This article by Michelle Dunlop, “Researchers Help Librarians Tell Tacoma’s Story”, recounts a wonderful project by University of Washington’s Information School and Tacoma Public Library to create a community archives that captures the experiences of underrepresented groups in local history!: https://ischool.uw.edu/news/2023/10/researchers-help-librarians-tell-tacomas-story
Check out and recommend to others the community archives toolkit they created for the project
Gusejnova, Dina. Librarians as Agents of German Foreign Policy and the Cultural Consequences of the First World War. The Historical Journal. 2023; 66(4): 864-886. doi:10.1017/S0018246X23000213
A recent commemoration of the first public library named after American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.:
https://www.axios.com/local/columbus/2023/04/21/columbus-mlk-library-history-celebrated
Great to see this piece by Katie McBride Moench at JSTOR about the role of American librarians in World War II!:
https://daily.jstor.org/how-american-librarians-helped-defeat-the-nazis/
Every 5 years, the Library History Round Table hosts a Library History Seminar. This is a two- or three-day event in which scholars, students, and aficionados of library history gather to share their research and discuss issues in the field.
The next Library History Seminar (number XV) is tentatively scheduled to be held online in October 2026. We are looking for some volunteers to help pull it together.
Opportunities exist to work on:
*Programs (choosing speakers, etc.)
*You can also volunteer just to be a peer reviewer for paper submissions
*Logistics (managing the registration and presentation software, etc.)
*Publicity (including graphic design and web design)
*Budget
*Proceedings (turning the seminar’s papers into a published volume)
*Steering Committee
Because we are getting started early, we think the workload will be fairly light over the next two years.
More details about the volunteer opportunities, along with a tentative timeline of events, can be found in this document.
If you would like to volunteer, please fill out this simple form.
We look forward to having you be part of this exciting event!
On behalf of the Library History Seminar Planning Committee,
Steve Knowlton
Steven Knowlton
Librarian for History and African American Studies
Princeton University Library
Please see the opportunity below for a virtual talk below sponsored by Congregational Library and Archives!:
“In this talk, four leading historians of English, Scottish, and American libraries will reveal the diverse ways that library history can illuminate different facets of the past. All are co-investigators on the recent major AHRC-funded grant entitled Libraries, Reading Communities, and Cultural Formation in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic, which is launching a major new web resource in early 2024 that features fully searchable membership lists, catalogues, and borrowing records from more than eighty libraries across the Anglophone Atlantic. The talk will feature a demonstration of this powerful new web resource.”
Full Details and Registration Link: https://www.congregationallibrary.org/events/why-study-library-history
Hello Blog Readers,
You may remember a few months ago the blog highlighted the work of Dr. Kathleen McCook and students in creating open access essays about library history on wikipedia, including Dr. McCook’s article for The Progressive Librarian, “Librarians as Wikipedians: From Library History to Librarianship and Human Rights”.
On this note, wikipedia has a category for historians of libraries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Historians_of_libraries
However, there are many notable scholars of library history missing from the category because no wikipedia entry exists about them. In particular, historians from underrepresented groups are missing.
We are writing to encourage others to consider writing about a library historian on wikipedia. To help encourage and organize our efforts, we created a page at https://lhrt.news/library-historians-on-wikipedia/
Thanks for considering!
***For LIS faculty: Please email Dr. McCook (klmccook@gmail.com) if you might be interested in talking with her about implementing a wikipedia authorship project in your class.
The Library History Round Table (LHRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) invites submissions for the Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award. The Justin Winsor Library History Award is given annually to recognize the best essay written in English on library history. The award is named in honor of the distinguished nineteenth-century librarian, historian, and bibliographer who was also ALA’s first president. It consists of a certificate and a $500 cash award, as well as an invitation to have the winner’s essay considered for publication in Libraries: Culture, History, and Society.
Criteria
Manuscripts submitted should not be previously published, previously submitted for publication, or under consideration for publication or another award. To be considered, essays should embody original historical research on a significant topic in library history, be based on primary sources whenever possible, and use good English composition and superior style. The Library History Round Table is particularly interested in works that place the subject within its broader historical, social, cultural, and political context and make interdisciplinary connections with print culture and information studies.
Essays should be organized in a form similar to that of articles published in Libraries: Culture, History, and Society, with footnotes, spelling, and punctuation conforming to the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Papers should not exceed thirty-five typewritten, double-spaced pages (plus footnotes and bibliography).
Submissions and Selection
Applicants must submit their manuscripts electronically. Applications must be received by February 23, 2024. The application deadline is firm and any submissions received after the deadline will not be forwarded to the committee.
Please upload your manuscripts electronically via the web form: https://airtable.com/shrYdO92X6tfTW3oe
Interested applicants can direct inquiries to Leah DiCiesare, Justin Winsor Award Committee Chair, leahd@umd.edu, please use LHRT Winsor Award in the subject line.