One of the best things Rory does over at Library Juice is to reprint interesting library artciles from days gone by. Check out a few of the neat things he’s dug up from back in the days before the web, computers and maybe even electricity.
Germantown Quakers check the spread of novel reading, from 1874, is a quick note on how “This furnishing of unwholesome mental food or poison is gradually pervading our literature to an alarming extent”
The late Librarians’ Convention, an article from The Nation in 1876, says “The late Librarians’ Convention was even more successful than its promoters had expected”
The Heyday of Librarians, from The Nation, July 3, 1913 says “The public library, with a lifetime in this country of scarcely more than sixty years, has already reached that highly specialized development which characterizes the public school.”
On George Iles’ plea for a headquarters for ALA, from 1903, looks at “Mr. George Iles, whose services to critical cataloguing have won him the gratitude of many readers, made a plea, now published in pamphlet form, for a headquarters for the Association.”
An interesting, short, Letter to the Editor of The Nation, published Nov. 7, 1912, “Let it be said once for all that no one is a true librarian who is not a lover and student of books. ”
Back in 1917 people were writing about Great reasons to go to the new SF main library, after all, the have “Books for All Desires.”
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