{"title":"Rising from the Ashes: The Impact of Proposition 13 on Public Libraries in California","authors":"C. White","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0025","url":null,"abstract":"In 1978 Howard Jarvis was the driving force behind California’s Proposition 13, a direct ballot initiative that sought to reform the state’s property tax system. Officially titled the People’s Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, Proposition 13 passed on June 6 of that year and not only immediately cut property tax rates but also limited further increases within the state. As property taxes were and still are a primary source of funding for many public libraries, California librarians in the ensuing years struggled to maintain facilities, staff, and collections in the wake of the cuts. Librarians were also forced to expand their advocacy role in order to better quantify and convey the value of libraries to the public at large.","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"46 1","pages":"345 - 359"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66807222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Books and Reading in the Connecticut Western Reserve: The Small-Settlement Social Library, 1800–1860","authors":"Stuart A. Stiffler","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0020","url":null,"abstract":"Encouraged by the Puritan emphasis on literacy and mission, and energized by sociocultural needs and frontier voluntarism, New Englanders and others founded 107 small-settlement proprietary and subscription libraries in the Connecticut Western Reserve (part of present-day northern Ohio) before 1860. This article discusses the background context, organization, administration, patronage, and content of a representative number of these libraries as well as their evolution as predecessors of the tax-supported public library in nineteenth-century Ohio.","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"46 1","pages":"388 - 411"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0020","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66806842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The “Librarian’s Dream-Prince”: Carl Van Vechten and America’s Modernist Cultural Archives Industry","authors":"Kirsten Macleod","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0026","url":null,"abstract":"Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964) was an art critic and patron, a novelist, and a photographer from the early- to mid-twentieth century. His most important role, however, was as a collector and archivist of American modernism. This study examines the origins of Van Vechten’s penchant for collecting and archiving, how these interests informed his professional and amateur pursuits, and how they led him to contribute to the creation of a substantial and wide-ranging archival record of twentieth-century American cultural life.","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"46 1","pages":"360 - 387"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0026","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66807267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cultural Record Keepers: Serendipity in Adelphi University Libraries’ Special Collections: The “Emilie” Bookplate","authors":"Elayne Gardstein","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0022","url":null,"abstract":"In 2007 the Grolier Club in New York held an exhibition titled Illustrating the Good Life: The Pissarros’ Eragny Press, 1894–1914. Professor Alice Beckwith of Providence College curated this first all-inclusive presentation of the Eragny Press in the United States.1 A subsequent search for Eragny Press books within the Adelphi University Libraries’ Donald V. L. Kelly Small Press Collection led to the discovery of a unique bookplate connecting Eragny Press to the story of a singular woman. Lucien Pissarro (1863–1944), son of the French impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, founded Eragny Press. Lucien and his wife, Esther, lived in England but named the press for the Normandy town that was home to the Pissarro family, Eragny-sur-Epte. There was a listing in Adelphi University’s catalog for La Légende de Saint Julien l’Hospitalier by Gustave Flaubert, published in 1900 by Hacon & Ricketts and printed at the Eragny Press in London. According to the book’s colophon, “The frontispiece was designed and engraved on wood by Lucien Pissarro. The borders and decorated letters were designed by Lucien Pissarro and","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"46 1","pages":"442 - 445"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0022","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66806907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Literature of American Library History, 2008–2009","authors":"E. Goedeken","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0021","url":null,"abstract":"Historians of American libraries and librarianship might hesitate to consult the wisdom of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as a guide for conducting research. However, the aforementioned quote does provide a useful context for this essay because historical investigations must go beyond what we already know. Research has to delve into the past to recapture the “unknown unknowns” that await our curious probing of dusty documents and forgotten files and help us make better sense of all that has gone before and serves as prologue for the present. This examination seeks to identify, summarize, and emphasize, where appropriate, those writings that appeared during 2008 and 2009 to assist us all in better understanding our shared library past.","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"6 1","pages":"412 - 441"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0021","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66806891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Not