Month: November 2021

Here’s how to publicize local library history… [Greater, Greater Washington]

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D.W. Rowlands, human geographer and senior research assistant at the Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, has preserved and publicized the history of Prince George’s County Libraries in Maryland through a series of engaging pieces in Greater, Greater Washington.

The articles focus on the themes and events in public library history, including the construction of facilities, libraries as social outreach centers, the impact of tax reforms, and the rise of the electronic library.

Hopefully, other writers will see this series and be inspired to write up their libraries’ histories as she has done!

You can read her first article and progress to the others at Here’s how the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System got its start

LHRT Reads–Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe

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Hi friends —


Amanda Belantara, Michele Fenton, and I want to ensure that everyone is seeing important announcements about LHRT Reads, so we’re posting this via ALA Connect, the blog, and e-mails to all members. Please forgive the cross-postings!  🙂


First, the next LHRT Reads event will be on Thursday, December 16th, at 7:00 p.m., via Zoom. We will be discussing Kathy Peiss’s Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe . If you’d like to attend, please register ahead of time at https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMrcuyrqjIuHtJ29MHWlOVZp3maG80tCMxE . After you register, you’ll receive a confirmation e-mail with information for attending the program. Also, we’ll use the registration list to send reminders about the event.


Secondly, we will soon select titles for LHRT Reads 2022. If there is a title you’d like us to consider, feel free to go this  Google Doc, read about the process at the beginning of the doc, and add your recommendations: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rymqeeWzHhMARweDFd1NHkHRVQKpYZ6JQmMnUBkm2PM/edit?usp=sharing . Please submit and upvote titles by December 1st so that Amanda and I will have plenty of time to gather pricing and other information, collect member feedback, and select 6 titles in time for the first LHRT Reads discussion in February 2022.


Looking forward to seeing you at LHRT Reads!


Bernadette  🙂 

Bernadette A. Lear (she/her/hers/Ms.)

Behavioral Sciences and Education Librarian, Harrisburg

Affiliate Faculty, Education Library and Pennsylvania Center for the Book, University ParkBAL19@psu.edu – 717-948-6360
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9576-0704

Author of Made Free and Thrown Open to the Public: Community Libraries in Pennsylvania from the Colonial Era through World War IIhttps://upittpress.org/books/9780822947004/

Co-Editor of Libraries: Culture, History, and Society

http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_LCHS.html 

Administrator of the Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania Projecthttps://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-maps-pa