USF Book Club: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

March 10, 2010 No comments »

Hello everyone!

The members of the book club today acknowledged our trend of picking depressing/topically traumatic books recently, so we’re going with an uplifting page turner for April.

We think The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows will do the trick. We’re meeting on April 14, 2010 (Wednesday) from 12 noon – 1 pm in room 209 of Gleeson Library (the Seminar Room) to discuss it. Please join us! Bring your lunch and your buddies.

How to get the book:

Request it through the library’s free service Link+! Link+ (pronounced “Link Plus”) is a consortium of libraries that have agreed to freely lend books to one another via a private courier service. Books usually arrive at Gleeson in about 4 business days. You’ll get an email when your book is ready.

“The letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton (nom de plume Izzy Bickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. When Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet’s name in a used book and invites articulate —and not-so-articulate— neighbors to write Juliet with their stories, the book’s epistolary circle widens, putting Juliet back in the path of war stories…”
-Publisher’s Weekly

Did you know the book club has a wiki? Visit us at http://bookclub.wiki.usfca.edu/. To get on the book club mailing list, email kbaughmanmcdowell [at] usfca [dot] com. Thanks!


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Pass it On: America’s Library Heritage

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I was delighted to learn that the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) of the American Library Association (ALA) is sponsoring the first Preservation Week May 9-15, 2010. That response might be expected from someone who has a website and blog that promotes "the appreciation, enjoyment, and preservation of our library heritage". Preservation of library collections is a worthy goal that is commonly accepted throughout the library community. So it is an ongoing source of personal frustration that the library community appears to have so little regard for the preservation of its own heritage. The theme for the ALCTS Preservation Week is "Pass it On". It is a great theme and can also be considered a plea from library history buffs and library historians everywhere to do your part in passing on your library's history and our collective library heritage. At the bottom of the Preservation Week website is a list of partners and sponsors that include the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), ALA, and the Library of Congress. These three library organizations are the ideal organizations to provide a leadership role in preserving our library heritage. Indeed, IMLS with its Connecting to Collections project has provided one model for how this could be done. The Wisconsin Library Heritage Center is providing a state level model for promoting and preserving our library heritage. Our library heritage consists of archives, artifacts, architecture, and the memory of those librarians and library supporters who have handed down the legacy that is today's American library community. There are lots of ideas on the Preservation Week website that can be used to highlight and promote your library's heritage. Why not undertake some of them this year.

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Happy Birthday Arthur Bostwick

March 8, 2010 No comments »
It is not often that someone with a Ph.D. in Physics from Yale University becomes a public librarian, but that was the case with Arthur E. Bostwick (1860-1942). Bostwick was born on this date (March 8) in 1860 making this the 150th anniversary of his birth. Bostwick's career as a public librarian is described by library historian Donald G. Davis, Jr. in the Dictionary of American Library Biography. After a stint as a high school teacher and as an editor he became chief librarian of the New York Free Circulating Library in 1895. The New York Free Circulating Library was merged with the newly created New York Public Library in the same year. After supervising branch libraries for the New York Public Library, Bostwick served as director of the Brooklyn Public Library from 1899 to 1901. He returned to the New York Public Library in 1901 in the capacity of Chief of the Circulating Department, a post he held when the postal card above was mailed on December 3, 1902. By 1909 Bostwick was overseeing the largest circulating library in the world. In 1909 he became director of the St. Louis Public Library, a post he held for the remainder of his career. Active in the American Library Association, he served as its president in 1907-1908. Bostwick went to China in 1925 as a representative of the American Library Association. His contribution to library development in China as a result of that visit was documented by Priscilla C. Yu and Donald G. Davis, Jr. in a 1998 article for Libraries and Culture. Bostwick was the author of a number of books including The American Public Library which was published in four editions. A photograph which includes Bostwick can be found here in the digital collections of the American Library Association Archives.

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Charles Martel’s Classification System

March 5, 2010 No comments »

Charles Martel (1860-1945) was the architect of the Library of Congress Classification System. He was born on March 5, 1860 making today the 150th anniversary of his birth. Martel began his career at the Library of Congress on December 1, 1897 shortly after the opening of the magnificent new building now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building. Martel worked under J. C. M. Hanson, head of the newly created Catalog Division of LC. The sequence of events leading to the creation of the Library of Congress Classification System is well documented in the Martel entry in the Dictionary of American Library Biography which was written by James Bennett Childs and John Y. Cole. Herbert Putnam was appointed Librarian of Congress in 1901. There was little doubt at that time that the classification system used by LC was inadequate, but Putnam felt that it was desirable to use an existing classification system as its replacement. Melvil Dewey was approached about expanding his decimal system but he was not interested in adapting it for a large library like the Library of Congress. Martel and Hanson convinced Putnam that a new classification system was needed. The system they developed was influenced to a certain extent by the classification system of Charles Ammi Cutter. The LC Classification System is widely used by college and university libraries. Martel later served as chief of LC's Catalog Division and assisted the Vatican in developing its cataloging code. He died on May 1, 1945.

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The Roosevelt Bears at the Boston Public Library

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Seymour Eaton was the founder of the early 19th century Booklovers Library and the Tabard Inn Library. He was also the author of numerous books including The Roosevelt Bears: Their Travels and Adventures, the inspiration for the "teddy bear". I've collected a number of artifacts relating to his two libraries, but recently I came across this postcard which is based on an illustration in The Roosevelt Bears: Their Travels and Adventures. The illustration is by V. Floyd Campbell and it features the two bears sitting in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library. The caption under the illustration reads: "They took the books and down they sat, To read Emerson and the Aristocrat." The postcard was mailed on September 6, 1908 from Boston to Maine.

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