Phebe Swan’s Reference by Mail Lending Library

August 15th, 2009

In researching the 1905 meeting of the Wisconsin Library Association in Beloit I came across a reference to the Gleaner's Library operated by Phebe Swan. A brief article in the Wisconsin Library Bulletin for January, 1905 had this to say about Swan's library: "The Gleaner's library at Beloit has proved so invaluable for many a perplexed librarian that a visit to it will be one of the features of the coming meeting of the Wisconsin Library Association. The unique venture has been so successful that Miss Phebe Swan, the proprietor, now has patrons in all parts of the country. She rents magazine articles, newspaper clippings and copies of articles from standard works of reference, on a required subject, to clubwomen, debaters, authors and students for a very small fee." Mame B. Griffin in an April 8, 1911 article for La Follett's Weekly Magazine provides more background on this unusual library. According to Griffin, Swan started out small but her enterprise was so successful that she bought a fourteen room home in Beloit in 1908 to house her growing business. She employed six workers to assist her in organizing and classifying a hundred different magazines. Swan actively marketed her library with ads in magazines and wide distribution of a flyer about the library's services. The image above is a partial scan of a copy of one of the flyer's that is in the collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society. The flyer indicates that articles will cost the requester five cents each along with both outgoing and return postage. This is a remarkable story of success by a woman who had an idea for a business model and made it work. I'm not clear about who the "Gleaners" were or how long the library lasted. It's certainly a subject that is worthy of further study. I also posted this article on the Wisconsin Library Heritage Center website.

More about Phebe Swan

Further digging around in Google has resulted in more information about Phebe Swan. The Semi-Centennial History of the Illinois State Normal University, 1857-1907 which was published in 1907 has the best information. She was a member of the class of 1881 at ISNU, now Illinois State University. She is listed as Lizzie Phebe Swan and her occupation is given as Librarian and Proprietor of a Reference Library in Beloit, Wisconsin. According to the ISNU history, she was an assistant (library ?) at ISNU from 1886 to 1892. She was a student of the Library Department of Armour Institute (predecessor of the University of Illinois Library School), 1893-94 and worked as a librarian at the University of Wisconsin from 1894 to 1902. She became Librarian of the Gleaners' Library in Beloit in 1902, a library which she founded. Handbooks of the American Library Association list her as member number 1,507. She evidently became a life member of the National Education Association in 1897.

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August 14th, 2009

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USF Book Club: Harvest for Hope

August 13th, 2009

In conjunction with USF’s Summer Reading Program, the book club will discuss Jane Goodall’s Harvest for Hope on Tuesday September 15, 2009 from 12 – 1 pm in the Community Garden. The Community Garden is located on the side of Lone Mountain, next to the School of Education parking lot.

How do I get a copy?

All of Gleeson Library’s copies are checked out, but you can request the book through Link+ by clicking here, or you can purchase it at the USF Book Store for 25% off.

All members of the USF Community are welcome at the book club. We hope to see you there!

h4h

Publisher’s Weekly says, “Goodall, best known for her decades of work with chimpanzees and baboons, turns to the social significance of the food people eat and of how it reaches our tables. In a style that’s both persuasive and Pollyannaish, her guide glides through a quick history of early agriculture, despairs of “death by monoculture” (single-crop farming), warns of the hazards of genetically modified foods and of the disappearance of seed diversity, and bemoans the existence of inhumane animal factories and unclean fish farms-the macro concerns of the environmentally conscious. On a more micro level, she focuses on what individuals can do for themselves. In a grab bag of well-intentioned bromides, Goodall counsels her readers to become vegetarians, celebrates restaurants and grocery stores that seek out locally grown produce, frets about the quality of school lunches and the pervasiveness of fast food-fueled obesity, honors small farmers and warns of a looming water crisis. Most chapters conclude with “what you can do” sections: demand that modified foods be labeled; turn off the tap while brushing your teeth. This book about making healthy choices breaks no new ground, but its jargon-free and anecdote-rich approach makes it a useful primer for grassroots activists, while the Goodall imprimatur could broaden its reach.”

