library began singling out special 

collections with these bookplates and, in doing so, marked an important 

phase in the library’s development: the library’s strategy to buy important 

private libraries from Europe at that time led directly to the creation 

of a major research library in the Midwest. 

The earliest years of the library did not foreshadow such growth. In 

early 1868, the first year the Illinois Industrial University offered 

courses, Regent John Milton Gregory traveled to New York. His monthlong 

trip east to purchase books cost the university $104.09 in travel 

expenses and resulted in a core collection of 644 volumes, costing 

$1,000. 4 The library’s collection grew admirably during Gregory’s tenure 

but declined after he left in 1880. 

During the following decade, various faculty members in languages 

and classics indifferently managed the library. It did not improve greatly 

in size or service, with appropriations for books never exceeding $1,500 a 

year. University of Illinois president Draper, appointed in 1894, 

expressed interest in the library by hiring its first full-time director in his 

first year. The director, Percy F. Bicknell, had no formal library training 

but had been an assistant librarian at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. 

Active in the profession, he was part of a group that formed the 

Illinois Library Association and was its first treasurer. An “ill-tempered” 

man, he was dismissed in April 1897 by Draper. 5 

With the advent of the Draper administration the university politicked 

for more funds from the state legislature to erect a separate building for 

the university library. Funds obtained, the university began construction 

on a library in 1896. It was completed in June 1897 and included facilities 

for the library and the newly established Illinois Library School. 

Grotzinger implies that it was Draper’s wish to secure a competent 

librarian that drove his decision to hire Katharine Lucinda Sharp as 

librarian, which he did under the advice of Melvil Dewey. 6 Dewey also 

gave the main dedicatory speech at the opening of the library. The student 

newspaper recorded his impressions of the new building: “The situation 

was admirable for the training school of the whole west, and he 

congratulated the University on having secured in Miss Sharp and Miss 

[Mary L.] Jones [the new assistant professor of library economy], librarians 

recognized throughout the country for the excellence of their work 

and for their peculiar adaptation to what he believed would prove the 

brilliant literary future of Illinois.” 7 

Modeled on Sharp’s own experience at Dewey’s Albany school, the university 

library became the learning laboratory for the student body in the


library school. Sharp introduced modern library methodology and 

Deweyan efficiencies. Retiring in 1907, Sharp oversaw the growth of the 

academic program in librarianship at Illinois. She also administered the 

library, which grew from roughly 30,000 books to nearly 100,000, or more 

than threefold during her tenure. Many of the books and journals 

acquired during this period supported the disciplines predominant in a 

land-grant university, agriculture and engineering. 

An acting director was briefly in place after Sharp’s departure, and in 

1909 Phineas Lawrence Windsor (1871–1965), a native of Illinois and an 

1899 graduate of the New York State Library School, was appointed the 

permanent director. Better known by his friends as P. L. Windsor, he ushered 

in a long era of stability, retiring in 1940. Windsor, with the firm 

support of the University president, was the library director responsible 

for marshaling funds and shaping the development of the collection. 

During his tenure, nearly forty years after the university was founded, 

the university began focusing on what became a hallmark of the campus: 

the library. 

After graduating from library school, Windsor had worked briefly at 

the Copyright Office in Washington, D.C., and the University of Texas 

library before coming to Illinois in 1909. Head of both the university 

library and the Library School for thirty-one years, he was an active 

member and high office holder of the ALA, the American Library 

Institute, the Bibliographical Society of America, the Illinois Library 

Association, and the Association of American Library Schools. 

Windsor assumed directorship of the library during the presidency of 

Edmund J. James (1904–20). Educated in Germany, James believed that 

a great research university required a great library: “so important, so 

fundamental, so necessary is a great collection, or rather the group of 

collections, which we sum up under the term university library, to the 

work of the University that one might almost say a properly equipped 

university library would of itself in the long run build up a university.” 8 

With such administrative support and a goal established in 1912 to 

acquire one million volumes, Windsor was able to enlarge the collection 

in quantity and quality. Figures vary, but during his directorship the collection 

grew from 127,000 volumes to nearly 1.6 million and included 

many of the library’s most important collections. Under Windsor, the 

library became the fifth largest library in the country. Further, it had 

grown from the thirteenth largest academic library to the third and the 

largest state university library, a position it still holds. 9 

The purchase of the Cavagna Collection in 1921 typified that of many 

other collections bought during the Windsor era. From 1909 until the 

end of the First World War, the library sought to purchase the private 

libraries of European scholars and collectors. Faculty on research trips or

vacations in Europe were given authority to scope out potential purchases. 

