Author: United States. Bureau of EducationPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Libraries
Languages : en
Pages : 1252
Book Description
Public Libraries in the United States of America
Author: United States. Bureau of EducationPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Libraries
Languages : en
Pages : 1252
Book Description
Part of Our Lives
Author: Wayne A. WiegandPublisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190248009
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
Challenges conventional thinking and top-down definitions, instead drawing on the library user's perspective to argue that the public library's most important function is providing commonplace reading materials and public space. Challenges a professional ethos about public libraries and their responsibilities to fight censorship and defend intellectual freedom. Demonstrates that the American public library has been (with some notable exceptions) a place that welcomed newcomers, accepted diversity, and constructed community since the end of the 19th century. Shows how stories that cultural authorities have traditionally disparaged- i.e. books that are not "serious"- have often been transformative for public library users.
Public Libraries in the United States of America
Author: United States. Office of EducationPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Libraries
Languages : en
Pages : 1240
Book Description
Public Libraries in the United States of America
Author: United States. Bureau of EducationPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Libraries
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America
Author: Christine PawleyPublisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299293238
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
For well over one hundred years, libraries open to the public have played a crucial part in fostering in Americans the skills and habits of reading and writing, by routinely providing access to standard forms of print: informational genres such as newspapers, pamphlets, textbooks, and other reference books, and literary genres including poetry, plays, and novels. Public libraries continue to have an extraordinary impact; in the early twenty-first century, the American Library Association reports that there are more public library branches than McDonald's restaurants in the United States. Much has been written about libraries from professional and managerial points of view, but less so from the perspectives of those most intimately involved—patrons and librarians. Drawing on circulation records, patron reviews, and other archived materials, Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America underscores the evolving roles that libraries have played in the lives of American readers. Each essay in this collection examines a historical circumstance related to reading in libraries. The essays are organized in sections on methods of researching the history of reading in libraries; immigrants and localities; censorship issues; and the role of libraries in providing access to alternative, nonmainstream publications. The volume shows public libraries as living spaces where individuals and groups with diverse backgrounds, needs, and desires encountered and used a great variety of texts, images, and other media throughout the twentieth century.
Public Libraries in the United States of America
Author: Public Libraries in the United States of America
Author: United States. Office of EducationPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cataloging
Languages : en
Pages : 584
Book Description
Public Libraries in the United States of America Their History, Condition and Management
Author: Stati Uniti d' America : Bureau of educationPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 664
Book Description
Carnegie Libraries Across America
Author: Theodore JonesPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
And with the help of original documents, including letters of petition by schoolteachers, bankers, and civic leaders from across the United States, he provides valuable insights into life in turn-of-the-century American towns and the values and aspirations of their citizens.
Main Street Public Library
Author: Wayne A. WiegandPublisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1609380681
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
The United States has more public libraries than it has McDonald’s restaurants. By any measure, the American public library is a heavily used and ubiquitous institution. Popular thinking identifies the public library as a neutral agency that protects democratic ideals by guarding against censorship as it makes information available to people from all walks of life. Among librarians this idea is known as the “library faith.” But is the American public library as democratic as it appears to be? In Main Street Public Library, eminent library historian Wayne Wiegand studies four emblematic small-town libraries in the Midwest from the late nineteenth century through the federal Library Service Act of 1956, and shows that these institutions served a much different purpose than is so often perceived. Rather than acting as neutral institutions that are vital to democracy, the libraries of Sauk Centre, Minnesota; Osage, Iowa; Rhinelander, Wisconsin; and Lexington, Michigan, were actually mediating community literary values and providing a public space for the construction of social harmony. These libraries, and the librarians who ran them, were often just as susceptible to the political and social pressures of their time as any other public institution. By analyzing the collections of all four libraries and revealing what was being read and why certain acquisitions were passed over, Wiegand challenges both traditional perceptions and professional rhetoric about the role of libraries in our small-town communities. While the American public library has become essential to its local community, it is for reasons significantly different than those articulated by the “library faith.”