HISTORY45 - Libraries

Libraries have always played a big part in my life.  Pat was a law librarian.  My youngest son, Steven, is a library administrator, and his wife Lynne just retired as a children’s librarian.  I read at least two books per week for pleasure - most from the local library.  In the last 18 years, I’ve written newspaper columns, books, and for the last three years, a blog - this being my 59^th posting.  In other words, for a long time, I have used libraries for reading pleasure and research - and I really appreciate their value.

 

So, as often happens in my quest to write about subjects I want to learn more about, I decided to research and write about the history of libraries.  After a brief introduction, I’ll cover the Ancient World, Classical Antiquity, the Islamic World, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, the evolution to modern libraries, a summary of United States library history, and end with a discussion of the changing role of libraries.

I will focus on library history of the Western World.

My principal sources include “The History of Libraries,” britannica.com; “The History of Libraries;” princh.com; “A Brief History of Libraries,” citethisforme.com; and numerous other online sources.

Libraries are collections of books, manuscripts, journals, and other sources of recorded information - or the building or room in which such a collection is kept.  The word derives from the Latin liber, “book,” whereas a Latinized Greek word, bibliotheca, is the origin of the word for library in German, Russian, and the Romance languages.

From their historical beginnings as places to keep the business, legal, historical, and religious records of a civilization, libraries have emerged since the middle of the 20^th century as a far-reaching body of information resources and services that do not even require a building.  Rapid developments in computers, telecommunications, and other technologies have made it possible to store and retrieve information in many different forms and from any place with a computer and an internet connection.  The terms digital library and virtual library have begun to be used to refer to the vast collections of information to which people gain access over the Internet, cable television, or some other type of remote electronic connection.

The Ancient World

The first libraries appeared five thousand years ago in the Near East’s Fertile Crescent, an area that ran from Mesopotamia to the Nile in Africa.  Known as the cradle of civilization, the Fertile Crescent was the birthplace of writing, sometime before 3000 BC.  Libraries can be said to have existed for almost as long as records have been kept.

 

The first libraries emerged in the Ancient Near East, 2600-600 BC.

Records of commercial transactions or inventories, some dating back to 2600 BC, were found on clay tablets in temple rooms in Sumer, the earliest known civilization in southern Mesopotamia.  About an inch thick, these tablets came in various shapes and sizes.  Mud-like clay was placed in wooden frames, and the surface was smoothed for writing and allowed to dry until damp. After being inscribed, the clay dried in the sun, or for a harder finish, was baked in a kiln.  For storage, tablets could be stacked on edge, side by side, the contents described by a title written on the edge that faced out and was readily seen.  The tablets were scribed in cuneiform script, the earliest known form of writing, in the form of symbols.

There is also evidence of libraries at the ancient Sumerian city of Nippur from about 1900 BC.

 

Example of ancient clay tablet inscribed with cruciform script, c. 2000 BC.

 

Over 25,000 clay tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal, the last of the great kings of Assyria (reigned 668-c. 627 BC), have been discovered at Nineveh in northern Mesopotamia, providing modern scholars with an amazing wealth of literary, religious, and administrative works to study.   Among the findings were a traditional Babylonian view of creation, a large number of texts dealing with astronomy and weather, as well as standard lists used by scribes and scholars, such as word lists, bilingual vocabularies, lists of signs and synonyms, and lists of medical diagnoses.  The transcripts and texts were systematically collected from temples throughout the kingdom.

The tablets were stored in a variety of containers such as wooden boxes, reed baskets, or clay shelves. The "libraries” were cataloged using a “publisher's” imprint on the spine of a tablet.  These imprints stated the series name, the title of the tablet, and any extra information the scribe needed to indicate the content.  Eventually, the clay tablets were organized by subject and size.

Many collections of records were destroyed in the course of wars or were purposely purged when rulers were replaced or when governments fell.

Classical Antiquity

In the West, the idea of book collecting, and hence of libraries as the word was understood for several centuries, had its origin in Classical Antiquity, the period of cultural history between the 8^th century BC and the 6^th century AD, centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

 

Greek and Roman libraries laid the foundation of today's Western library system.

