Sunday June 29 8:00 a.m. -10:00 a.m.
Anaheim Convention Center 212 B
Sunday June 29 10:30 a.m. -12:00 p.m.
Anaheim Convention Center 211 B
This year LHRT’s Research Forum will consider new or continuing research on the history of American libraries and librarianship in the West. Three library historians will present papers on varying historical aspects of libraries and library development in the West, followed by commentary and reaction by an accomplished historian in the field.
The speakers and topics will include the following:
Suzanne M. Stauffer, School of Library and Information Science, Louisiana State University: A Good Social Work: Women’s Clubs, Libraries, and the Construction of a Secular Society in Utah, 1890-1920;
Brad Reel, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison: Cultural Amenities, Wholesome Alternatives: Libraries and Reading Rooms of America’s Western Railroads; and
David B. Gracy II, University of Texas at Austin: To Have the People of Texas See the Need for it: Laying the Foundation for the Texas State Library, 1835-1909.
Joanne Passet, a historian at Indiana University East (Richmond) and author of Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), will act as responder to complete the program.
President's Program
(Edward Holley Lecture)
Sunday June 29 1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Anaheim Convention Center 211 A
Alistair Black: From planning to Pluralism: the Public Library in Britain in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century.
Anne-Marie Bertrand: Inventing a Model Library “à la Française.”
Douglas Raber: Certain Ambiguities: The Idea of the American Public Library Since 1945.
ABSTRACTS:
From Planning to Pluralism: the public library in Britain in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century by Alistair Black The Second World War was a watershed for the development of the public library in Britain. The McColvin Report (1942), a product of the spirit of reconstruction that swept society and politics in the war years, recognized that although the public library had become a popular and important civic institution, there were large gaps in its provision and severe shortcomings in its organization, and that considerable planning by central government was required to remedy these. Public libraries became part of the fabric of the welfare state, benefiting, once the period of post-war austerity had ended, from a high level of public expenditure. A golden age for the public library in the 1960s and early 1970s gave way to an era of financial restraint that hampered innovations in service provision like community librarianship, which was also restricted by tensions within the library profession. Community librarianship, along with the inclusion of libraries in a digital ‘people’s network’ and the appearance of a new wave of library buildings, amounted to a late-twentieth century effort by the public library to re-position itself in an age of pluralism and shifting patron expectation. BIOGRAPHY: Alistair Black is a professor of library and information science at the Leeds Metropolitan University. Dr. Black edited and contributed to the last volume of the Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain & Ireland. From 2003 to 2007 he served as Chair of the IFLA Section on Library History and he is also honorary editor of Library History, the journal published by the Library and Information History Group (LIHG) of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. In addition to publishing numerous articles, Alistair Black has written three books on British public libraries: A new history of the English public library : social and intellectual contexts, 1850-1914 (London: Leicester University Press, 1996); The public library in Britain, 1914-2000 (London : British Library, 2000); and Understanding community librarianship : the public library in post-modern Britain, with David Muddiman. (Avebury, 1997).
Inventing a Model Library “à la Française” by Anne-Marie Bertrand In France widespread adoption of free public libraries with open access occurred much later than in Britain or the US. It was not until the late 1960s that France experienced the broad diffusion of the type of public library that was intended to welcome the entire population, regardless of social status, income, or educational level. This new model of the public library represented a sharp contrast with the elitist model that had previously characterized French municipal libraries, whose collections were often scholarly nature and were destined for a highly educated public. Thus the question of the role of the public library in the community is central to French library history. In this paper I will show how a new model of the public library was implemented in France, and will discuss how it was adapted from the US model but differed significantly because French libraries rejected taking on the kind of educational role that characterized American public library service. Over the course of several decades the French model was further enhanced by efforts to create greater openness and visibility through programming and debates and through the architecture of the buildings. Finally, I will examine why this model of the public library is considered obsolete today and needs to be reinvented by taking into account digital resources and remote access to catalogs and databases. BIOGRAPHY: Anne-Marie Bertrand is the director of the French National Graduate School of Library and Information Science (ENSSIB). Dr. Bertrand has published and edited several books on French municipal libraries and has also written a comparative study of public library development in the US and in France since World War II. She presented this study as her thesis for the habilitation (a post-doctoral academic credential for faculty). Among her books, the most relevant to this panel is: Les villes et leurs bibliothèques : légitimer et décider : 1945-1985 (Paris : Editions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1999). In addition, she has written on French library practices, librarianship as a career, and library architecture. For several years Anne-Marie Bertrand also served as the editor of the prestigious Bulletin des Bibliothèques de France.
Certain Ambiguities: The Idea of the American Public Library Since 1945 by Douglas Raber Because librarians have long identified the public library as both an essential and representative institution of American democracy, the public library reflects the contests and ambiguities that have defined its historical context. Since the end of the World War II, professional discourse about the public library and its purpose has demonstrated a remarkable adaptability to that context. I intend to examine discourse surrounding projects initiated by the American Library Association and later the Public Library Association in order to arrive a more complete knowledge of how librarianship has conceived the role and meaning of the public library in American culture and how that concept has changed over time. Along the way I hope gain a better understanding of American democratic culture itself. Like that culture, the American public library is still in the process of invention. BIOGRAPHY: Douglas Raber has done extensive research on the Public Library Inquiry, a massive national study carried out by a team US social scientists in the late 1940s. He has written several articles on this topic, and in 1997 he published a book entitled Librarianship and legitimacy : the ideology of the Public Library Inquiry. More recently he published a text entitled The problem of information : an introduction to information science (2003). Professor Raber has also written and lectured on public l library development in the late 20th century and on the planning process. He is now on the faculty at the University of Missouri. He will discuss the challenges faced by American public libraries from the era of post-war planning to the age of the information superhighway.