This lively, nuanced history of New York City's early public libraries traces their evolution within the political, social, and cultural worlds that supported them. On May 11, 1911, the New York ...Public Library opened its "marble palace for book lovers" on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. This was the city's first public library in the modern sense, a tax-supported, circulating collection free to every citizen. Since before the Revolution, however, New York's reading publics had access to a range of "public libraries" as the term was understood by contemporaries. In its most basic sense a public library in the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries simply meant a shared collection of books that was available to the general public and promoted the public good. From the founding in 1754 of the New York Society Library up to 1911, public libraries took a variety of forms. Some of them were free, charitable institutions, while others required a membership or an annual subscription. Some, such as the Biblical Library of the American Bible Society, were highly specialized; others, like the Astor Library, developed extensive, inclusive collections. What all the public libraries of this period had in common, at least ostensibly, was the conviction that good books helped ensure a productive, virtuous, orderly republic-that good reading promoted the public good. Tom Glynn's vivid, deeply researched history of New York City's public libraries over the course of more than a century and a half illuminates how the public and private functions of reading changed over time and how shared collections of books could serve both public and private ends. Reading Publics examines how books and reading helped construct social identities and how print functioned within and across groups, including but not limited to socioeconomic classes. The author offers an accessible while scholarly exploration of how republican and liberal values, shifting understandings of "public" and "private," and the debate over fiction influenced the development and character of New York City's public libraries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Reading Publics is an important contribution to the social and cultural history of New York City that firmly places the city's early public libraries within the history of reading and print culture in the United States.
No library can buy or hold everything its patrons need. At a certain point, librarians need to pool their resources and collaborate to provide access to what they don't have: Collaboration and ...partnership, centralized and shared collection storage, digitization projects, interlibrary loan and resource sharing, purchase on demand, PDA and EBA are notably key to success. The 2022 edition of the Erasmus Mobility Staff Training week organized at the University of Liège Library focused on services, projects and policies that libraries can deploy and promote to increase and ease access to materials that do not belong to their print or electronic holdings. More than 20 librarians, managers, and researchers in library science share their experiences and visions in this book.
Drawing on recent debates about the methods of book history, this book explores in detail the foundation and development of Chetham's Library, in Manchester, from its foundation in 1655 until the end ...of the seventeenth century.
Despite dire predictions in the late twentieth century that public libraries would not survive the turn of the millennium, their numbers have only increased. Two of three Americans frequent a public ...library at least once a year, and nearly that many are registered borrowers. Although library authorities have argued that the public library functions primarily as a civic institution necessary for maintaining democracy, generations of library patrons tell a different story. In Part of Our Lives, Wayne A. Wiegand delves into the heart of why Americans love their libraries. The book traces the history of the public library, featuring records and testimonies from as early as 1850. Rather than analyzing the words of library founders and managers, Wiegand listens to the voices of everyday patrons who cherished libraries. Drawing on newspaper articles, memoirs, and biographies, Part of Our Lives paints a clear and engaging picture of Americans who value libraries not only as civic institutions, but also as social spaces for promoting and maintaining community. Whether as a public space, a place for accessing information, or a home for reading material that helps patrons make sense of the world around them, the public library has a rich history of meaning for millions of Americans. From colonial times through the recent technological revolution, libraries have continuously adapted to better serve the needs of their communities. Wiegand goes on to demonstrate that, although cultural authorities (including some librarians) have often disparaged reading books considered not "serious" the commonplace reading materials users obtained from public libraries have had a transformative effect for many, including people like Ronald Reagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Oprah Winfrey. A bold challenge to conventional thinking about the American public library, Part of Our
Lives is an insightful look into one of America's most beloved cultural institutions.
A library's infrastructure of programs and personnel is its most valuable asset, providing the foundation for everything it does and aspires to do, which is why assessment is so vitally important. In ...this collection of case studies, Murphy and her team of contributors describe how quality assessment programs have been implemented and how they are used to continuously improve service at a complete cross-section of institutions. This volume Looks at how a program was established within a library organization, the individual roles for staff participating in the program, and singles out which activities and projects were most successful Describes programs such as the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, Lean Six Sigma, and ISO 9001:2000 Examines contexts ranging from a liberal-arts college library and key federal government libraries to libraries that serve major research universities in the United States and Canada Summarizing specific tools for measuring service quality alongside tips for using these tools most effectively, this book helps libraries of all kinds take a programmatic approach to measuring, analyzing, and improving library services.