Greece and Alexandria.  Books started appearing in libraries in the 5^th century BC in Ancient Greece.  Instead of the previously common archives of documents, these books often contained the best-known works of philosophers and poets.  Most of the larger Greek temples possessed libraries; many certainly had archive repositories.  

The first important institutional libraries in Athens arose during the 4^th century BC with the great schools of philosophy.  Their texts were written on perishable materials such as papyrus (plant material) and parchment (animal skin).  The follower of the philosophers Plato and Epicurus developed libraries that had influence over many centuries.  But the most famous collection was that of the philosopher Aristotle, systematically organized by him with the intention of facilitating scientific research.  A full edition of Aristotle’s library was prepared from surviving texts by Andronicus of Rhodes and Tyrannion in Rome about 60 BC.  The texts reached Rome as war booty carried off by Sulla when he sacked Athens in 86 BC.

Aristotle’s library became a large part (mainly by means of copies) of the library established at (then) Greek Alexandria in Egypt in the 3^rd century BC.  Its collections of scrolls are said to have numbered hundreds of thousands.  The library at Alexandria became the greatest in antiquity.  It was open to people with proper scholarly and literary educations.  The librarians, who were leading scholars and who ran this library, developed many bibliographical tools and techniques that we use today, including alphabetical order, punctuation, glossary, and grammar.

Note:  The world’s oldest known papyrus scrolls, some a few feet long and still relatively intact, were discovered in 2013 buried in man-made caves near the Red Sea in Egypt.  Written over 4,500 years ago, with hieroglyphs, the scrolls are papyrus logbooks written by men who participated in the building of the Great Pyramid, the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu, the first and largest of the three colossal pyramids at Giza, just outside modern Cairo.

Pergamum.  In the 2^nd century BC, on the Asia Minor peninsula, a library rivaling that of Alexandria was set up at the ancient Greek city of Pergamum.  Parchment proved to be more durable than papyrus and so marks a significant development in the history of technical advances in the dissemination of knowledge.  The library was bequeathed with the whole of the kingdom of Pergamum to the Roman people in 133 BC.

Rome.  In Rome, private libraries also became widespread thanks to the efforts of the Ancient Greeks.  In the beginning, Roman libraries mainly consisted of Greek books.  In fact, the possession of a private library with precious works was viewed as a status symbol for affluent Romans. 

Lucius Licinius Lucullus, one of the richest men in the Roman world at that time, famous for his luxurious way of life, acquired as part of his war booty an enormous library, which he generously put at the disposal of those who were interested.  His biographer, Plutarch, speaks appreciatively of the quality of his book collection.

Julius Caesar planned a public library, but died in 44 BC before his plans were carried out.  Following Caesar’s wishes, a public library was built in 39 BC by the literary patron Asinius Pollio.  By the time of Roman Empire Augustus’s death in AD 14, Rome had three public libraries.  In the next 300 years, several public institutions were established in the Roman Empire, with the city of Rome alone home to 28 libraries, with one head librarian to oversee the whole system.  This sudden growth is also an effect of the invention of paper around 100 BC in China.

Readers in the Roman Empire had direct access to scrolls, and reading was normally done inside the library building.  In most cases, the libraries were beautifully constructed, consisting of a storage room and a reading area.  In certain libraries, lending was possible too, but that was not common.  Roman libraries became the place where authors released their works to the public, reading them out loud to the audience.  Some of these readings occurred at public places typically visited by aristocrats, such as baths, theaters, or even in the Roman Forum.

 

Depiction of reading scrolls in a Roman library.

The Romans put a lot more emphasis on the libraries’ look, thanks to the hedonist frame of mind of many emperors and aristocrats.  They looked at libraries as a sign of their own wealth, intelligence, glory, culture, and sophistication.

