“A one-day event consisting of panel discussions and presentations on various aspects of printing history and heritage in the 21st century…The day will be made available in-person, at Senate House Library, and online via Zoom. For online attendees, a link will be sent prior to the day.”
Find the full description and link for purchasing tickets at:
The next free webinar hosted by ALA ACRL’s EBSS Education Committee will occur at 12:30pm EST on Friday May 8. The webinar features UC Berkeley Social Sciences librarian Ann Glusker, who will discuss developing an oral history collection about changes in librarianship over the decades. The webinar will be held at http://csulb.zoom.us/j/5629854509 No registration is required.
Ann Glusker is a Social Sciences librarian at University of California, Berkeley, and also is Berkeley’s librarian for Research Methods. After many years as a quantitative researcher, she learned to do qualitative research at Berkeley, but wanted a process that was more collaborative with the people being interviewed, and shifted to doing oral histories. The collection of oral histories she just released, “Librarians Navigating Change”, includes 15 transcripts of interviews with long-time UC Berkeley librarians, focusing on changes in libraries, and particularly librarianship, over the past 40 years. The collection contains almost 400 pages of transcripts, with narrators from a range of roles and services in this complex academic library setting. There are also some fantastic stories!
Dr. Lesley S. J. Farmer
CSU ICT Literacy Project Manager
Truth is a human right.
Please check out the new blog by the incredible library historian and LHRT member Bernadette Lear!:
https://palibhist.blogspot.com
Her blog details her research project about the history of Pennsylvania’s public libraries during the last half of the twentieth century, and expands upon the story in her book, Made Free and Throw Open to the Public. Some recent posts cover the Pennsylvania Library Association’s work in creating a library at the Governor’s residence and the state’s Mail Order Delivery project (1970s).
Colleagues:
In the next 25 years hundreds of public and academic libraries will be celebrating their 150th anniversaries. I have chosen to do a history of the San Francisco Public Library for its 150th in 2029, a year in which four other major CA libraries (Stockton, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento) are also 150. Far as I know, I’m the only one in CA doing this.
I encourage all library historians to give consideration to doing the same with important libraries in their areas, or beginning and monitoring projects like McGill’s. Our profession seems to care so little about its history that “celebrations” are at least one way to add to librarianship’s body of literature, still woefully inadequate for such a ubiquitous cultural and educational institution.
–Wayne Wiegand
Greetings!
Please join us online for the ALA Library History Roundtable’s (LHRT) media discussion group, LHRT Reads on Tuesday, April 28th, 2026 at 7pm Eastern Time. We will be discussing Organizing Women: Home, Work, and the Institutional Infrastructure of Print in Twentieth Century America by Christine Pawley. Update: The author will be joining us for the event!
Advanced registration is required. To register, please visit: ala-events.zoom.us/meeting/register/…
Note: This event will not be recorded.
If you would like to participate but cannot access the book from a local library or afford to allocate resources towards its purchase, please email the co-organizers, Amanda Belantara and Michele Fenton. We look forward to seeing you there!
Amanda Belantara & Michele Fenton
ALA Library History Round Table (LHRT) Reads
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Michele Fenton
Librarian I/Cataloger
Indiana State Library
Indianapolis, IN
mfenton@library.in.gov
(317) 234-4937
It is National Library Week in the United States with the theme of “Find Your Joy”!
Here are some open access articles that will spark joy: the story of LIS student Gaby Stephenson and her work in supporting Ukrainian libraries. You will also find ways to support Ukrainian libraries…what better way to celebrate libraries this week?
Many thanks to Dr. Anita Coleman for making these articles open access to ring in National Library Week!
Those Who Read to Their Heart, Win:
ALA NLLD 2026, Little Free Libraries in Ukraine with Spider-Man comics, and one California LIS student’s unexpected journey https://infophilia.substack.com/p/those-who-read-to-their-heart-win
This story “begins with a girl who loves her mom, her dad, and Model UN. Now a young woman and a graduate student in library and information science, she is following that love all the way to a Little Free Library in central Ukraine, where children are reaching for Spider-Man comics in front of handcrafted wooden libraries.”
The Living Library: The Maidan, the Ainu, and the Ethics of Preservation (Gaby Stephenson) https://infophilia.substack.com/p/the-living-library
“The Maidan Library emerged in 2014 during Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity as a ‘protest library,’ a physical collection within a temporary activist encampment. Occupying the Ukrainian House in Kyiv, volunteers transformed a conference center into a space that offered both physical and emotional warmth amid violent conflict.”
https://libraries-today.blogspot.com
Enjoy the Canadian Library History Blog by Lorne Bruce, former head of the Archival and Special Collections at University of Guelph and author of several books on Canadian library history.
Schirber writes about the “Kenneth E. Carpenter collection of library related materials. Carpenter, a librarian originally from Pennsylvania and an alumnus of Philadelphia’s Girard College, spent nearly 40 years working in the Harvard Libraries, eventually serving as the Assistant Director for Research Resources. Passionate about his craft, Carpenter gathered a lovely collection of materials relating to libraries primarily from the 19th and 20th centuries.”
Many of us as library enthusiasts may wish to check out the National Council on Public History site and blog:
https://ncph.org/history-at-work/around-the-field-april-8-2026
Lots of library-related conference news, CFPs, grant opportunities, and more!