Search Article

Not surprisingly Battelle’s discussion of search in general and Google specifically encompasses a lot of different subjects but I am most interested in his treatment of the future of search where, like many authors who we’ve read have done, he theorizes about what is the perfect search. I also appreciated how Battelle brought up issues concerned privacy, commercialization and social responsibility in relation to Google and search. Before I started reading the book I was a bit worried that it was going to hold up Google as the epitome of the search engine but I was happy to find out that Battelle far more objective than that and although some of the specifics about the history of the company were boring and seemingly irrelevant Google is a good jumping off point for larger issues. I also enjoyed the comprehensive history of search and explanation of how a search engine works.

We have discussed the use of historical narratives versus more systematic methods of analysis in class and interestingly I found a connection between that discussion and a term that Battelle use in the chapter “Perfect Search.” Battelle uses the term “narrative thread” to refer to the journey of the search in comparison to the end product. The idea is that the learning value of a search isn’t necessarily in the perfect answer, which Battelle points out may never be reached, but the process of getting at it. Battelle obviously had Vannevar Bush in mind when makes this suggestion but he goes further to propose that a given narrative thread be indexed and thus become an individual object that one can access through a search engine. I think this kind of misses the point of utilizing a narrative or a “clickstream” in the learning process. While Battelle acknowledges the value of the process of search he seems to think that is can be turned into a perfect answer and that a perfect actually exist for any given question.

It was interesting that several times while Battelle was discussing possible directions to head in pursuit of the perfect search used the reference librarian an analogy for the ideal search engine. He also advocates expanding the types of information that an engine can index to include not only texts but multimedia and even people who can provide answers. Battelle spends the bulk of “Perfect Search” chapter offering visions of future search engines that will provide the perfect answer but only if “we solve scores of ridiculously difficult computer-science problems.” This statement emphasizes that the perfect commercial search engine is still only in the stages of speculation if it is possible at all. In the mean time we can experience the kind of perfect search that Battelle is imagining by visiting a librarian with whom we can talk and not have to worry about what is lost in translation between human and computer. Besides being very optimistic about the possibility of a perfect search with perfect answers Battelle and some of the people that he interviews also seem to expect totally digitized marketing in the near future which seems just about as likely as the totally digitized library that some foresee in the near future.

Another issue that comes up several times is whether its Google’s responsibility to provide the amount of access that the perfect search entails. Battelle portrays Google’s founders as being concerned with their company’s impact on the world; their hesitance to use advertisements in their service and their dealings with China. The nature of search means that Google wields a lot of power over access but the as a business their bottom line is still profit no matter how social responsible they want to be. “Don’t be Evil” is a cute motto for a T-shirt but for a company like Google it seems flippant. Battelle suggests that trust is the basis of the public’s relationship to Google. Can we afford to trust Google not to use the information they have about are web activities or trust them to make the right decisions concerning copyright and trademarks laws or government access to personal information? Again, it is fortunate that there are libraries which can possible step in and take on this tremendous role if the public decides that it is not worth the risk to relegate it to a private business.

One of the many possibly things that libraries can take away from the Google story is that it is possible to survive and thrive without turning to marketing or branding which could possibly compromise the integrity of the libraries’ image.

Frischer Article

I think that Frischer’s basic argument that the survival of research libraries depends on the implementation of new technology and that this implementation requires strategic planning doesn’t sound that controversial. His discussion of the three consequences of digital technology for the research library and how he proposed to deal with then was a unique way to address the debate about the future of the library. Frischer was very concerned with bringing people into the physical space of the library which is a huge task considering that part of the attraction of digitalization is being able to work from anywhere and especially at home. Another problematic issue in the section about improving the quality of the library experience was the idea that perhaps users could be able to find out who or where a particular resource was being used. I realize that the example is trying to get the concept of making the library a more social space but part of me wonders if some users would still like the traditional “isolating” desks.

Frischer’s idea of the popularizing VR labs in libraries seems problematic is some big ways. I understand that he is looking for ways to expand on the digital format in a way that makes it unique to use by libraries. VR labs seem to have a very particular use and may not appeal to all disciplines not to mention the high cost and low demand. Even if these labs did enter libraries would they be useful enough and attract enough people to keep the institution relevant?

Grafton

I was struck by the Kevin Kelly quote because it reminded of some of the quotes from the Wright article where people were so adamant about how a given project was going to bring about a technotopia. That association that I made in some ways signifies one of the big points that Grafton was trying to make about how digitalization is just another step in the process of advancing information services not the be all and end all of them.

Another thing that Grafton does in this article is points out the imperfections of large companies like Google and Microsoft’s digitalization methods. Not only considering the imperfections at the scanning stage, Grafton takes into account the copyright issue which in some cases these companies are violating at the scanning stage not to mention how they use the copy. Most interesting was the discussion of what kind of collection these companies overlook and who isn’t forgetting them. These companies are overlooking areas that could really benefit from digitalization points to the bottom line that they business that need to make money at the end of the day. Libraries and similar non-profit organizations are more suited to decide what groups of texts need to be prioritized for digitalization. This issue also relates back to the Internet’s affect on libraries study which mentioned the digital divide because if groups of people don’t have Internet or computer access then they can’t make use of digitized content. Grafton emphasizes that libraries have to solve access problems on these various levels.

Hafner Article

First, let me say I’ve never used Google Book search as a resource. I’ve never had an occasion where seeing part of the text was any more helpful than say reading an abstract or review of it. Furthermore, my demand for resources has never more than my university or local library could handle. I wonder who uses Google Book Search for research when it seems easier to search your libraries catalogue. I understand that not having access to full text documents is a matter of copyright restrictions and that there is value in digitizing texts purely for preservation and library use but at this point the project doesn’t seem to be doing anything for access. I can’t help but feel optimistic about the copyright law’s effect on digitization, meaning, law and industry usually have no choice but to accommodate technology as in the case of copyright laws and VHS and cassette recording. The most attractive part of the Google Book Project is the fact that it has an efficient and cost effective way for libraries to digitize collections. But as much as libraries see digitization dovetailing into broader missions of access and preservation they still have to contend with the legal grey areas until they are clarified. A lot of the worry about digitization seems to be related to its fluid nature. Easy access to digital copies means they can be hacked and copied easily. If copyright laws aren’t loosen then perhaps it will become a matter of technology allowing increased security.