Although most Roman libraries were destroyed in later historical periods, the Ancient Greek and Roman libraries clearly laid the foundation of today’s Western library systems.  The establishment of private and public libraries had a significant impact on the future.  In addition, a lot of the bibliographical tools and techniques that were developed in Classical Antiquity are still used in our modern world.

Constantinople.  In the East, the library tradition was picked up by the Byzantine Empire at Constantinople (formerly Byzantium), after the division of the Roman Empire AD 476.  Scholarly libraries amassed large collections that for a thousand years, were preserved, through generations of teachers, copyists, and editors, including the treasures of the schools and libraries of Athens, Alexandria, and Asia Minor.   The greater part of the Greek classics was faithfully preserved and handed on to the schools and universities of Western Europe, and for this, a debt is owed to the great libraries and the rich private collections of Constantinople.

Note:  From here on in this paper, I’m dropping the anno Domini (AD) notation for dates.

The Islamic World

After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7^th century, his followers transcribed his teachings into the Quran, a papyrus codex that quickly became the sacred scripture of the Muslim religion.  In subsequent decades, as armies of Muhammad’s successors conquered more territory (westward across North Africa, then north to the Iberian Peninsula), they took the religion of Islam and a commitment to literacy with them. 

 

Islamic expansion from 632, spreading libraries to the Western world.

The establishment of libraries of sacred texts -especially in mosques such as al-Aqsa in Jerusalem (c. 634) and the Great Mosque (Umayyad Mosque) of Damascus (c. 721) - was a natural outgrowth of their conquest.  Probably drawing inspiration from the Library of Alexandria, the first caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, Muawiya I, reorganized his personal library in the late 7^th century into a prototype that his successors further improved and expanded.  Caliph al-Walid (reigned 705-715) appointed the first so-identified “curator of books.”  By that time, the Umayyad collection included hundreds of works on astrology, alchemy, medicine, and military science.

In 750, the Abbasids seized large portions of the eastern Umayyad empire (Umayyads retained control of the Iberian Peninsula), and under the leadership of al-Mansur, the second Abbasid caliph, many classical Persian and Greek works were translated into Arabic.  When Muslims shortly thereafter adopted the technique of papermaking learned from Chinese prisoners of war, they significantly increased their capacity to reproduce the written word cheaply and thus directly affected libraries.  By the 10^th century, Baghdad and Córdoba (still controlled by Umayyads) had developed the largest book markets in the world.  Christian monks and scholars were often sent to Córdoba to acquire new works.

Noteworthy libraries of the Islamic world include those at Baghdad (under Harun AR Rashid), Cairo, Alexandria, and also Spain, where there was an elaborate system of public libraries centered on Córdoba, Toledo, and Granada.  Arabic works from these libraries began to reach Western scholars in the 12^th century, about the time that Greek works from Constantinople were filtering through to the West.

The Islamic World brought with it a renaissance in art, science and literature, in which for several centuries, while Europe was in a state of virtual intellectual stagnation, led the Western world.  Islamic forces were finally expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492.

The Middle Ages and the Renaissance

The Middle Ages, from the 5^th to the 15^th century, were characterized by massive migrations of people and deurbanization.  Opposed to the blooming societies of Classical Antiquity, the medieval towns in Europe were rather simple and behind the times.  Violence, diseases, lack of education, and illiteracy were defining features of the period, halting the previous breakthroughs in the fields of architecture, infrastructure, and art.

The decadence of public life also produced a big barrier in the advancement of libraries.  After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476, many libraries were destroyed by wars or natural disasters.  Also, due to the drop in overall life quality, people paid less attention to books and literature in general.  Moreover, the limited communication and commuting between the deurbanized medieval towns also caused a big obstacle in the circulation of books.  Worst of all, most books were written in Greek, Latin, or Arabic - not the languages that common Europeans understood.

Compared to the period of Classical Antiquity, religion became a lot more significant in the Middle Ages. In 380, Roman Emperor Theodosius had issued the Edict of Thessalonica, which made Christianity the official religion of Rome.  Although the Western Roman civilization suffered a massive fall, the Christian religion continued to spread across Europe.  By the 8-10^th centuries, the majority of the leaders in Europe had Christian views.  This obviously had a big impact on the library structure and the theme of books.  The Catholic Church was the “opiate of the masses” - people were told what to believe and how to act.

