USA Library History

American Library History On the Web

Here are some sites I've come across in my pursuit of library history. No claim is made at being comprehensive.  Suggest additions by contacting me at nix@libraryhistorybuff.org.

The Boston Athenaeum is celebrating its bicentennial in 2007
http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/baevents.html

General History Sites (non-library)

Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Compiled by Mark Rothenberg, Patchogue-Medford Library/Suffolk Cooperative Library System
http://pml.suffolk.lib.ny.us/Benjamin%20Franklin%20Tercentenary.htm

Library of Congress - American Memory Digital Collection
http://memory.loc.gov/amhome.html

Making of America (MOA) Digital Library of Primary Sources
http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)
http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/nucmc.html

New Deal Network (Search for "library")
http://newdeal.feri.org/index.htm

American Historic Documents (Compiled by WI State Law Library)
http://wsll.state.wi.us/lawhistory.html

Repositories of Primary Sources (Compiled by Terry Abraham)
http://www.uidaho.edu/special-collections/Other.Repositories.html

Internet Resources for American History
University of New Brunswick Library
http://www.unbsj.ca/library/subject/history3.htm#top

Best of History Web Sites
http://www.besthistorysites.net/

New York State History Sampler
Compiled by Mark Rothenberg, Patchogue-Medford Library/Suffolk Cooperative Library System
http://pml.suffolk.lib.ny.us/new_york_state_history_month.htm

General Library History Sites (In no particular order)

Library History Round Table of the American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/lhrt/lhrthome.htm

Archives of the American Library Association
http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/ala/default.asp

Libraries & the Cultural Record (Journal) Home
http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~landc/

Libraries & the Cultural Record (Journal) Bookplate Archive
http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~landc/bookplateindex.htm

The Davies Project at Princeton University
Database of American Libraries before 1876
http://www.princeton.edu/~davpro/

eBooks: US History: Libraries in the 19th Century
(Books from the Making of America digital project)
http://www.digitalbookindex.com/_search/search010histuslibraries19a.asp

The Academic Library in the American University
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/UWLDR.AcadLib

Links to Carnegie Library Sites (compiled by the Library History Buff)
http://www.libraryhistorybuff.org/carnegie-libraries.htm

200 Years of Young Adult Library Services
http://www.voya.com/whatsinvoya/web_only_articles/Chronology_200506.shtml

School Libraries - History
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/libhistory.htm

Membership Libraries
http://www.redwoodlibrary.org/memlib.htm

Presidential Libraries
http://www.archives.gov/presidential_libraries/index.html

Milestones of Academic Library History
Lengthy URL

Timeline in Library Development for African Americans
Lengthy URL

A Chronology of Events in Black Librarianship
http://www.nathanielturner.com/blacklibrarians.htm

American Federal Libraries/Information Centers Chronology
http://www.loc.gov/flicc/bicen/chron2.pdf

Army Libraries Through the Years
http://www.army.mil/CMH-pg/photos/Libraries/libraries.htm

History of Army Libraries
http://www.armymwr.org/home/Show_file.asp?fileID=604

Reader services in libraries : a day in honor of Margaret E. Monroe
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/History.BollReader

Sixty Years of the Association of Research Libraries
http://www.arl.org/arl/plus.ca.html

Confessions of a Library Historian (Haynes McMullen)
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/VALib/v48_n3/mcmullen.html

Biographies of American Library People
http://www.libraryhistorybuff.org/librarybiographies-us.htm

Web Sites of Library Historians and History Buffs
http://www.libraryhistorybuff.org/libraryhistorians-links.htm

The American Library Association and Access to Libraries and Information
(Paper by Kathleen de la Peña McCook for ALA)
Rocks in the Whirlpool

Books Go to War: The Armed Services Editions in World War Two
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/ase/

McCarthyism and Libraries (Stephen Francoeur thesis)
http://francoeur.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

Brief History of Library Instruction In the United States (Michael Lorenzen)
http://www.libraryinstruction.com/lihistory.html

Federal Library Depository Program
http://www.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/history/index.html

Library History by State

[Note:  Ideally, every library that maintains a Web site should have at least a brief history of the library on that site.  That is far from the case.  Even some very large libraries do not have the history of their library on their Web site. The examples below provide a variety of models for doing this. I have developed a more comprehensive list of sites for Wisconsin library history. I encourage other states to develop a similar list.]

Alabama

Alabama Libraries Prior To World War I: A Chronology in Progress
http://www.anes.uab.edu/alachron.htm

Fairhope Public Library
http://www.fairhopelibrary.org/history.htm

California

Bancroft Library, Univ. of California - Berkeley
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/bancroft/
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info/lectures.html#library

Carnegie Libraries of California
http://www.carnegie-libraries.org/

Mechanics' Institute Library, San Francisco
http://www.milibrary.org/hist.html

San Francisco Public Library
http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/news/125/timeline.htm
http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/news/125/scrapbook/intro.htm

Connecticut

Connecticut State Library (takes forever to load but nice images)
http://www.cslib.org/cslpre1909.htm

Delaware

Delaware Public Libraries Centennial Brochure
http://www.state.lib.de.us/Administration/Centennial/

District of Columbia

Library of Congress (History of LOC by John W. Cole )
http://www.loc.gov/loc/legacy/

Florida

Jacksonville Public Library
http://jpl.coj.net/library/jplhistory.html

Georgia

Georgia Library History Project
http://www.georgialibraryhistoryproject.org/

Hawaii

Hawaii State Library
http://www.hawaii.gov/hidocs/hslhistory.html

Idaho

Idaho State Library
http://www.lili.org/isl/history.htm

Illinois

Chicago Public Library, Chicago, Illinois
http://cpl.lib.uic.edu/003cpl/cplhist.html

Galena Public Library
http://www.galenahistorymuseum.org/publiclibraryhistory.htm

Highland Park Public Library
http://www.hplibrary.org/library/history.html

The Illinois State Library
http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/1999/il9903131.html

Milner Library, Illinois State University
http://www.library.ilstu.edu/page/1073

Kansas

Carnegie Library Legacy in Kansas
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/carnegie/intro.html

Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library
http://www.tscpl.org/Information/history/index.asp

Maryland

Enoch Pratt Free Library
http://www.epfl.net/info/history/

Massachusetts

Boston Athenaeum
http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/home.html

Boston Public Library
http://www.bpl.org/guides/history.htm

Report of the Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston 1852
http://www.scls.lib.wi.us/mcm/history/report_of_trustees.html

Andover-Harvard Theological Library (Harvard University)
http://www.hds.harvard.edu/library/about/history/

Mount Holyoke College Library
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/library/about/libabout.html

New Hampshire

New Hampshire State Library
http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/nhslhistory.html

North Carolina

Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County
http://www.plcmc.org/aboutUs/history.htm

Rowan Public Library (Salisbury, NC)
http://www.lib.co.rowan.nc.us/amain/history.html

Ohio

Carnegie Public Library of East Liverpool, Ohio
http://www.carnegie.lib.oh.us/history.htm

Cuyahoga County Public Library
http://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/aboutlibrary/history/HISTORY.htm

Oklahoma

Oklahoma Public Libraries
http://199.164.253.25/centennial/time.html

Dallas Public Library
http://dallaslibrary.org/100/100home.htm

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