Impact of Internet Article

For some reason I was surprised to learn that presently library and internet use are complementary. Finding it said explicitly that the same people that are using the library also have internet access really made me wonder who these people are and how are they different from those who don’t use either. I would like to find out if there if a study that goes into more depth about why education and income are positively related to library and Internet use. It is easy to speculate about amount of leisure time and desire to use information services but hard data is especially valuable. I can’t help but think that Libraries could help close the digital divide if they knew more about the issue. The cautionary element to the study that reported current users see themselves becoming less reliant on libraries in favor of the Internet is based on the very reasonable assumption the current library non-users will remain non-users. In the discussion about the fate of the library in the digital age I think it would be wrong to only focus the needs of current users and overlook how digitization can help libraries reach non-traditional users. If the contemporary library is going to have to change like this study suggests then this is one direction to go and the other which the conclusion of the article seemed to be leaning toward was revolutionizing libraries not necessarily in a reactionary way but in order to improve information services versus just library services.

Wright Article

There was a lot of heavy and abstract information in this article but I think I understand the arguments. It was probably difficult to wrap my head around because I take the structure of the web for granted “as just the way it is.” Of course, this fits perfectly into Ted Nelson’s claims about the “polite conspiracy” that maintains computer technology is somehow antithetical to individual ease of usability and the things that I care about like scholarship in the humanities. One analogy from my personal life that helped me work through this article was comparison between Microsoft and Apple operating systems. At the risk of sounding like a fangirl, Apple’s systems are so intuitive and thus easier to use than Microsoft’s. Wright discusses people who want/wanted to bring that same kind of freedom of use to systems of information access.

So, what does this have to do with libraries? The first thing I thought of was that maybe the web like the public library is not an ideal system that will someday have to undergo enormous changes. Also, libraries that are facing this change in information services because of the Web have the opportunity to transform themselves in such a way that takes these alternative ideas about information systems and spearhead an information revolution starting with their own institutions.

The comparison between Otlet and Bush was interesting especially considering the information that Wright included about Bush that went beyond “As We May Think.” What I really liked the discussion of the more contemporary figures.

Rayward Article

When I think of the phrase “libraries and technology” I don’t immediately think of pre-computer technology cataloging guidelines or the distribution system of catalog cards but is obviously integral to practices of standardization and professionalization in librarianship. If these technologies weren’t in place and librarians weren’t familiar with the science that makes them possible it seems that the later introduction of computers into libraries may have been slower and more difficult than Rayward tells us it was.

I was glad that Rayward discussed subject headings. I mentioned them in previous entries in relation to Bergman and Gittings’ articles on issues surrounding social change. Only after reading this article do I realize how important subject headings are to classification systems because they have to account for the subject and the connections between the given subject and others plus they are standardized so they have to be relevant to many different libraries.

It’s interesting to consider the point in time when automation in libraries began and how it unfolded because it gives insight into both the purposes of libraries and technology. The post war era was conducive to automation because libraries were faced with an overwhelming amount of information that resulted from scientific research. This same scientific research gave libraries a tool to deal with the overload. The profession had to change in ways many didn’t anticipate such as in regards to education and restructuring library systems to accommodate available technology. Librarians had to become familiar with a new and imperfect field before it could work for them.

Marcum Article

Tracing the timeline of the CLR reveals the history of library automation from the perspective of an organization that was sensitive to the needs and problems of libraries but was still willing to take risks with technology to find answers. CLR was fortunate to have such great success with early projects like the NLM information system. Earlier failures were also enlightening. It’s interesting how much the 1961 Licklider project and the later Intrex experiment were both failures that brought to mind the LIBRARY-21 exhibit. Licklider didn’t call on the expertise of librarians and removed them from his vision of the future library much in the same way that the LIBRARY-21 designers relegated librarians to the role of technician. Intrex seemed to have a degree of spectacle with its menagerie of different devices that didn’t anticipate the real needs of a library to be economical and have a more universal database and software language.

It appears that a lot of CLR’s success comes from the ability of its various leaders to work toward their imagined ideal of library automation. There was a lot of discussion of a national library system and the exact definition of that term changed over the years in respect to technological developments. I think that CLR focused on this concept because it seemed like a viable way to achieve one of their ultimate goals; “to make information on library holdings more accessible.” CLR’s involvement with MARC throughout the 60s served the larger purpose creating an online collection. The idea for a geographically central bibliographic database was abandoned and replaced with “decentralized national system.”

Lynch Article

Lynch looks at the three historical periods of developments of technology in libraries in a slightly different way than Rayward did. The three phases according to Lynch are modernization, innovation and transformation and each is named after the relationship to technology that academic libraries took on at a given time. Lynch accounts for three things that Lancaster didn’t when he made his predictions about the future automation: The marketplace that technology and libraries exist, the evolution of practices in scholarship and the user. Phase one was characterized by librarians learning about working with and managing computer systems. Phase two meant that services changed from the user’s perspective. And phase three dealt primarily with on-line access to full text documents.

Lynch calls the forth and current phase “the Network Information Revolution” and consists of further dealings with innovation and transformation. He predicts that in the future libraries won’t be exemplified by their digital collections but by the access to such collections that they allow to users. Some issue that face libraries presently aren’t all that new they have just taken a different form. For example, with the ever increasing volume of scholarly resources, libraries have to examine what is necessary and what needn’t be included. Is really is a matter of rethinking collection development. Lynch emphasizes what sounds like an old rallying cry; the need for future libraries to assert their presence and importance in the community. While libraries are at an apparent in between point when digital, various multimedia and traditional print resources are all necessary it’s important that libraries give appropriate attention and financial resources to each.

Lancaster Article

What is most interesting about this article isn’t what Lancaster predicted correctly but what he got wrong or didn’t consider with respect to the future of library automation. Lancaster doesn’t so much discuss the future of libraries as talk about the situation of “science communication” as it was and suggests and ideal future that doesn’t necessary include libraries.

Lancaster seems to use the phrases “electronic information system” and “paperless information system” interchangeably but we know today that print and electronic formats exist side by side. Why would he be so confident that the switch between to two would be complete by 2000? Lancaster takes for granted that technology would match the rate of development in areas such as databases and on-line systems to the point where it could replace print items. Even I am surprised that devices such as the Kindle or others that utilize comfortable to read e-paper haven’t caught on. Lancaster also assumes that there would be a need for all publications to be electronic. He was very optimistic about the economic effects of electronic services too. As if publishers and distributors weren’t going to look out for their interests and were going simply charge less as cost of automation decreased. Maybe Lancaster vision was more of a well organized information Co-op made up of private electronic file sharing?

I liked Lancaster’s idea about the SDI service that would anticipate what new documents one might find interesting and then send an abstract so you could decide if you wanted the full text or not. This would fit nicely into his pay-as-you-go plan but it also would take away the browsing factor. Not just in terms of paging through a journal but also while conducting your own search when you have to think critically about search terms and the value of search results.