The Role of Medieval Libraries.  As Christianity became more widespread, monastic communities and monastery libraries started to develop in the early Middle Ages. These were religious institutions that also functioned as learning centers, encouraging monks and nuns to study and pray. The main role of the libraries was to preserve the collected knowledge and to provide it to the people in the monastery.

Monks took an active role in creating and collecting different texts. Monastery libraries mainly consisted of scriptures, philosophical writings, and some secular literature, primarily from ancient poets.  The books were made out of parchment, papyrus, and on rare occasions, even paper, depending on the century and the available material in the region they were written.  The letters in the books were painted with various colors, with red and blue being the most dominant.

Although the monasteries were very protective towards their books, they often would lend books if the borrower provided a deposit.  At the same time, they tried to obtain a big collection of books at all times.  Monasteries often received works from patrons or benefactors, and regularly borrowed books from other institutions to make a hand-copy.  Additionally, the most important manuscripts were usually chained to the shelves, representing the value of these possessions.

 

Drawing of a monastic library in the 15th century, showing a scribe at work.

Advancements in the Renaissance.  The late Middle Ages brought a decline of feudalism, the emergence of nation states, the development of humanism (belief in self-worth and dignity), and progress in the arts and sciences.  Medieval towns were reborn, more libraries were established, and an improvement in general literacy took place.

Between the 11^th-12^th centuries, the first universities were founded throughout Europe.  The libraries of these institutions began to provide a space for studying, and books other than those in the monastery libraries.  They were frequently used, because the books and the knowledge on their pages were extremely valuable and expensive, so it was highly uncommon to obtain a private collection.

With an increasing number of scholars attending these universities, reading became viewed as an intellectual action.  This was the first time when silent reading (only with eyes) became common.  The goal of reading in the period was shifting towards learning and exploring, instead of the previously typical religious aspects.

The structure of books developed as well.  The frame generally became smaller, and due to the increased length, books now were commonly split into chapters.  They also contained a table of contents, and they always had a title, providing key elements for early library catalogs

From the 14^th century, Renaissance movements spread through Europe, which resulted in the further establishment of non-religious libraries.  These institutions functioned as studying and meeting places for scholars who collected and produced written texts on various topics, including philosophy, mathematics, religion, and science.  Although these libraries were independent, they were still not completely open to the public.  It was mainly the wealthy and well-taught aristocracy who had access to the books.  At the same time, the types of people who used the libraries widened - now it was not only scholars, but also courtiers, officials, and the richest of the middle class.  Also, the Renaissance was the first time period since Antiquity when the role of the librarian was reintroduced.

With the rise of the Renaissance (1400-1600), private collections became more general too.  Books, as with late Antiquity, were once again the sign of wealth and glory.  The emperors of the period had huge book collections in their Renaissance royal households. 

When Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440, the spreading of different books became even faster and easier.  Suddenly, there was a capacity to spread not just valuable texts, but entertaining literature as well.  With increased availability and improved literacy, the demand for the books was significantly higher as well.  This resulted in further library openings, and authors and “publishers” producing more works than ever before.

As the religious world view faded in the Renaissance, the poets and writers of the period reached back to the ancient texts and used them as their primary source of inspiration.  They collected, copied, translated, and reimagined the ancient writings, admiring the work of ancient scholars.  Moreover, as the content of the writings in the Renaissance was not regulated so strictly, new genres and themes appeared.  The most significant poets and writers were Petrarch, Boccaccio, and later, also Shakespeare.  And although Leonard da Vinci was not primarily an author, his achievements had a major impact on the advancement of libraries.

Furthermore, the new literates created new genres and bibliographical tools that are still used to this day in our modern world.  As the name of the period suggests, art and libraries were truly reborn during the Renaissance.

 

Drawing of the interior of the library at the University of Leyden in the Netherlands, 1610.