Statistics reflect growing support for the library in President 

James’s era. Appropriations for the purchase of books increased from 

$25,000 in 1908 to $90,000 in 1920, the year of James’s retirement. By 

the time Windsor retired in 1940, appropriations had increased only 

moderately to $110,700. 10 

During the next phase under Windsor, after the departure of 

President James, collection development was aimed at supporting faculty 

research, complementing the university’s emphasis on improving teaching 

and research in the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts. Two key 

faculty members were Thomas W. Baldwin, specializing in Shakespeare, 

and Harris F. Fletcher, specializing in Milton, who had joined the faculty 

in 1925 and 1926, respectively. With the support of the campus, the 

library focused on acquiring books dating from 1501 to 1700. 

Many of these purchases went directly to the offices of scholars using 

them. In particular, Fletcher’s library studies were overwhelmed with 

thousands of items. To address problems of space and increasing use, the 

library assumed control over the materials in 1937 and placed them in 

the newly designated Seventeenth Century Room. Six years later, under 

Windsor’s successor, Robert B. Downs (1943–71), the library established 

a rare book room to oversee the Seventeenth Century Collection and 

develop a concerted program of both buying and maintaining rare materials 

and publicizing and providing access to them. 

Since the formal beginnings of the Rare Book and Special Collections 

Library in the early 1940s, its holdings have grown to over 250,000 books, 

including 1,100 incunabula, over 44,000 microforms, and over 7,130 linear 

feet of manuscripts. Materials in the library range from major rare 

books such as the four Shakespeare folios, Audubon’s Birds of America, the 

largest collection of the works of the poet John Milton in the United 

States, famous manuscript collections of H. G. Wells, Marcel Proust, and 

the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet W. S. Merwin, to extensive special collections 

in a wide variety of fields, including the Cavagna Collection. 11 

Elizabeth R. Cardman 

Notes 

249 

1. P. L. Windsor to Edmond J. James, 13 July 1921, Record Series 35/1/4, 

University of Illinois Archives, Urbana. 

2. Eric Cochrane to Scott Bennett, 9 March 1976, from a Special Collection 

reference file on the Cavagna Collection in the Rare Book and Special 

Collections Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

3. Guides to the collection include University of Illinois, List of the 

Manuscripts and Printed Documents of the Archivio Cavagna Sangiuliani,


Sezione Prima, in the library, Urbana, 1932; Catalog of the Manuscripts and 

Printed Documents of the Archivio Cavagna Sangiuliani, Sezione Seconda, in the 

library, Urbana, 1948; Shelflist of the Pamphlets in the Cavagna Collection held 

in the Rare Book Room, Urbana, 1980. See also Marcella Grendler, Keyword List 

of the Cavagna Collection (Urbana, 1980). The introduction to Grendler’s work is 

the basis for much of the history of Cavagna, his library and its contents, and the 

purchase of the collection. 

4. John Hoffman, “Regent Gregory and the Founding of the University 

Library, 1868,” Non Solus 9 (1982): 34–43. 

5. For a history of the early years of the library, see the following: Evelyn 

Mildred Hensel, “History of the Catalog Department of the University of Illinois 

Library” (master’s thesis, University of Illinois, 1936); Madeline Cord Thompson, 

“History of the Reference Department of the University of Illinois Library” (master’s 

thesis, University of Illinois, 1942); Lucile E. Wilcox, “History of the 

University of Illinois Library, 1868–1897” (master’s thesis, University of Illinois, 

1931). 

6. Laurel Ann Grotzinger, The Power and the Dignity: Librarianship and Katharine 

Sharp (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1986), 80. 

7. “Dedication of the Library Building,” Illini, 9 June 1897, 1074. 