Downey Article

This article provides a great illustration of some the things that Rayward talked about in “the arrival of computing” section of his article. The early difficulties with automation weren’t due entirely to staunch traditional librarians but overly optimist librarians and overly optimistic designers who weren’t sensitive to the library technology already in place. It’s almost like both fields underestimated the librarian’s ability to work with the new technology. Clapp conceived of a library system that was seemingly devoid of librarians and at the LIBRARY-21 exhibit they willingly took on the clerical/ customer service role. In some ways though, I can’t blame either profession. The Librarians may have been intimidated by the technology that they had no input in creating and that was fairly new. As a designer, in a relatively new field none the less, I would be apprehensive to hand over my project to some one that represented possible competition and if not whose skills I doubted.

Even if one is willing to overlook the lack of foresight the designers and others who put together the LIBRARY-21 exhibit there is no excuse for absence of critical evaluation of the event afterwards. Why were visitor responses even considered when designers simply dismissed comments as technician error. The contradictions of LIBRARY-21 that put librarians in the place of expert salespeople and unskilled technician are striking. I can’t help but think that the designers really did see the role of a librarian as a “tender technician” and not a fellow professional.

Buschman Article

I disagreed with a lot of Buschman’s basic premises in this article. I understand that Buschman is concern that borrowing strategies from business could taint library service but it just doesn’t seem realistic that libraries could change so drastically due to the 3 trends that he proposes.

First, from what I’ve learned about library history so far it seems the libraries have always practices “accountability” albeit in different forms. Library boards had to have a plan of how they were going to use Carnegie grant money before they received it, for example. Accountability isn’t a new radical business idea that’s suddenly being applied to public institutions as a gimmick to bring in money. Busch suggests that services can’t be evaluated in terms of their quality because library policies are often ambiguous and/ or complex and furthermore evaluation is imperfect. I can agree that libraries can have complex and even contradictory missions which make measuring their successes and failures difficult but it’s far from impossible.

Second, Buschman seems to think that putting a Starbucks in the library and paying
attention to in demand titles will denigrate more traditional aspects of the library such as preservation as if librarians and even patrons will suddenly everything else the library is capable of that Barnes & Noble isn’t. He also thinks that marketing and branding will somehow tear libraries away from their more traditional roles. I’m reminded of the Nyquist article where he recommends flyer-ing and ringing doorbells in order to let people know all the things that libraries have to offer. How is a hip new logo and a TV ad campaign different? I also get the sense that Buschman sees technology as fad to lure people in.

Miller Article

Miller’s main argument is that bookstores, especially chains, commodify the notion of community and this is problematic because it allows only a narrow definition of community and it is precariously tied to the financial success of the given store. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to relate the issues facing bookstores to libraries. One could make the analogy that independent bookstores are to chains as libraries are to bookstores in general. The community that both bookstores and libraries provide is generally book centered and offers a variety of events/ services that range from entertainment to education and everywhere in between. It’s not so clear where libraries fit in terms of economies. Libraries do receive financial support from the public and thus are able to provide the services that they do but it’s not the exact same financial arrangement that bookstores are a part of so one can’t make a direct comparison between the two in that sense.

Miller brings up how independent bookstores are similar and different to chains. The structure of the large chains makes it difficult for them to respond to the tastes of the people they serve but at the same time it doesn’t mean that an independent store, or a library, will necessarily do this better just because they are local. Financially, independent bookstores are in a better position to give back to their communities than chains. Obviously, libraries give back too. One could argue some give back financially through specific outreach programs but you don’t have to go that far to say that libraries improve quality of life in their community.

Samek Article

The focus of Samek’s introduction is on what I’m assuming is the thesis of the argument in the rest of the book namely, the social responsibility movement of the 60s and 70s revealed contradictions in the idea of neutral librarianship. Samek talks a lot about Celeste West who argued that neutrality was not only impossible but it greatly favored mainstream opinions over others such as those voiced in the alternative press. Lack of alternative press items in libraries meant that they weren’t being preserved either and of course preservation is an important part of traditional librarianship.

To really understand how radical the social responsibility movement was in respect to the workings of the ALA it important to consider that up until 1967 the ALA was simply “focused on the advancement of libraries” as Samek says. I was surprised by the Berninghausen article that attacked the movement as “a New Left tactic.” The impression that I got of Berninghausen from The Dismissal of Ruth Brown was that he felt the IFC didn’t have enough authority and the Library Bill of Rights was a fairly weak document. Also, his rhetoric sounds disturbingly McCarthyist.

Samek points out that while the ALA defended neutrality it was thus maintaining hegemony in its libraries and in society at large. I would be interested in reading the rest of Samek’s book especially about the instances where librarians violated professional neutrality but the ALA did little to defend them. Perhaps Ruth Brown’s situation wasn’t that unique.

Berman Article

In this article when Berman calls for change in libraries he doesn’t just speak to one group but invites the ALA, librarians, patrons and even those who aren’t patrons (because of the inadequacies in some collections) to press for change. He mentions how the ALA was being pushed to actively support intellectual freedom by fighting censorship through the courts instead of just by releasing statements about the importance of intellectual freedom. Berman appeals to librarians and others by reminding them that the libraries are theirs and they have the right to request items. One of the most important points that he brings up that supplying independent press and underground materials isn’t just a matter of catering to those involved in a given movement but is a matter of providing access to diverse viewpoints. It is an example of meeting public demand and providing balance of perspectives in order to better educate.

Berman briefly mention the issue of subject headings too. This is something that I wouldn’t suspect would be a point of contention among librarians but ever since Gittings brought it up in her article about gay activism in the ALA I’ve thinking about it more and more. I can understand how there could be resistance to changing the headings because standardization is a goal of cataloging and it’s probably preferable, if not necessary, to have widely accepted headings. At the same time labels are extremely important and could greatly influence ones search and even their entire library experience.

Nyquist Article

Nyquist begins his article by reviewing of what he calls trends which effect librarianship. The first, “interlocking complexity,” is actually a trend and refers to public libraries co-operating with different levels of government, private institutions and schools in order to obtaining funding, reach more patrons and also improve educational services for all organizations involved. I think it’s easy to agree with the merits this kind of setup as Nyquist portrays it but the fact that forty years after he wrote this article the kind of co-operation he envisioned is not a reality shows it more easily said than done. Perhaps that is why he doesn’t offer advice or a concrete example of how to go about achieving “interlocking complexity.”

The two other trends of urbanization and racial integration become part of a discussion about how the library can help combat poverty and racism and also promote education and multiculturalism. Nyquist gives examples of New York state library services that meet these ends and provides a list of things to keep in mind for your own library. Nyquist puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of making the community aware of what the library has to offer and even mentions Community Coordinators whose job it was to be “salesmen” for the library. He also suggests bringing in a specialist to offer a professional outside opinion on creating new library services with respect to the community. Nyquist’s attitude seemed to be that getting traditional non-users into the library was the hard part but once they were there they would keep coming back. Nyquist was probably right in assuming that attracting new users, which involves encouraging changes in behavior, would be more difficult for a library than providing popular books and easy to read materials for adults.