The Age of Enlightenment

Centering in the heart of Europe, the Age of Enlightenment took place in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.  The Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement, spreading rapidly throughout the Western world, but it was so significant, that a whole historical period was characterized by its ideologies.  Overtaking the pomp of the Renaissance and the religious tensions within Western Christianity, the Period of Enlightenment brought new concepts and ideas:  emphasizing liberty, individualism, and advancements in technology, science, and social organization.  Intellectual thinking was peaking in the Age of Enlightenment.

The 17^th and 18^th centuries can also be called the golden age of libraries.  Thanks to the invention of the Gutenberg Printing Press, and the Protestant Reformation in the 16^th century, books written in everyday language started to spread, resulting in literature’s massive popularity gain, not only amongst the wealthiest, but a wider social class.  The previously common shortage of books also ended, because now it was easier to duplicate the writings.  Handwritten books were slowly becoming museum pieces as printed formats were spreading.

Due to this advancement, the price of books dropped, which led to the establishment of several big private collections and city libraries, starting in the late 16^th century.  These collections eventually became the core of today’s national libraries throughout Europe and North America.  The demand for literature took off thanks to the increased availability and translations to everyday languages.  People in general were reading for their actual interest and love for scholarship, not only for ostentation.

The primary role of the libraries in the Enlightenment was to share knowledge with the people.  The large libraries supported education, served as an information center, constantly developed and widened their selection, and protected the cultural heritage of various groups.

In the beginning of the 18^th century, city libraries started to become increasingly public and provided lending possibilities more frequently.  Books now were not chained to shelves or desks, because they did not represent such a high value as in the previous historical periods.  These libraries were still not uniformly open to the public, but access to these institutions widened, which improved both overall public literacy and erudition.

The expansion of the public libraries’ materials selection in 17^th-18^th century Europe was mostly carried out with a budget allocated to this purpose.  Book trading and benefactors giving presents to the libraries became less significant.  The content of the libraries became less selective, and now they stored entertaining literature in great quantities.

Besides the rapid growth of (partially) public libraries, universities began to create great libraries, like the Bodleian Library established in the 17^th century at Oxford University.  In addition to a large central library, there were often smaller, specialized collections in separate colleges and institutes.  Some university libraries today are superior to many national libraries in size and quality.

 

Starting in the 15th century as a private library, and expanded in the 17th century as a university library, English Duke Humphrey's Bodleian Library at Oxford, England was one of the largest libraries in England.

Subscription libraries, part public, part private, enjoyed much popularity from the late 17^th to the 19^thcentury.  Many of them were set up by associations of scholarly professional groups for the benefit of academies, colleges, and institutions, but their membership was also open to the general public.  These organizations allowed entry of individuals outside of the institution, but the people typically had to pay for their visit, because the libraries were primarily sustained for a specific group.

Due to the rapid growth of scholarship, especially in philosophy and history, the 18^th century was also the age of great national libraries, that strove to collect and preserve a nation’s literature, and maintained by national resources.  The first truly national library was founded in 1753 as part of the British Museum; many followed later in the 1700s and 1800s.

Library organizational tools improved in the Enlightenment too, making it easier to structure the libraries and to keep track of the book selection.  The first catalog cards were introduced in the 1700s in France, and this was also the first time when libraries organized books in a standing position, with spines facing outwards.

The concept of a library, systematically arranged, displaying the whole of recorded knowledge, and open to all, took root.

Evolution to Modern Public Libraries

The difficulties of library management grew in the 19^th century.  Libraries had increased in size - some were holding hundreds of thousands of books, ten times more than in the previous century.  Administration had become weak, standards of service almost nonexistent.  Funds for acquisition tended to be inadequate.  The post of librarian was often looked on as a part-time position, and cataloging was frequently in arrears and lacked proper methods.