Gone with the Wind: Libraries in Oklahoma in the 1930s","authors":"T. Finchum, Allen Finchum","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0015","url":null,"abstract":"Oklahoma in the 1930s dealt with severe depression and drought, both of which affected the development of the state's public libraries. While the libraries experienced growth at the beginning of the century, helped along by the contributions of women's clubs, the establishment of a state library association and agency, and funding legislation, leaner times appeared in the middle years of the 1930s. Oklahoma's libraries began to rejuvenate by the end of the decade, with an increase in services and facilities, and avoided being \"gone with the wind\" of the Great Depression.","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"46 1","pages":"276 - 294"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0015","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66806708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"Bricks without Straw\": Economic Hardship and Innovation in the Chicago Public Library during the Great Depression","authors":"E. Novotny","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0014","url":null,"abstract":"\"Bricks without straw\" is an expression that means to make do with insufficient resources. It is also an apt description of the challenges facing the Chicago Public Library during the early years of the Depression. The library was forced to limp along with a fraction of its normal funding. This article explores how the library coped with such difficult financial circumstances and how, in some ways, it ultimately emerged as an innovative, community-oriented institution.","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"46 1","pages":"258 - 275"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66806696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Memorial Day to Memorial Library: The South Chicago Branch Library as Cultural Terrain, 1937-1947","authors":"J. Latham","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0017","url":null,"abstract":"For two decades following the stock market crash of 1929, reformists and radicals battled over the remaking of American culture. The American public library was one venue for the \"cultural front.\" Librarians were among those white-collar workers experiencing explosive growth, and many joined with the CIO unionists to reshape the culture industry. The South Chicago Branch Library, an \"experimental\" interpretation of the traditional practice of library service, provided one arena of struggle in the city of Chicago.","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"46 1","pages":"321 - 342"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0017","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66806780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: The Continuing Depression","authors":"Jr. James V. Carmichael","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0019","url":null,"abstract":"Margaret Herdman's study of the impact of the Depression on public libraries is unflinching and unemotional, whereas R. L. Duffus's study of libraries in ten metropolises gives more of the color of the era, even if it is more anecdotal than statistical.2 Along with Edward Stanford's unparalleled if somewhat dry study of library extension under the WPA, these works comprise the principal contemporary studies, aldiough several other texts not devoted to the Great Depression per se are usually cited in a review of the period.3 First is Louis Round Wilson and Edward A. Wight's review of the eleven Rosenwald Fund countywide library demonstrations in the South, die result of a gift of $500,000 from the renowned Sears, Roebuck and Co. benefactor, Julius Rosenwald. [...] they survived the decade and became thriving concerns only a short time after Wilson and Wight completed their study.n James V. Carmichael's summary of the work of the ALA's regional field agent for the South, Tommie Dora Barker, and Mary Mallory's digest of Mary Utopia Rothrock's TVA experiment both deal with profoundly influential professional women whose careers reached their apogee during the period.10 Indeed, the era is colorful with strong characters and the extraordinary if somewhat quaint lengths to which librarians in the 1930s went to extend and promote their services, among them horse-pack delivery and houseboat libraries, bayou mobiles and store-front libraries.","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"46 1","pages":"251 - 257"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0019","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66806825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Great Depression and Its Impact on an Emerging Research Library: The University of North Carolina Library, 1929-1941","authors":"E. McGrath, L. Jacobson","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2011.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2011.0016","url":null,"abstract":"After World War I, the library of the University of North Carolina developed into a research library serving a modern university. The dedication of a new library building in October 1929 celebrated this transformation, but the stock market crash and the Depression that followed inhibited further growth. State support plummeted, and the library struggled to build collections and provide services. This essay examines the factors that prevented the library from experiencing a more devastating decline: support from foundations and individuals, federal aid, staff initiative, and the utility and symbolic value of the new library building.","PeriodicalId":89436,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & the cultural record","volume":"46 1","pages":"295 - 320"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2011.0016","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66806720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}