Gittings Article

Gittings’ article is a unique historical perspective in comparison with some of the other articles that we’ve read because it is a comprehensive history of the fight for gay rights and recognition in the ALA and Gittings is not a librarian but an activist who cares about the written word.

In lots of ways the activism of GTF was very simple. Not that overcoming centuries of silence and discrimination is easy but their approach was. For example, the Hug-a-Homosexual booth simply but provocatively made their presence known and attempted to start a dialogue. The Gay Bibliography was a great way to voice the presence of gay and gay friendly librarians who saw these books as important to collections and also to bring the gay patron into the focus of library services. Gittings gives an anecdotal account of her experience of researching homosexuality in the library and points out that because it is one of the first places that one might go and it is a place that one can learn discreetly it’s vital that libraries carefully choose items that cover taboo subjects such as homosexuality.

Just as activism fought for seemingly small changes triumphs were made in apparently small ways. The use of “gay” instead of “homosexual” and the addition of the new Library of Congress number for the Gay Liberation Movement where matters of language being used but a good activist know it makes a big different. Gay activist are lucky in the sense that they can learn tactics from all the civil rights movements that came before them.

Whitmire Article

Whitmire’s article about Regina Andrews is a good example of how even when black librarians were accepted into a given library they still had to continuously prove their right to be there. Andrews was a New York librarian in a unique point in history and I wonder how much of her drive for success and recognition as well as her interest in community outreach programs at the library we from inspiration from her involvement in the Harlem Renaissance. Not to say that her relationship with W. E. B. Du Bois was the definitive factor in her promotion. Andrews was obviously committed and ambitious and the role of “a first” does not go to some one who isn’t talented it what they do. The fact that pressure from Du Bois and others were needed for Andrews to get the title and the pay that she deserved illustrates how difficult it would have been for any one else who had come before this time period to excel like she did.

Whitmire emphasizes how Andrews was a professional before she was an activist. While she was involved in the arts and politics of the Harlem Renaissance, was married to a prominent member of the community and worked with several civic organizations she never stopped being a librarian. Andrews opted out of early retirement and kept up with her career and the international travel that was a component of her civic work. She also was concerned about the fate of her pet outreach project, Family Night, after her retirement.

Musmann Article

Musmann’s article really highlight’s the poor job that the ALA did in addressing the issue of segregation and racism. At first the ALA was reluctant to get involved because it saw library service to blacks as a regional (southern) problem. It interesting that in the results of the 1922 “Work with Negroes Round Table” survey northern libraries claim to have special services aimed at African Americans but in reality they didn’t. It may have been worse that while northern library’s services that were aimed at blacks were less restrictive librarians were deluded into thinking that they were far better than southern library services. The 1922 and 1923 round tables both seemed useless because while the first conducted the survey they didn’t use any of the information that was gathered from it to do any thing. Furthermore, the speakers that Musmann cited from the second round table were downright racism unlike the first who Musmann implies were drove to inaction by the daunting amount of work to be done.

The treatment of black librarian during this time was poor as well. According to the results of the 1922 round table survey and the 1930 Shores survey very little changed in the attitudes toward African Americans working in the libraries. I was must struck by the Shores survey that reported libraries that fell into his fourth and fifth categories and by comparison allow fairly liberal library use did not have black librarians at the time of the survey. I was as if the level of access the libraries gave to African American patrons was kept in check by denying them access to the library professionally.

Knott Malone Article

Knott Malone argues that the study of multiculturalism in library history is complicated by the public libraries’ practice of social control in favor of white Anglo/ Saxon upper-middle class ideology. Given the historical interpretation of hegemonic efforts in libraries multiculturalism needs to be looked at differently and it also needs continuous attention because is it constantly changing. The simple fact that more attention to diversity is necessary in public libraries seems to me to be the most important reason to look at this aspect of library history.

I realize that this article was an overview of secondary sources but like Beck’s article it made me what want to know more. For example, Knott Malone says that non-black minority librarians worked with more diverse staffs than African Americans did. Why? Was it due to segregation or maybe it was dependent on location? At the end of the article Knott Malone mentions that there needs to be more research on individual’s and community group’s experiences with libraries but it is my understanding that these are often left out of history, thus creating the one-sided institutional history that she critiques, because they are so few and far between and the examples that we do get are highly subjective. Regardless, where can researchers look specifically for this type of information?

The paragraph about white-black relations was full of promising areas of investigation. This is partly because African Americans have a rich and nuanced history that intersects with the public library in interesting ways. What kind of access to libraries and library schools did black people have? What role did libraries play in civil rights activism?

She mentions it only briefly but my guess is that the experiences of Latinos in libraries are probably another good perspective to research in the effort to really explore multiculturalism.

Beck Article

This was a good article. It was well organized and left me asking question about other immigrant group’s patterns of library use. It helped that it came to the positive conclusion that libraries and education were important in the life of the group in question and even more refreshing for me was the fact that Beck showed how this enriched Russian-Jewish and didn’t some how Americanize it out of existence like Harris implies.

I wish Beck would have talked more about the position of Russian-Jews in relation to other immigrant groups because I can’t help but feel that because their culture put so much emphasis on education and therefore they sought to learn English and about American society that they (at the risk of sounding racist) were a model ethnic group in regard to library use and may have been an exception. On the other hand I may just be falling into that same trap of elitist thinking that Harris did when generalized about immigrant’s lack of desire for education.

Russian-Jewish immigrants got a lot educational opportunities from Jewish philanthropic organizations. Or at least I believe that is what the Educational Alliance and the Hebrew Free School Association were because Beck didn’t really explain how these and other groups worked. And again it makes me wonder what kind if any similar organizations existed for other immigrant groups.

Beck makes little mention of New York’s public Library system’s role in immigrant education programs but I was surprises at how early other libraries that were geared toward Jewish population received money from the city. I would like to know how long these libraries existed and at what point did the New York public library system began to focus on immigrants and/or Jewish patrons.

Sapp Article

I liked the how Sapp segmented this article into segments of time because it really helped to show how some ideas about libraries in the future changed with the times but other stayed the same. Speculation during the 1876-1900 period concerned itself with topics that continued to be important in the following 45 years. In both periods librarians predicted that the library would only increase in importance and popularity. Sapp points to the world wars as keeping democratic ideas behind public libraries alive therefore fueling the optimism of many librarians who saw the basic goals of the library to remain the same in the future. Sapp doesn’t really mention how beliefs about the purpose of the library were varied in and across time periods.