A leading figure in the transformation of library service was Antonio (later Sir Anthony) Panizzi, a political refugee from Italy, who began working for the British Museum in 1831 and was its principal librarian from 1856 to 1866.  From the start, he revolutionized library administration.  He perceived the importance of a good catalog and elaborated a complete code of rules for catalogers.  He also saw the potential of libraries in a modern community as instruments of study and research, available to all, and, by his planning of the British Museum reading room and its accompanying bookstacks, showed how this potential might be realized.  His ideas long dominated library thought in the field of scholarly - or, as they are now called, research - libraries and achieved major expression in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Sir Anthony Panizzi, at the British Museum, was a key figure in revolutionizing cataloging and overall library management.

 

Different types of libraries were founded to store specific relevant resources and solve space and systemization issues.  Besides the national libraries, school libraries were reinvented, and specialized libraries appeared in this period.  Libraries now stored different works and books, depending on their primary function.  This change helped both the public and the librarians with finding the exact resources they were looking for.

Many private libraries started to open up to external visitors, and so these organizations slowly transformed into public libraries. 

Home libraries were introduced by book collectors, to help with the owner’s job and self-development.  The most significant home libraries were in the hands of scientists and writers because their resources and works contributed to the improvement of society.

In the late 19^th and early 20^th century, governments started to fund public libraries with public taxes.  This resulted in a massive change - the institutions finally became uniformly open to the public.  Everybody had a chance to visit libraries, regardless of social status, and no one had to pay for entry anymore.  This forged the important role of libraries to bind the general public to the vital information, improving erudition in the entire Western world.

Public libraries soon provided well-stocked reference sections and offered wide-ranging loan services based on systems of branch libraries.  They were further supplemented by traveling libraries, to serve outlying districts.  Special facilities were sometimes provided for the old, the blind, the hearing-impaired, and others, and in many cases library services were organized for local schools, hospitals, and prisons.  In the case of very large municipalities, library provision could be on a grand scale, including a reference library, which had many of the features associated with large research libraries.

Spoken audio was available in schools and public libraries since the 1930s.  Many spoken word albums were made prior to the age of cassettes, compact discs, and downloadable audio, often of poetry and plays rather than books.  It was not until the 1980s, that the medium began to attract book retailers, and then book retailers started displaying audiobooks on bookshelves rather than in separate displays; libraries did the same.

Libraries began using microfilm in the mid-20^th century as a preservation strategy for deteriorating newspaper collections.  Books and newspapers that were deemed in danger of decay could be preserved on film and thus access and use could be increased.  Microfilming was also a space-saving measure.

This was the historical period when the library system that we know today was framed.

The paradigm for libraries and librarianship shifted radically in the late 20^th century with the advent of new information technologies.  By the end of the century, computer-based systems had given individuals access to an enormous network of information.  Especially in the world’s major urban centers, the library’s traditional means of sharing access to information, such as the owning and lending of books and other materials, or the sharing of these resources with sister libraries, were increasingly supplanted by the use of electronic databases that contained everything from library catalogs and subject area indices and abstracts to journal articles and entire book-length texts.  As individuals using home computers became familiar with a worldwide electronic network, the library as a storehouse site was challenged by the so-called virtual library, accessible by computer from any place that had telephone, cable lines, or Wi-Fi.  The role of the professional librarian also evolved, as many were called upon to be familiar with, and to train others to use a variety of electronic data bases

United States

The first libraries in America were a few small private libraries in the 1600s, followed by the establishment of the first university library at Harvard in 1638.  Other significant university libraries were established in the 1700s, including Yale (1701), University of Pennsylvania (1740), Princeton (1746), Columbia (1754), and the University of North Carolina (1789).

In the early 18^th century, most Americans had limited access to books.  Books were rare and expensive. There were no public libraries.  Only the very wealthy, scholars, and the clergy had access to large numbers of books.  People of moderate means could not readily afford books.

On July 1, 1731, Benjamin Franklin and members of a philosophical association formed the Library Company of Philadelphia.  Fifty subscribers invested 40 shillings each (approx. $400 in today’s U.S. dollars) to start a library.  Members also promised to invest 10 shillings more every year to buy additional books and to help maintain the library.  Other subscription libraries soon followed, and a few are still active today.

