October is Archives Month

Archives are the life-blood of historians. If the stories of libraries are to be told in the future it is imperative that the archives of li...

Mary Eileen Ahern (1860-1938), Public Libraries Editor

Mary Eileen Ahern was born on October 1, 1860, one hundred and fifty years ago today, near Indianapolis, Indiana. So happy birthday Mary Eil...

A Tale of Two LC Envelopes During WWII

I've had the first envelope shown above in my collection for a number of years. It is an "Official Business" penalty cover for...

Make Mine a Small One

The heading for this post is taken from a publication of the same name by Lawrence Clark Powell and provides a good introduction to a discus...

Carnegie's Vanity Fair Cover

I purchased the above illustration of Andrew Carnegie which was on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1903 at the Library History Round Table aucti...

Wayne Wiegand's Library Trading Card

After Wayne Wiegand completed his presentation at the recent Library History Seminar XII in Madison, WI, he was presented with his own libr...

Hannah Packard James (1835-1903)

Happy 175th birthday on September 5 to early public library administrator Hannah Packard James. As noted in previous blogs I peruse the Dict...