According to Sapp the library community seems to have been overwhelmingly welcoming of new technology and in some cases even lamented that it wasn’t reaching them fast enough. Vannevar Bush wasn’t the only one thinking about the problems of access when dealing with so many printed materials and while he was lucky enough to make to prediction that was close to the truth others like Fremont Rider knew that traditional print and storage was not an ideal. There were also inadequacies in areas like bibliography and indexing that librarian knew needed to be refined and they looked to the future which often meant the aid of machines to help.

Another solution to the information overload that occurred to mid nineteenth century librarians was improving catalog and collection sharing between libraries so that individual libraries could make the best use of their funds and users would still have access to the materials they wanted.

Pennavaria Article

The fiction texts that Pennavaria examines while looking for visions of libraries and books in the future generally either represent an ideal situation where technology let us access information conveniently or a world where books and libraries as we know them are gone as a result society suffers. In both utopian and dystopian conceptions books and recorded knowledge prove to be vital not just for intellectual enrichment but maintaining a balance in power. Even in Pennavaria’s bleak interpretation of On the Beach where to urge to record history seems useless it is at the very least humanizing.

As far as librarians writing about the future it is interesting how persistent the idea is that libraries will become increasingly popular and important to their communities while the basic concept of the library stays the same. I understand the value in staying positive but it is as if some librarians are just waiting for the day that society will be miraculously and overwhelmingly draw to the library without any change on the librarian’s part.

I liked reading about speculation regarding technology in the library. I was surprised at the number of people who seemed to feel that the needs of the library that was facing information overload could only be met by technology although most of the authors weren’t necessarily sure what direction technology would go. Pennavaria did see most visions of the future included both books and some form of a card catalogue. I don’t know much about the science of cataloging but the card-type-catalogue must be pretty convenient and reliable given that Pennavaria didn’t find many who felt otherwise.

The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown

The greatest impact of the Ruth Brown story is not only the importance of the event to the history of intellectual freedom in the public library but the event, maybe due to the small size of the Bartlesville community and it unique place in the country and in time, makes it a good example of how such things unfold and how multidimensional they can be. Robbins’ talk with us in class really helped to clarify some of the issues in her book and especially brought home how important and personal the events were to the community.

Robbins mentioned several points in the talk that weren’t really emphasized in her book. For one, the lack of press in local white newspapers concerning the early stages of the library controversy. The Black Dispatch specifically honed in on the upset at the first community meetings concerning the library board and the controversy over the park plans and the use of the new YWCA building that set the tone of the communities’ attitudes toward “the race problem.” The lack of discourse about race related issues in the press highlights the white communities’ ignorance about what was going on in the lives of black Bartians, for example, the divisive issue of whether or not to accept the gift of a segregated park.

Robbins also brought up an interesting point concerning the impact that the YWCA had in Bartlesville. The growth of Phillips Petroleum caused the company to hire scientists and engineers from the North that brought with them educated middle class wives who had different ideas about race relations and time on their hands. Therefore, when the YWCA held their membership drive with the intent that people would join who were in favor of letting the African American Y-teens use the new facility there was an overwhelming response. This also brings up the role that Phillips played in the case of Ruth Brown. There were Phillips employees that were both friends of Brown and enemies and in fact they seemed to be disbursed pretty evenly. My guess is that some individuals who felt strongly enough about their black neighbors ignored the discouragement from Phillips until the pressure was too much as their livelihoods were at stake.

As part of our in class discussion Robbins shared an intellectual freedom timeline with us that really helped to illustrate how far ahead of her time Brown’s struggle was. It was approximately tens years before the recognized start of the civil rights movement and almost twenty before the ALA took their strongest stances on civil rights and intellectual freedom. The civil rights movement was a grassroots movement and the ALA was far behind the concerned citizens of Bartlesville. That is why the ALA and OLA official statements on the firing of Brown sidestepped race because they weren’t really to tackle that issue yet. Even Berninghausen’s position as head of the ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee was in no position to really give Brown the help she needed although he was able to show support through publicity to a certain degree. The timeline also showed that when the massive civil rights and intellectual freedom changes did come to the ALA they were instigated by grassroots movement of library school students.

Brown’s involvement in racial equality may have been the key issue behind her firing but censorship was the other and while it may not have been the issue it was an important factor in how and why events happened. While the national climate may not have been ripe foe civil rights it was right for cold war hysteria. The timing of McCarthy’s Wheeling speech weeks before the local committee passed the resolution saying that they could oust the library board without warning can’t be overlooked. The fact that several Bartians really thought that racial equality was a communist plot can’t be overlooked either. It is easier for contemporary readers to see cold war witch hunting and racism as two different things but apparently some people could reconcile them.

I really got a lot out of Brown’s personal account of her interrogation by the mayor and the commissioners. At one point Margenau questions why Brown didn’t read all of the free periodicals that the library received saying, “Wasn’t it your duty?” To which Brown replies that she saw it as the role of the public to decide what they wanted to read. I may seem simple but it reveals the divergence in thought about what a library should be. Some Bartians saw Brown’s job as being a guardian of their version of morality. One man in the interview claims that Brown’s choices in the collection did not reflect the popular demand of the town’s citizens. Which raises the question of at what point does a librarian defy the status quo in favor providing a well rounded collection much like what Ruth Brown did?

Bush Article

Vannevar Bush may have been talking about a different kind of information overload than we mean today when we use the term but the idea that all that information useful or not doesn’t do much good if we don’t have access to it. He goes even further with his thesis to say that ease of access to info shouldn’t be the only goal and technology should aid people in making real use of knowledge. In this article Bush never takes the human element for granted and in fact sees it as an integral part of the success of new technology.

I think the most exciting part of Bush’s article is his ideas on “associative indexing.” It really shows the importance of people in the information system. With all his faith in technology he is willing to admit that it would be nearly impossible to replace the intuition and abstract though of a person. Bush never suggests that a machine could take over the building of associative trails only that they can make it possible for people to do so.

I found two places where Bush brings up libraries. One is where he mentions that rapid information selection “might even be of use in libraries, but that is another story.” The second is where he recognizes that “the modern great library is not generally consulted, it is nibbled at by a few.” These to quotes seem to indicate that Bush saw libraries as unnecessary in the world of the memex. At the very least one could say that Bush was talking about only scholarly texts but when we think about the associative trails of the internet they concern everything and anything. In a lot of cases it is faster and easier to consult Wikipedia than a book in a library.

Leigh Article

First of all I have to commend the ALA for recognizing the value that could come from an inquiry like this but I wonder if everyone anticipated what was going to be said or if anyone was surprised or upset.

I found some problems with Leigh’s six assumptions. For one he assumed that librarians would exert ultimate control over management which I take to include management of the collection. He puts a lot of emphasis on librarians “as conservators of the classical and permanently valuable in knowledge, morals and taste” as if them things won’t change.

