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.