8. “Way in which Friends of the University of Illinois might contribute to its 

work . . . ,” Edmund James, ca. 1914, James Faculty Correspondence, RS 2/5/6, 

Box 43. 

9. Statistics comparing sizes of academic libraries begin to appear in the 

library’s annual reports for 1911–12. Different academic librarians around the 

country culled and shared the data. 

10. Thomas Edward Ratcliffe, Jr., “Development of the Buildings, Policy and 

Collection of the University of Illinois Library in Urbana, 1897–1940” (master’s 

thesis, University of Illinois, 1949). 

11. A brief history of the Rare Book Room may be found in Arthur M. 

McAnally, “The Evolution of a Rare Book Collection,” Stecher-Hafner Book News 

(April 1951).

CONTRIBUTORS 

Jon Arvid Aho is a doctoral student at the Graduate School of Library 

and Information Science, University of Texas at Austin, where he 

received the M.L.I.S. degree. He has degrees in theology (M.Div. and 

S.T.M.) from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and 

in history (M.A.) from Western Washington University, Bellingham. 

Prior to his library studies, he was in the Christian ministry from 1979, 

holding a variety of pastorates as well as working in theological libraries. 

His academic and professional interests include the history of books and 

libraries, the early Christian Church, and theological librarianship. 

Elizabeth R. Cardman is the assistant university archivist at the 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her responsibilities include 

management of the ALA Archives, which are maintained by the 

University of Illinois Archives. She holds a Ph.D. in library and information 

science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her 

research interests include nineteenth-century librarianship and the history 

of women professionals. 

James V. Carmichael, Jr., is associate professor in the Department of 

Library and Information Studies at the University of North Carolina at 

Greensboro. He received his bachelor’s degree in French and his M.Ln. 

from Emory University, and his Ph.D. from the University of North 

Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the editor of Daring to Find Our Names: The 

Search for Lesbigay Library History (1998) and has written extensively on 

Southern library history and gender issues. 

Richard J. Cox is associate professor in archival studies at the University 

of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences. He holds an undergraduate 

degree in history and English, the M.A. in history from the University of 

Maryland, and the Ph.D. in library science from the University of 

Pittsburgh. He has published more than one hundred articles and four 

books on all aspects of archives and records management, including 

Documenting Localities: A Practical Model for American Archivists and Manuscript 

Curators (1996). Elected a fellow of the Society of American Archivists in 

1989, he edited American Archivist from 1991 to 1995. 

Phyllis Dain is professor emerita of library service at Columbia 

University. She is the author and editor of numerous books and articles 

on library history, including, most notably, The New York Public Library: A 



252 L&C/Contributors 

History of Its Founding and Early Years (1972) and, most recently, Civic 

Space/Cyberspace: The American Public Library in the Information Age (1999) 

with Redmond Kathleen Molz. 

Donald G. Davis, Jr., is professor of library and information science and 

of history at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught since 

1971 and has edited Libraries & Culture since 1977. His academic preparation 

includes degrees in history from UCLA and the University of 

California, Berkeley, and professional degrees from Berkeley and the 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Considering his vocation to 

be the promoting of historical perspectives within his profession, he has 

been a part of a number of national and international publishing and 

conference-planning projects. He has edited several reference works, 

including American Library History: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature 

(1989) with John Mark Tucker and Encyclopedia of Library History (1994) 

with Wayne A. Wiegand, as well as numerous articles, book chapters, and 

review essays. 

Edward A. Goedeken is humanities bibliographer at Iowa State 

University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in American history from 

William Penn College, a master’s in American history from Iowa State 

University, an MLS from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D in American 

history from the University of Kansas. His research interests include 

citation studies of humanities literature as well as identification of current 

historical writings on libraries and book culture for the bibliographies 

that appear twice-yearly in the LHRT Newsletter. He also produces 

the biennial survey of the literature of American library history for 

Libraries & Culture. 