Under the “Direction of Development” chapter Leigh states that libraries that supply books based on patron demand are controversial minority which makes some sense when one considers his above assumptions but still seems like a very closed minded view for someone who has done such an extensive study on libraries. Leigh goes one to use what seems like circular reasoning to claim that demand oriented collections would mean that the present library system are “irrelevant or hopelessly inadequate” to choose popular texts. Leigh does express the fear that libraries that serve the purpose of entertainment versus education run the risk of abandoning its role in a larger information/ communications system.

Leigh’s elitist ideas and contradictions concerning collections continue when he advises libraries to choose quality texts over popular ones and to keep in mind that book choice should be objective in relation to the criticisms of the day.
I didn’t disagree with everything that Leigh said. I think he made some good points about how library boards and librarians need to work together to make a careful mission statement and specific plan concerning the goals of individual libraries.

Free to All

I’ve learned about Andrew Carnegie’s role in American history as a Robber Baron and even as a philanthropist but Van Slyck gives a lot of good information about what his philanthropic projects did for libraries and their communities. I really liked the architectural history perspective that she used because it was a concrete place from which to make her claims but she still had to make well informed and reasonable arguments when she gave her interpretations about library architecture and space.

The relationship between the profession of American architecture and librarianship was fascinating because both were searching for validation as legitimate and important fields and both had to content with desires of the client and more practical considerations. Still, I can’t help but think that librarians (or library boards) were more at fault for not resisting the beauty and grandeur of, for example, the alcove design and its foreseeing problems. Did American librarians not have any dialogue with European librarians about the shortcoming of the medieval monastery inspired design? Maybe the library boards that approved such designs were guilty of the same feelings of paternalism that philanthropists like Carnegie had and wanted patrons to be constantly reminded of the relationship.

The main way that Van Slyck portrays the evolution of public library architecture is by showing how in general they became more and more user and librarian friendly. Van Slyck points out that a lot of the reforms in Carnegie library design was for financial reasons; funds could be made better use of going to things beside elaborate buildings. The issue of open versus closed stacks had financial ramifications too because as the price of books when down it was less imperative to keep the collection from patrons who might damage texts. The presence of multi-purpose and lecture rooms especially in Bertram’s “Notes” show that while Bertram warns against moving away from the library’s book-centered-ness he also thought that some library space could be used as the community wished. The need for extra space be it for expansion or rooms for community groups was also important when one considers that libraries didn’t always use space for what it was designated for in the floor plan. Design suggestions offered by Bertram gave libraries wiggle room so that they could keep up with the needs of librarians and patrons.

Like Garrison, Van Slyck makes claims about the feminization of librarianship. In chapter four she briefly mentions the role of women’s clubs in rallying support for Carnegie libraries. These women cited their morality and inherent mothering skills to give their calls for public libraries authority. Women and men made these same claims for why women were suited to be librarians. As part of her analysis of library space Van Slyck also examines libraries as a female work place. According to Bertram’s “Notes” the changing desk was to be centrally located so the librarian could keep an eye on patrons but Van Slyck doesn’t mention that at the same time patrons could see her too. The position of charging desks between the entrance and the stacks let the librarian oversee the movement of people but it also restricted the size of her work space (so that it looked similar to those of typists and phone operators) and again everyone could see what she was doing. Van Slyck doesn’t make it sound like these interior design choices were intentionally meant to do what they did (much like how the club women didn’t consider the ramifications of their appeals based on gender) but contemporary librarians still have to contend with the effects.

Van Slyck gives a lot of good information on the role of female librarians in the formation of children’s collections. There seems to have been some contention over how home-like children’s space in the library should be which contrasts with Garrison’s assumption that female librarians always exerted a homey and feminine influence on the library. In the pictures that Van Slyck includes there is little difference between the aesthetic of adult and children’s reading rooms until you read her comments about the presence of parlor-like tables and child scale chairs. It seems like the attitude toward children’s libraries started out with them being a place where children could go in order to keep out of trouble but then ended up being a place that paid attention to the unique educational needs of children. Van Slyck doesn’t really get into it but I would be interested in knowing want the view of child psychology and education was in the public school system at this time. Simply realizing that child weren’t little adults seems to have been a big advancement in education in both the school and the library.

Dain and Molz Article

The first couple sections of the Dain and Molz article, concerning building a collection and library faith, was a review of things that we’ve discussed frequently in class. I liked the section about the changes in the demographic of library patrons in the 60s. With all the discussion about how the library can best serve people and how library missions change it seems important to look closely at who uses the and how users groups change. The change in urban library patrons didn’t seem to change the education focus of the libraries but the kind of education they offered. For example, community agencies and services directories give useful information to the urban poor while still falling in line with the “library faith” idea of self education and improvement.

I also got a lot out of the “Marketing the Public Library” section. The authors seem to see efforts to “sell” the public library as positive and I would have to agree. I understand worries about the “McDonaldization” of libraries but at least at this point in library history I don’t think many people (librarians or patrons) really want such a thing because even if it is in demand only once every five years, we still would like to have access to that book on literary criticism or philosophy when we want to. I can’t help but feel uncomfortable with the “demand versus quality debate” concerning building a collection. I’m not afraid to say, for example, the New York Times is a higher quality news paper than USA TODAY but at the same time I would be thrilled that some one was actually reading a newspaper. Basic literacy and simply getting people into the library is more urgent than cultivating taste.

Apostles of Culture

Part one of Apostles of Culture put the social situation of the “new gentry elite” library founders into a nice historical context before giving some statistics about 19th century librarians and then specific examples of the careers of some notable men. In was interesting that these librarians were overwhelmingly upper-middle class and were, as Garrison calls them, vocationally unstable which shows that although they were from an elite class they seemed to face a fair amount of struggle in finding their place in society. They way that these early librarians sort of ended up in field makes me want to question their expertise and understanding of librarianship and highlights the “experimental” side of the American public library. What should the library’s purpose be? How should we achieve this purpose? These obably looked up to the elite members of society and once he had achieved a similar level of prominence he may have felt especially deserving of the authority it gave him.

Poole had to educate himself in the manners of the elite and in that way he parallels Windsor’s appreciation of self education. At the end of his career as a librarian Poole worked at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The Newberry library, we are told, was a public library but its staff thought of it as primarily a place for “gentlemen” assuming that the general public wouldn’t be able to appreciate the quality of the library’s collection. It is hard to believe that Poole could have worked in such an environment without having picked up some beliefs about the superiority of the intellectual in the library.

I found part two of the book “Moral Passage: the Fiction Problem” interesting but maybe not that important in the overall history of the library. I was probably worth considering that one of the issues that people had with light fiction was that is was read by impressionable women and at the same time women were the ones working in libraries, being expected to use their inherent superior morality and taste to guide the unlearned public. This double standard is revealed in another light when one considers that the novel has been considered historically as a feminine literary form and thus writing fiction was a fairly socially acceptable activity for a woman. I can just imagine the horror that some might have felt at the thought of a library full of women patrons and workers sitting around and reading books by women authors that might seem like trite romance novels to contemporary readers. At the same time the class distinction between the librarian and the house wife may have been significant enough to prevent either from recognizing the irony of the situation.

