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!