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designing a syllabus (step 4 of 9) – readings

August 12th, 2009

creating a good course reading list is the most difficult, most time-consuming, and most arduous part of designing a syllabus. it is also, i think, the most important.

good readings engage and inspire students and professors. good readings encourage students and professors to attend class and participate in class discussions. good readings make students and professors curious. good readings make students and professors want to learn more.

naturally there's not a single way to put together a set of course readings but here's a few tips that have helped me along the way.

1. collect and compile potential readings all year round. face it: most syllabi are created the weekend before classes begin. instead of designing your reading list under duress, do it all year around. the next time you read something that relates to a course you teach or want to teach, place the reading in a folder devoted to your course. for online readings, consider opening a delicious account and start a tag for each class. for example, throughout the year, when i come across a relevant reading for my digital media production class, i save it to delicious and tag it "dmp." when i'm ready to put together my syllabus i have a year's worth of relevant readings to chose from.

2. use year-end evaluations to get student feedback - positive and negative - about readings. at my university, professors are allowed, if not encouraged, to add their own questions to the more standard evaluation forms. each semester, i ask my students: "which reading or readings was your favorite?" and "which reading or readings was your least favorite?" each semester, nearly without fail, one or two readings are mentioned by the majority of students as their favorites and least favorites. favorite readings are nearly always included in the next version of the class while least favorite readings are often (yet not always) ditched.

3. assign different kinds of readings. if so few of us read academic journal articles, why do we inflict them upon our students? although i do not oppose including an academic article or two in my syllabi, i'm certainly not going to overwhelm my students with articles designed for a small - and shrinking - audience. instead, my landscape for potential readings includes popular books, popular magazines, and (once) popular newspapers.

4. assign different formats of readings. i love words on printed pages but i'm aware that good readings come in many forms. in my courses, "readings" come from printed media like books, journals, magazines, and newspapers, but also come from radio, film, television, and - increasingly and especially - the internet. i routinely assign brief and not-so-brief ted talks to my students and find that they engage in the video's ideas as smartly, if not more smartly, as they would have with a print-source.

5. look for and select free readings when possible. many of us have been talking about a time when all the readings we want to assign would be online, accessible for free. for many fields, especially my own field of media studies, that time is now. last year's version of digital media production was comprised entirely of free, online readings. it worked.

6. finally, please don't assign the same readings over and over and over again. when we assign the same readings each semester, we get lazy. we get bored - and boring. when we're bored, our students are bored. and when everyone's bored, no one learns.

the best advice i received on this matter was from jeff paris, a popular professor of philosophy at USF. at a teaching workshop conducted for new faculty in 2006, jeff suggested - i'm paraphrasing - that we never teach the same class. once we feel comfortable with a class, jeff said, once we know what it's about and what to assign, kill it. ditch it. or give it away.

and begin designing a new one.

once you have your reading list, add it to your syllabus, save the document, shut down your computer, and celebrate your progress.

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Log Cabin Library Update

August 12th, 2009

I wrote an entry earlier this month about Wisconsin's log cabin libraries. Rrecently I became aware of the 100th anniversary of the George C. Thomas Memorial Library building in Fairbanks, Alaska which is also a log building. This building housed the Fairbanks Public Library until it moved into a new building in 1977. It is on the National Register of Historical Places and was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1978. It received this designation primarily because the building was the location of a meeting between Athabascan leaders from the lower Tanana River and federal officials on July 5 and 6, 1915 in regard to the threats from a growing white population. According to Tom Alton of the News-Miner newspaper, it was the first discussion of tribal land issues ever held in Interior Alaska. In a Google search, I also discovered that there is a log cabin library in Puxico, MO which houses the Puxico Public Library. The Puxico building is also on the National Register of Historic Places. There is also a library in Chester, CA which is located in log building, although this building is not historic. I would be interested in learning if there are other log cabin libraries. The postcard above is a Real Photograph Postcard (RPPC) of the Wabeno Public Library in Wisconsin.