By far my favorite part of the book was “The Tender Technician.” I can see how this part could be controversial because in places I get a sense that Garrison is kind of blaming the victim in that women are complicit in a kind of cycle that traps them in pink collar library work. Men like Dewey advocated women in librarianship for often conflicting reasons. Women were suited to be librarians because they were becoming educated but at the same time women were perfect because librarians needn’t be skilled or formally educated. The library was a place for moral nurturing so women fit in well because they were suited to the domestic sphere but they were also expected to be serious intellectuals. I think this conflict not only reveals the double standards that women faced but tensions within the profession at large. Garrison seems to argue that women in the field cause feminization and that cause a lack of professionalization but to me it seems that the factors that led to feminization and professionalization existed side by side.

Found This on a Forum

Book Rentals
So...What do you guys think?

Pawley Article

I loved reading this article. It’s so exciting to find out about a local radical/ feminist who did so much in a field that I’m interested in. To borrow a term from class: it’s a good narrative.

What I liked about this article (which I also liked about the last Fain article) was that Pawley brought the discussion of the conflicting ideas the library into a very specific context. We talked in class about Biographies and the possibility that telling one person’s story may not do justice to larger themes but here Pawley really just frames the story of Wisconsin libraries with the efforts of Lutie Stearns.

I found the "Political Pluralism" section very interesting. I sympathize with Stearns’ wish that she, and the libraries, could stay out of partisan politics but politics aren’t staying out of the library and therefore one has to know how to work within the system. It was impressive that Stearns used advertising to such a great extent. It sounds simplistic but people won’t use a library if they don’t know its there or don’t know what it has to offer. This would especially be useful to advertise new collections, such as foreign language books, that were being bought at this time. The conversation that Hutchinson had with the rural storekeeper shows that even laypeople had overly idealistic beliefs about the reading “good books.”

In "Libraries for “the People” Pawley bring up the issue of whether collections should be built based on patron demand or a librarian’s discretion. This issue is seen in a new light when one considers the tax supported library versus the philanthropic gift library. With the tax supported library it is easy to argue that the tax payers should have a say in what they have access to because they own part of the collection. As far as the gift library is concerned the philanthropist who donates the money will have more control over what goes in to the library. If the philanthropist’s attitude is one of superiority it would be easy to see how that could translate into the mission and book collection of the library.

Fain: "Books for New Citizens" Article

When I started reading this article I was worried that it was going to rehash the debate over whether the early public library was a tool for social control or more a progressive institution. This article does deal with this debate but to Fain’s credit not by making generalizations about huge social, political and economic factors but by narrowing in on the immigrant experience with public libraries in the late 1800s.

Fain argues that the librarians saw it as their job to Americanize immigrants. Given that the goal was assimilation it’s not that surprising that bringing foreign language books into the library would be a contentious issue. But it also sounds a lot like “the fiction problem” where light reading was offered to entice people inside. I had to look up the word “polyglot” and was surprised at its neutral definition considering the negative connotations the editor of the Library Journal weighted it with. It reminded me that we can debate the motives and integrity of Americanization efforts where there was subtle subconscious ethnic and racial prejudices that might have underlay some librarians’ good intentions but there was also glaring discrimination that was just as socially acceptable. It reminded me of the discussion we had in class about how historians with an understanding of sexism see feminization with contemporary understanding.

I liked the accounts of individual Americanizers in the library because it really illustrates that not only were there different routes that people took to foster assimilation but there were various standards of the appropriate level of American-ness that an immigrant should have. For example, Carr didn’t encourage people to stop being Italian but (as bad as it sounds) to be less Italian and more American.

First Fain Article

Fain gives a summary of Harris’ view of elitism and social control in the library and she doesn’t seem to deny it. Fain was skeptical if Harris’ revisionist theory was really revisionist because she notes that he borrowed theories from public school development and applied them to the public library because of the parallels in the development of both institutions. Fain says that unlike the public school the library had to attract readers which would be especially difficult to do if you followed Harris’ belief that librarians didn’t care about the number of library users.

Reading what Garrison had to say about feminization in the public library got me excited to read Apostles of Culture. It is interesting that Fain sees Garrison and Harris could hold such different opinions on the attitude of librarians because while I did gather that Harris thought that early librarians took an authoritative stance those in the twentieth century were more neutral and service oriented like how Garrison described.I don’t know Garrison if saw female librarians as being non-assertive throughout the history of library development or if Fain would consider that as something she conveniently left out of her “single minded pursuit of a thesis.”

Dain Article

I don’t really doubt that Harris lacks evidence for the claims that he makes but he definitely didn’t provide many raw fact in his article which is probably why I got the feeling that it was full of sweeping generalizations. In her sections on nonpublic libraries and the librarian Dain gives us data that reveals that by comparison to independent and social libraries public libraries had more books, money, higher circulation were open free of charge to more people making them more successful and by comparison more democratic. This information clashes with Harris’ opinion that the public library was a largely elitist institution.

Dain’s description of the Ticknor is more forgiving and thus more realistic than Harris’ one sided argument. So while Dain doesn’t dispute that Ticknor wasn’t liberal progressive that some historians may make him out to be she balances out Harris’ view so that Ticknor appears to be some one in between the two extremes.

Dain brings up a good point when she suggests that strictness in regards to the use of library materials was due to cultural lag because books only recently became cheap. Maybe that same sort of cultural lag is what was responsible for some people’s distrust of light fiction. She also encourages reader to look at individual libraries to evaluate and compare the relative strictness of each.

Dain like Fain end her article with a lot of questions especially about the work of librarians and how the library compares to other institutions of the time. Honestly, I think that the questions were an exciting part of the article if only because that is where one could start further research from and that they try to point that potential future research in a direction that expands the field instead of going over the same issues.

Harris Article

Harris’ claim that social control and power was the purpose of early libraries seems similar to some of the points that Ditzion brought up throughout his article and especially in his conclusion so maybe it’s not that revisionist.

The two main purposes of the conservative library founders, to educates the masses and provide scholarly resources for the upper classes, seem dead on but the former is definitely more prevalent in this article and the other documents that we’ve been studying. Harris’ insistence that authoritarianism and then bureaucracy made libraries distant from the goals of the founders sounds like a cynical generalization but his really is a revisionist interpretation then maybe that is just what other library historians needed to hear in order to seriously consider Harris’ point of view. Overall, I think that Harris’ argument is that the public libraries purpose of educating the common man isn’t bad per se, for example, when immigrants choose to use the libraries they did so with success. The root of Harris’ criticism is that argument for self-education often came from men with paternalistic tendencies and real belief in their cultural and intellectual superiority, such as is the case with Ticknor, Everett and Cargenie.