Focusing on digital analytics principles and concepts, this book walks you through the many tools available, including step-by-step examples for typical library needs.
Laying the Foundation: Digital Humanities in Academic Libraries examines the library's role in the development, implementation, and instruction of successful digital humanities projects. It pays ...special attention to the critical role of librarians in building sustainable programs. It also examines how libraries can support the use of digital scholarship tools and techniques in undergraduate education. Academic libraries are nexuses of research and technology; as such, they provide fertile ground for cultivating and curating digital scholarship. However, adding digital humanities to library service models requires a clear understanding of the resources and skills required. Integrating digital scholarship into existing models calls for a reimagining of the roles of libraries and librarians. In many cases, these reimagined roles call for expanded responsibilities, often in the areas of collaborative instruction and digital asset management, and in turn these expanded responsibilities can strain already stretched resources. Laying the Foundation provides practical solutions to the challenges of successfully incorporating digital humanities programs into existing library services. Collectively, its authors argue that librarians are critical resources for teaching digital humanities to undergraduate students and that libraries are essential for publishing, preserving, and making accessible digital scholarship. This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.
How do college students really conduct research for classroom assignments? In 2008, five large Illinois universities were awarded a Library Services and Technology Act Grant to try to answer that ...question. The resulting ongoing study has already yielded some eye-opening results. The findings suggest changes ranging from simple adjustments in service and resources to modifying the physical layout of the library. In this book Duke and Asher, two anthropological researchers involved with the project since the beginning, * Summarize the study s history, including its goals, parameters, and methodology * Offer a comprehensive discussion of the research findings, touching on issues such as website design, library instruction for faculty, and meeting the needs of commuter and minority students * Detail a number of service reforms which have already been implemented at the participating institutions This important book deepens our understanding of how academic libraries can better serve students needs, and also serves as a model for other researchers interested in a user-centered approach to evaluating library services.
In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H. Grant recounts the American success story of Henry and Emily Folger of Brooklyn, a couple who were devoted to each other, in love with Shakespeare, and bitten by ...the collecting bug.
Shortly after marrying in 1885, the Folgers started buying, cataloging, and storing all manner of items about Shakespeare and his era. Emily earned a master's degree in Shakespeare studies. The frugal couple worked passionately as a tight-knit team during the Gilded Age, financing their hobby with the fortune Henry earned as president of Standard Oil Company of New York, where he was a trusted associate of John D. Rockefeller Sr.
While a number of American universities offered to house the collection, the Folgers wanted to give it to the American people. Afraid the price of antiquarian books would soar if their names were revealed, they secretly acquired prime real estate on Capitol Hill near the Library of Congress. They commissioned the design and construction of an elegant building with a reading room, public exhibition hall, and the Elizabethan Theatre. The Folger Shakespeare Library was dedicated on the Bard's birthday, April 23, 1932.
The library houses 82 First Folios, 275,000 books, and 60,000 manuscripts. It welcomes more than 100,000 visitors a year and provides professors, scholars, graduate students, and researchers from around the world with access to the collections. It is also a vibrant center in Washington, D.C., for cultural programs, including theater, concerts, lectures, and poetry readings.
The library provided Grant with unprecedented access to the primary sources within the Folger vault. He draws on interviews with surviving Folger relatives and visits to 35 related archives in the United States and in Britain to create a portrait of the remarkable couple who ensured that Shakespeare would have a beautiful home in America.
Academic libraries are going through what may be the most difficult period in their history. With more and more scholarly content available online and accessible almost anywhere, where does the ...traditional 'brick and mortar' library fit in?In this book, Jeannette Woodward attacks these and other pressing issues facing today's academic librarians. Her trailblazing strategies center on keeping the customer's point of view in focus at all times to help you: integrate technology to meet today's student and faculty needs; revaluate the role and function of library service desks; implement staffing strategies to match customer expectations; and, create new and effective promotional materials. Librarians are now faced with marketing to a generation of students who log on rather than walk in and this cutting edge book supplies the tools needed to keep customers coming through the door.
