January 4th, 2012 by Larry T. Nix
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Each year I peruse the Dictionary of American Library Biography and its two supplements to identify significant birth anniversaries of former library leaders. In some cases I already know of the library leader, but in others I am introduced to someone I have no previous knowledge of. Such is the case with Edmon Horton Low (1902-1983) who was born 110 years ago today. The entry for Low in the Supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Libraries Unlimited, 1990) was written by David Kaser. Kaser begins the entry with the sentence: "Edmon Horton Low, known as the library profession's finest lobbyist, was born in Kiowa Indian Territory, on January 4, 1902." That sentence immediately caught my interest because of a career long interest in library legislation. The largest portion of Low's professional career was spent as Director of the Oklahoma State University Library. One of Low's accomplishment's at OSU was the construction of a new library building (shown above) which was later named for him. Low also had a long association with the University of Michigan Library School where he taught for many years during summer sessions and after retirement at OSU on a full time basis. But back to Low's library legislative contributions. Low served on the Legislative Committee of the American Library Association from 1958 to 1962 and from 1964 to 1969 and was chair of the committee in 1967-1968. According to Kaser, "Low testified before congressional committees more frequently than any other librarian had ever done" and that "His masterful testimony is scattered throughout many committee prints and hearings on the National Defense Education Act, the Library Services Act, the Higher Education Act, and other bills in Congress ...". While many librarians shun the political process, there are those who embrace it and thrive in it, and Low was one of those who embraced it. The library community owes those individuals a huge debt of gratitude. On a personal note, I was able to attend college because of a loan through the National Defense Education Act. Thanks Edmon.
January 4th, 2012 by Larry T. Nix
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| James Bertram's signature of approval on Reedsburg plans. |
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| Postcard of Carnegie library building in Reedsburg, WI |
My wife and I drove up to Reedsburg, WI today to install an exhibit of Wisconsin Carnegie library memorabilia at the Reedsburg Public Library. It will remain there for the month of January. The exhibit is very appropriate since Reedsburg's Carnegie library building was dedicated 100 years ago this month. Although the public library now occupies a new building located across the street from the Carnegie building, the Carnegie is still used to house the library's archival collection. I was delighted to find that the library has preserved and framed the original plans for the Carnegie building which were approved by James Bertram of the Carnegie Corporation on March 11, 1911. Bertram who was Carnegie's personal secretary played an extremely important role in the Carnegie library grant program. Beginning in 1908 Bertram personally approved all plans for buildings built with the help of a Carnegie grant. It's great when a library has preserved such an important historic artifact.
January 1st, 2012 by Larry T. Nix
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I'm also a blogger for the Philatelic Literature & Research blog. I published the post below on that blog earlier today. Today is the 125th anniversary of the birth of John Boynton Kaiser (1887-1973), a librarian and a philatelist. Kaiser is one of many librarians who collect or have collected postage stamps. He was, however, one of the first to collect postage stamps which depict libraries and librarians. Kaiser had a successful career as a librarian which included serving as administrator of the Tacoma (WA) Public Library, the University of Iowa Libraries and Library School, and the Newark (NJ) Public Library. He served as librarian at Camp Knox, Kentucky during World War I. He was also a serious philatelist and received the Walter McCoy Award for Excellence in Philatelic Writing from the American Philatelic Congress in 1953. The award was for his article Bibliography: The Basis for Philatelic Research which was published in the 1953 Congress Book (note: this article was also reprinted as a separate publication by the Philatelic Library Association in 1953). In the July, 1955 issue of Library Journal, Kaiser wrote an article titled "Librarianship and Philately" in which he introduced the library community to the collecting of postage stamps related to libraries and librarians that has since been called "bibliophilately". Kaiser's article in the Library Journal also makes note of many "parallelisms" between librarianship and stamp collecting. As a bibliophilatelist myself, I appreciate Kaiser's early efforts to identify postage stamps related to libraries. A much broader approach to bibliophilately was written about by Leona Rostenberg in a series of articles in 1977 for the American Philatelist. Those articles were later published as a book titled Bibliately in 1978 by the American Philatelic Society (search for "Bibliately" in the APRL online union catalog to find philatelic libraries with this book). I discovered bibliophilately via a 1982 article by George Eberhart titled "Biblio-philately" in the magazine American Libraries. I have established a webpage on "Bibliophilately Resources" for those who would like to explore this topic further.
December 30th, 2011 by Larry T. Nix
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I took advantage of the opportunity to acquire a bookmark for the Dyckman Free Library in Sleepy Eye, MN recently primarily because I already had in my collection of librariana a souvenir china piece and a postcard for the library. I mostly collect library souvenir items for Wisconsin libraries, but a friend had picked up the small china basket which had an illustration of the Sleepy Eye library in an antique store and gave it to me as a gift. I added the postcard from a local postcard show. The bookmark illustration celebrates the 1972 centennial of the City of Sleepy Eye, MN which is named for Chief Sleepy Eye, a Dakota Sioux chief. The Dyckman Free Library is named for F. H. Dyckman, a local banker, who donated the library building to the city in 1900. The greatly expanded Dyckman Free Library incorporates the original building into its design.