Harris also says that as the modern library became increasing distant from its original purpose that librarians have become more and more apathetic. The librarians are portrayed as moving along a spectrum where on one side, in the mid to late nineteenth century they were expected to mold a reader’s taste for literature and learning and then in the early and mid twentieth century they were to be total neutral disseminators of information.

Ditzion Article

It is easy for me to be critical looking back on the super idealistic and sometimes seemly elitist motives of reformers but the third paragraph of the Ditzion article brings up the point that nineteenth century humanitarianism was feed by the developing field of social science. Librarians sought to help people help themselves because picking ones self up by their bootstraps was how you escaped poverty and crime. Even the quote from the American Social Science Association mentions the “causes of Human Failure,” which sounds suspiciously similar to "individual failure." That was just how social problems were popularly viewed at the time and as Ditzion makes clear Libraries weren’t the only institutions that followed this line of reasoning.

I think that Ditzion was the first in the articles that we’ve read to bring up the Temperance movement in relationship to the humanitarianism of libraries but there doesn’t seem to be much of a relationship between the two besides that the both touted the economic advantages of temperance. Ditzion says that he couldn’t even find information about significant Temperance work done specifically in or through libraries but suggest at the end of the section “Drink” that Temperance workers were asking too much of public libraries by asking them to remove literature that was inappropriate by their standards. He says that Temperance literature in libraries was more popular than Temperance reading rooms but doesn’t give a reason why. In his last sentence of the section he undermines Temperance workers efforts in general as if he forgot that they eventually succeed with prohibition (and later these same women who “may well have been afraid of a democratic, intelligent, free public library” also got the right to vote).

Perkins Article

This article is from the same Department of the Interior book as Quincy’s article that we read for week 2 and they have some similarities but also some differences. When I read the introductory paragraphs I thought (and was hoping) that he was going to endorse novels whole heartedly but he gives only qualified support. Both authors spent a good portion of their articles on the issue of novels and fiction in the Library showing that it was a serious question at the time. According to what we’ve read in class so far most libraries saw their purpose as providing moral uplift and meeting the public demand for popular fiction among other things. At the time, these two goals probably seemed at odds with each other in the case of popular fiction. The second sentence under the heading “Choice of Books” says, “It is vain to go on the principle of collecting books that people ought to read,” but then Perkins goes on to contradict himself by naming specific authors and titles (the Decameron!) that he feels should be excluded from the library but like Quincy he doesn’t really offer other guidelines for discriminately choosing books.

Perkins’ article does hit on some ideas that seem more reasonable and are in agreement with my perception of the contemporary library. He emphasizes that at the very least libraries need to put the public’s demand for entertaining literature over the scholar’s desire for a “treasure house.” Perkins does see a place for scholarship and research at a public library but it shouldn’t be the primary concern. Perkins recognizes that getting people to use the library and helping the public to form regular reading habits, regardless of what, is key.

Williams Article

It was helpful that Williams started out this article with an explanation of the common historical idiographic approach to research and the nomothetic that is more typical of social science research. I immediately thought of the Wiegand article where he criticized library historians for being too “reverential” or in Williams terms “more idiographic than nomothetic.” Another criticism of Williams that was similar to Wiegand’s was that librarian historians need to use quality primary sources in their research. This would be especially important if the work done by library historians was to be helpful to researches in other fields as Williams thinks should be the case.

Williams critiques researcher’s general use of the Social Conditions theory in public library formation by saying that they failed to point out the relationship between each factor and importance of the given social factor. I went back to the Shera article where it seemed that he didn’t say explicitly, for example, a communities’ economic ability had more affect on library formation than say the lyceum movement but I gathered that it was implied. In my entry on the Shera article I mentioned how he brought up that the lyceum and the public school were both “book centered” but he didn’t elaborate on what exactly that meant or if there was any further relationship between the two institutions. Having said all this in agreement with Williams, Shera’s article was still very informative but I see now that in some places it just didn’t take that extra step into proposing a definite theory like Williams advocates.

Shera Article

The Shera article was a great overview of factors in library development. It covered a lot of things that I wouldn’t have guessed related to public library formation, for example, mass interest in historical research and preservation of documents. Maybe its from reading the Quincy article that emphasized the library’s purpose as a service designed to uplift the working class but I don’t immediately think of the public library as an institution formed to meet the needs of scholarship and historical scholarship at that but Shera tells us that this kind of dialog was going on well before 1876 when Quincy wrote his article.

I was surprised to learn that Shera cited the lyceum movement another factor. Shera compares the lyceum to the public school in that it was “book centered” meaning that reading was a large part of its purpose of self-education. It’s impressive that these lyceums could be so reading oriented while not having significant collections of there own because it wasn’t financially practical. Even if lyceums couldn’t contribute financially to public libraries they would have at least supported there patronage and help spread self-education.

I wasn’t even aware that there was a significant presence of vocational libraries in the early/mid 1800s because industrialization reduced the need for specialized job skills but I guess not entirely. The mechanic and mercantile libraries seem similar to the contemporary library in that they were formed because they met the demands of the working class public and because they were oriented to practical technical knowledge versus social or cultural enlightenment.

Quincy Article

I was taken off guard when I got to the second paragraph of the Quincy article with the image of the working class family abandoning the bar in favor of the library and I had to double check in the front of the packet to see the date that it was written. Once I realized that the author came from a time when the upper class was preoccupied with moralizing the expanding working class as a means of bettering them it made more sense. It seems to me that the contemporary public library sees self-education as one of its purposes but not in the same way that Quincy does as he suggests that reading and learning instills people with a general goodness regardless of what they learn and read. At the same time Quincy optimistically envisions a library where the books would meet his personal standards of quality.

Quincy had an interesting stance on novels. Although in some people reading novels could cause mental illness (!) he was willing to admit that they weren’t bad for the entertainment of adults and when they could be supplemented with worthy non-fiction. It sounds ridiculous in present time but brought up the point that public libraries should be designed with the population that they are meant to serve in mind. Small libraries with limited fund especially need to consider what books and services will be most useful to their patrons. I was surprised that Quincy was in favor of having periodicals and even free pamphlets in a public library because I would think that those types of documents could carry just a dangerous kind of ideas as a novel could.

Introduction: Ruby LeGault

Hey fellow 569-ers,

My name is Ruby LeGault, I'm an English major and I'll be graduating this spring. From there I hope to enter a LIS graduate program...somewhere...I'm considering schools across the country but ideally I'd like to stay here in Madison.

I can't wait to get to know everyone and start my study of LIS!