Louis Round Wilson, Library Educator

December 28th, 2011 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
Although he was affiliated directly with only two American library institutions, Louis Round Wilson (1876-1979) had a significant impact on the entire library world. Today is the 135th anniversary of his birth. Wilson became Librarian of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1901 at the age of 25. While at UNC he founded their library school in 1931. His contribution at UNC was significant enough to have the library building at UNC which he helped build named for him. In 1932 he joined the library school at the University of Chicago as Dean. He retired from the University of Chicago in 1942, but returned to the University of North Carolina where he engaged in a variety of post-retirement activities for another 30 years. He died in December, 1979, just days shy of his 103rd birthday. Along the way, he helped found the North Carolina Library Association in which he served as President in 1909, 1920-21, and 1929-30. He was also active in the American Library Association and served as its President in 1935-36. Maurice F. Tauber is author of a biography about Wilson titled Louis Round Wilson, Librarian and Administrator (Columbia Univ. Press, 1967). In his biography Tauber referred to Wilson as the dean of American university librarianship, but indicated that he was concerned with librarianship in all types of institutions. He quoted Robert Burton House who said Wilson was "one of the most constructive persons of his generation in the entire university world."

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Library of Congress Ornament

December 25th, 2011 by Larry T. Nix No comments »








For those who put up and decorate Christmas trees, there are tens of thousands of ornaments to choose from. Libraries on occasion arrange for an ornament to commemorate a special occasion. The one highlighted in this post is from the Library of Congress and it incorporates some of the copper from the original 1897 roof of what is now the Thomas Jefferson Building. A nice keepsake even if you don't put it on a tree. Happy holidays!

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William Frederick Poole, Great American Librarian

December 25th, 2011 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
There are few American librarians with a more stellar resume than William Frederick Poole (1821-1894), and today is the 190th anniversary of his birth. His professional library career spanned 47 years. He was the head librarian for the Boston Mercantile Library, the Boston Athenaeum, the Cincinnati Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, and the Newberry Library in Chicago. He was recognized for his innovative index to periodicals at the 1853 conference of American librarians, and in 1876 at the library conference in Philadelphia he proposed a plan for making a new edition of that important index even more comprehensive. An active member of ALA, Poole served for ten years as the first Vice-President of ALA and then two terms as President. There is an excellent entry about Poole by William Landram Williamson in the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Libraries Unlimited, 1978). Williamson had this to say about Poole: "An imaginative thinker and inspiring leader, William Frederick Poole was one of the great founding librarians of the United States. To his contemporary librarians, one of his outstanding achievements was his contribution in making librarianship a recognized and respected profession. He could make this contribution because he was a man of strength, scholarship, warmth, and dedication." One of the more interesting artifacts in my collection related to Poole is an 1854 membership payment receipt for the Mercantile Library Association of Boston signed by Poole (shown above). I wrote a previous post about another Poole artifact in my collection.

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Library Hours – Spring 2012

December 22nd, 2011 by Colette Hayes No comments »

Gleeson Library/Geschke Learning Resource Center’s
Hours for Christmas Break, Intersession, and Spring Semester 2012
are now posted on the library’s website here:

http://www.usfca.edu/Library/Hours/

Merry Christmas, and we’ll see you in the New Year!!

Photo by Shawn Calhoun

This year, Gleeson Library’s “Book” Christmas Tree reached 9ft 9in tall. We used close to 700 National Union Catalog books to build the tree, and estimate that this royal tannenbaum weighs over 3000 pounds. We decorated the tree with apples, popcorn (which we strung ourselves), cinnamon sticks, candy canes,
and old card catalog cards.


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Holiday Letter From A Library History Buff

December 21st, 2011 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
Dan Lester (left) and Larry Nix, The Library History Buff
Holiday letters often receive a bad rap. My wife and I have sent one out for many years and are happy to receive them from others. They sure beat a holiday card with a written or printed signature and nothing else. So here's a holiday letter with some of my library history highlights.

Season's greetings from Middleton, Wisconsin


One of the highlights of my year was a visit with Dan Lester one of the world's great librariana collectors. My wife and I stopped for a visit with Dan on a trip to the Southwest in the Spring. Dan has donated most of his extensive librariana collection for the benefit of two library organizations, but still has one of the largest library postcard collections ever assembled.


A modified version of the philatelic exhibit on the Library of Congress which I showed for the first time last year received a number of awards this year: 4 gold medals, 1 vermeil medal, the American Philatelic Society's Research Award, and the Display Champion Award at the St. Louis Stamp Show. My Presidential Libraries & Museums exhibit received a silver medal and my Library Uses of Melvil Dewey's Postal Card received a silver medal. I made a presentation on my exhibit to the Washington (D.C.) Stamp Collectors Club in conjunction with NAPEX, the D.C. area stamp show in June.


The Wisconsin State Law Library celebrated its 175th anniversary. I was pleased to help out with a presentation on early Wisconsin library leaders and a small exhibit of Wisconsin library memorabilia. My presentation (and that of the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court) was videotaped by the Wisconsin version of C-Span.


Congratulations to the Wisconsin Library Association on its 120th anniversary. I'm Chair of the Steering Committee for the Wisconsin Library Heritage Center. The Center sponsors the Wisconsin Library Hall of Fame and we inducted our fourth group of library leaders into the Hall of Fame in November at the WLA's annual conference in Milwaukee.


The Wisconsin Library Memorabilia Exhibit which I curate for the Wisconsin Library Heritage Center was on display at the Hales Corners Public Library to help them celebrate their 35th anniversary and at the T. B. Scott Free Library in Merrill, WI to help them celebrate the 100th anniversary of their Carnegie building.


I put together an online exhibit in honor of the 135th anniversary of the American Library Association.


Melvil Dewey was among many former library leaders with significant anniversaries this year. I have an online exhibit of some of my Dewey librariana to commemorate this occasion.


I served as one of the judges for the 2011 Salem Press Library Blog Awards. I was selected for this task because of the 2nd place finish of The Library History Buff Blog in the Quirky Library Blogs category in the 2010 selections.


The Library History Buff Blog celebrated two milestones this year - its third anniversary and the 400th post to the blog.


I continue to maintain the Library History Buff website although it receives less of my attention new than in the past due to my focus on the blog.


This year was the 60th anniversary of the dedication of the Dag Hammarskjold Library of the United Nations in New York.


Congratulations to the Society of American Archivists on their 75th anniversary. I really like their trading cards project.

The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped celebrated its 80th anniversary this year.


This is the centennial year of the New York Public Library's iconic building at 5th Ave. & 42nd St.. I put together an online exhibit of stamps depicting the building for this occasion.


The Carnegie Corporation of New York celebrated its centennial this year.


I'm looking forward to 2012 and the library history celebration opportunities it holds.

Happy holidays to all!

The Library History Buff

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