Soon after the new United States of America adopted its Constitution, in 1789, work began to establish a national library.  The U.S. Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was established in 1800, but lost many books by fire during the bombardment of the Capitol by British troops in 1814.  These losses were to some extent made good by the purchase of Thomas Jefferson’s library shortly thereafter.  The library remained a strictly congressional library for many years, but, as the collections were notably enlarged, the library became the national library of the United States, probably the world’s largest national library.  In the late 19^th and early 20^th century, the Library of Congress developed its own library classification system for organizing books - used by most research, academic, and selected professional libraries today.  The public has access to many of the collections today.

The first tax-supported public library in the United States was the Peterborough Town Library in New Hampshire, established in 1833.  In 1849, New Hampshire became the first state to pass a law permitting towns to appropriate money for the purchase of books and the maintenance of a building for the use of the public. 

The American School Library (1839) was an early frontier traveling library in the United States.  (This was the forerunner of mobile libraries, or bookmobiles, that transport books to people in remote areas or who cannot come into the main library, like residents of hospitals and retirement homes.)

During the post-Civil War years, there was a rise in the establishment of public libraries, a movement led chiefly by newly-formed women's clubs.  They contributed their own collections of books, conducted lengthy fund-raising campaigns for buildings, and lobbied for financial support for libraries.  They led the establishment of 75 - 80 % of libraries in communities across the country.

The year 1876 is key in the history of librarianship in the United States.  The American Library Association was formed, The American Library Journal was founded, and Melvil Dewey published his decimal-based system of library classification (Dewey Decimal System), used by most public libraries and small academic libraries today.

As one of America’s most influential librarians, Dewey was Chief Librarian at Columbia University (1883-1888), Director of the New York State Library (1888-1906), and President of the American Library Association (1892-1883).  Dewey also initiated a program of traveling libraries, organized the first school for the instruction of librarians, introduced the hanging vertical file system.

Philanthropists and businessmen, including John Passmore Edwards, Henry Tate, and Andrew Carnegie, helped to increase the number of public libraries from the late 19^th century.  Carnegie, who made his fortune largely in steel production and construction, devoted a great deal of his fortune to philanthropy.  In total, Carnegie donated $40 million to the construction of 1,670 public library buildings in the United States.  Additionally, Carnegie funded construction for more than 100 academic libraries in the United States, favoring small schools and schools with African American students.

 

Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie built over 1,770 libraries in the United States.

Carnegie did not assume full responsibility for the construction of new libraries and library branches; rather, he stipulated that communities must provide sites for libraries, and governments commit to providing salaries for staff and maintaining the libraries.  Additionally, Carnegie libraries could not rely solely on private funds, but required public funds as well.  This ensured that the libraries would be a part of the community and continue to receive funding after the initial donation

Some public libraries grew into partial research institutions.  The New York Public Library, for example, has rich collections in many research fields; and the Boston Public Library, the first (1848) of the great city public libraries in the United States (and the first to be supported by direct public taxation), had from the beginning a twofold character as a library for scholarly research as well as for general reading.

In 1971, American writer Michael S. Hart started Project Gutenberg, an effort to digitize and archive cultural works and to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.  As of August 2015, Project Gutenberg claimed over 60,000 items in its collection, with an average of over 50 new eBooks being added each week.  These are primarily works of literature from the Western cultural tradition.  In addition to literature such as novels, poetry, short stories, and drama, Project Gutenberg also has cookbooks, reference works, and issues of periodicals.

Other organizations jumped into the digital preservation of cultural works:  In 1996, the non-profit Internet Archive started digitizing books, movies, and software.  In 2001, community-supported Portico started working with libraries to preserve scholarly content.  Beginning in 2004, Google collaborated with Harvard’s libraries on a project to digitize a substantial number of their 15 million volumes, and from there, Google initiated similar projects with other libraries.  Today, almost every U.S. state has a digital library.

