Thanks to Hermina Anghelescu for alerting News & Notes to this wonderful piece by Mark Purcell in Literary Hub: “The Role of Librarians in a Historical Age of Obsession”

South Carolina’s state library is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and Emily Williams of The Post and Courier penned a nice article on the state’s library history, including what many believe may be the first publicly supported library in the United States…

Many out there in library history land are familiar with the pathbreaking database, What Middletown Read, sponsored by The Center for Middletown Studies, Ball State University Libraries, and Muncie Public Library. This database offers access to most of the circulation records of the Muncie (Indiana) Public Library from 1891-1902. It is thus a portal into the past, allowing us to see what Americans of the time period chose to read. Check out these updates about the project from the Star Press, especially the exciting news about a conference planned for May 2020…

Michael Schaub of the LA Times brings us this exciting story about the discovery of the Well of the Scribes, a sculpture that mysteriously disappeared from the Los Angeles Public Library years ago…

Several weeks ago, we celebrated Banned Books Week here in the United States, an event inherently related to library history (to learn more about this annual event please see New York Public Library’s quiz). Thanks to Christiyana Cabal and Trish Campbell for sharing this post about the Paulina June & George Pollak Library’s 2019 Banned Books Celebration. How has your library commemorated the history of banned books, intellectual freedom, and resistance to censorship? Please let us know here at the blog by sending a short essay to lhrtnewsandnotes@gmail.com