Suzanne Hildenbrand is associate professor in the School of Information 

and Library Studies, SUNY/Buffalo. She received her B.A. from Brooklyn 

College, her M.S. from Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in education 

from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1962 to 1966 she 

served with the U.S. Information Agency. Her varied background 

includes work as a librarian for several California community colleges, 

librarian and teacher in the New York City schools, and positions with 

the U.S. Department of Defense schools overseas. Her special interests 

are equity issues, such as those reflected in women and librarianship, and 

information access in the age of information as a commodity. Her recent 

project is Reclaiming the American Library Past: Writing the Women In (1996). 

Christine A. Jenkins is assistant professor at the Graduate School of 

Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-

253 

Champaign, teaching courses in youth services, young adult literature, 

gender issues, and professional foundations and history. She received her 

M.L.S. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a master’s degree 

in children’s literature from Eastern Michigan University and served as 

a school media specialist in the Ann Arbor Public Schools before completing 

her doctorate at Wisconsin-Madison. Author of several articles 

and chapters in collected works, her interests center on young people’s 

texts and reading practices, the children’s canon, youth services librarianship, 

and intellectual freedom. 

D. W. Krummel is professor emeritus of library and information science 

and of music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where 

he has taught since 1970. He earned undergraduate degrees, a master’s 

degree in music, the M.A.L.S., and the Ph.D.—all from the University of 

Michigan. He has been on the staff of the Library of Congress and has 

been a Guggenheim Fellow. A frequent contributor to scholarly publishing 

projects, he focuses his interests on the history of libraries and of bibliography, 

research collection development, and music bibliography. He is 

the author of a number of books as well as numerous articles and critical 

reviews. 

Mary Niles Maack is professor in the Department of Library and 

Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. With 

undergraduate degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana- 

Champaign and master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia 

University, she has been a national leader in studying the role of international 

relations in the profession, particularly in the Francophone 

world, and in the role of women in the library profession. 

Cheryl Knott Malone is assistant professor in the Graduate School of 

Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana- 

Champaign. A graduate of the University of Houston, she holds an 

M.L.S. and an M.A. degree from the University of Arizona and the Ph.D. 

from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include 

the history of public libraries in the United States and the dynamics of 

race, gender, and class in the information professions. Her article 

“Autonomy and Accommodation: Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library, 

1907–1922” appeared in the summer 1999 issue of Libraries & Culture. 

John David Marshall is retired university librarian of Middle Tennessee 

State University, having held positions previously at Clemson University, 

Auburn University, and the University of Georgia. He has degrees from 

Florida State University and, as a colleague of Louis Shores, was an early

254 L&C/Contributors 

participant in the ALA Library History Round Table. His publications 

include books and essays on book and library history, including An 

American Library History Reader (1961) and Louis Shores, Author-Librarian: A 

Bibliography (1979). 

Lee Shiflett is professor at the School of Library and Information 

Science at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he has been 

a member of the faculty since 1979. He is the author of Origins of American 

Academic Librarianship (1981) and Louis Shores: Defining Educational 

Librarianship (1996), and is currently working on a study of the editorial 

career of William Terry Couch. He served as chair of the Library History 

Round Table in 1984. 

John Mark Tucker is humanities, social science, and education librarian 

and professor of library science at Purdue University. A graduate of 

David Lipscomb University, he received the M.L.S. and Ed.S. degrees 

from George Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University and 

the Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His 

research interests include the history and biography of academic librarianship, 

especially the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth 

centuries. His publications include American Library History: A 

Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (1989) with Donald G. Davis, Jr., and 

Untold Stories: Civil Rights, Libraries, and Black Librarianship (1998). 

Andrew B. Wertheimer is a doctoral candidate in the School of Library 

and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is 

research assistant professor at the University of Nebraska– Lincoln. 

Since completing his M.L.S. from Indiana University, he has assisted in 

numerous projects relating to library history in the national profession. 

His research centers on ethnic print cultures, historiography, and 

library history. 

Wayne A. Wiegand is professor in the School of Library and Information 

Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he also serves as 

codirector of the Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern 

America. He is the author of over sixty scholarly articles and several 

monographs, the latest of which is Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of 

Melvil Dewey (1996), which won the 1998 G. K. Hall Award for 

Outstanding Contribution to Library Literature. Print Culture in a Diverse 

America (1998), an anthology he co-edited with Jim Danky, won the 1999 

Carey McWilliams Award for its contribution to multicultural literature.

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