Meanwhile, in 1997, Bill and Melinda Gates established the U.S. Library Program.  The program provided grants to more than 5,800 libraries in the United States, installed more than 25,000 PCs, and trained 7,000 librarians.  By providing grants, the U.S. Library Program has increased public access to computers, the Internet, and digital information to library patrons in low-income communities.

The Changing Role of Libraries

Adapted from “The History of Libraries,” Britannica.com, and comments from my current-librarian son Steven:

As society has begun to value information more highly, the so-called information industry has developed.  This industry encompasses publishers, software developers, on-line information services, and other businesses that package and sell information products for a profit.  This provides both an opportunity and a challenge to libraries.  On the one hand, as more information becomes available in electronic form, libraries no longer have to own an article or a certain piece of statistical information, for example, to obtain it quickly for a user.  On the other hand, members of the information industry seem to be offering alternatives to libraries.  A student with a computer can now go directly to an on-line service to locate, order, and receive a copy of an article without ever leaving home.

Libraries.  For many years, libraries have bought books and periodicals that people can borrow, photocopy, or use in the library for personal use.  Publishers of electronic databases, however, do not usually sell their product, but instead they license it to libraries (or sites) for specific uses.  For example, reference collections (e.g., containing encyclopedias) are disappearing from today’s libraries.  Publishers usually charge libraries a per-user fee or a per-unit fee for the specific amount of information the library uses.  When libraries do not own these resources, they have less control over whether older information is saved for future use - another important cultural function of libraries.  In the electronic age, questions of copyright, intellectual property rights, and the economics of information have become increasingly important to the future of library services.

Increased availability of electronic information has led libraries, particularly in schools, colleges, and universities, to develop important relationships to their institutions’ computer centers.  In some places the computer center is the place responsible for electronic information and the library is responsible for print information.  In other educational institutions, librarians have assumed responsibility for both the library collection and computer services.

As technology has changed and allowed ever new ways of creating, storing, organizing, and providing information, public expectation of the role of libraries has increased.  Libraries have responded by developing more sophisticated on-line catalogs that allow users to find out whether or not a book has been checked out, what other libraries have it, and to schedule access.  Libraries have also found that users want information faster, they want the full text of a document instead of a citation to it, and they want information that clearly answers their questions.

A big focus of my son Steven’s university library these days is directed towards digitizing unique local collections and making the resources available online.

The changes in libraries outlined above originated in the United States and other English-speaking countries.  But electronic networks do not have geographic boundaries, and their influence has spread rapidly.  With Internet connections in Peking (Beijing), Moscow, and across the globe, people who did not have access to traditional library services now have the opportunity to get information about all types of subjects, free of political censorship.

Librarians.  As libraries have changed, so, too, has the role of the librarian.  Increasingly librarians have assumed the role of facilitating education, to teach their users how to find information, both in the library and over electronic networks.  Youth services librarians promote programs and collections that help parents share literacy skills with their children.  Young adult librarians do that same kind of thing with teenagers.  Adult librarians in public libraries focus on programs and services that help adults become literate in specific areas of interest, such as job hunting, genealogy, and entrepreneurship.  School and university librarians collaborate with classroom instructors to support their work.  For example, librarians might collaborate with teachers to provide training related to a specific research assignment, e.g., how to find sources, how to evaluate them, or how to document the sources in citations.  The training can take many forms, including in-person classes, online classes, video tutorials, interactive tutorials.

Some librarians are experts about computers and computer software.  Others are concerned with how computer technologies can preserve the human cultural records of the past, or assure that library collections on crumbling paper, or in old computer files, can still be used by people many centuries in the future.

The work of librarians has also moved outside library walls.  Librarians have begun to work in the information industry as salespeople, designers of new information systems, researchers, and information analysts.  They also are found in such fields as marketing and public relations, and in such organizations as law firms, where staffs need rapid access to information.

Conclusion.  Although libraries have changed significantly over the course of history, their cultural role has not.  Libraries remain responsible for acquiring or providing access to books, periodicals, and other media that meet the educational, recreational, and informational needs of their users.  As facilitators of “information literacy,” libraries will continue to keep the business, legal, historical, and religious records of our civilization.