#library history

[archivistic]

"SUPARS was designed by a librarian named Pauline Atherton (who goes by the name of Pauline Atherton Cochrane today). In 1960, aged 30 and early in her library career, she had been the cross-reference editor of that year’s revision of the World Book Encyclopedia, ensuring thorough and accurate cross-linking between different articles. By 1966, she was working at the Syracuse University libraries and in the library school, where in 1968 she demonstrated the first use of an online decimal classification file to aid in search (AUDACIOUS). That same year, she established the first computer-based teaching lab that integrated online search into regular classroom teaching at the library school (LEEP)."

[hometoursandotherstuff]

As a librarian and a woman, I’m glad they didn’t listen to this shit.

[lakecountylibrary]

I’ve always been curious, why isn’t Hammond part of the lc library system? I’ve tried googling it and have yet to find an answer.

— a citizen of Highland

Ah, to answer this very interesting question, we need a bit of a history lesson! Are you sitting comfortably?

Our story begins not with Hammond or LCPL, but with Gary Public Library.

So, back in 1952, Gary Public Library was providing service to far more than just Gary, and had been since the early 1900s. They covered the smaller towns and rural areas of Lake County, like Highland and Cedar Lake. In 1952 it was decided that these outlying regions should have their own library board and budget to look after their interests and Lake County Public Library began - sort of.

Back in those days, we were still contracting with Gary Public Library to provide all services and were sort of a sub-library of Gary. The boards met jointly and all expenditures of Lake County funds had to be approved by the Gary Public Library.

This continued until funding became... complicated. And somewhat contentious. Though the Lake County library was still paying Gary Public Library for their services, the contract needed to be renegotiated as Lake County grew and developed. Questions of where taxpayer money should go, and whether Gary taxpayers should subsidize Lake County library services outside of Gary arose.

On January 1, 1959, Lake County Public Library officially split from Gary Public Library and became an independent library system serving the not-Gary communities that Gary Public Library used to serve.

Now, you'll note I haven't mentioned Hammond in all this. The reason Lake County Public Library formed in the first place was in order to provide library services to the small towns and rural areas in Lake County that didn't have their own libraries.

Hammond, of course, is a city and they have always had their own public library, older even than Gary Public Library. They had no reason to join the little conglomerate of rural areas and small towns - and certainly no reason to become embroiled in the complicated funding and budgeting acrobatics being carried out in the neighboring communities.

Lake County today of course looks a lot different than it did in the 50s, and the name of our library - initially chosen to indicate that we served communities 'out in the county' (aka, not cities) - now is a little confusing. There are actually 7 library districts in Lake County now and each of the others has their own reasons for remaining separate. Most of these reasons can probably be summed up in one word - taxes. Hammond residents don't pay taxes toward LCPL, and vice versa. The same goes for all of the different library districts.

Of course, we're all on great terms today and a card with any of the libraries in Lake County does get you access to most of the physical collection here at LCPL - and your LCPL card can do the same at the other libraries!

[intothestacks]

Libraries Around the World: Xi'an, China

In 627 CE, under the reign of Chinese emperor Tàizōng of Táng (Chinese: 唐太宗) we know a library was established which housed a whopping 54,000 rolls.

[autumngarage]

Barbara Gittings (right) and Alma Routsong (left) kissing at the National Convention of the American Library Association in Dallas, 1971.

Gittings was heavily invested in increasing visibility for gays and lesbians in the library profession and improving library materials/resources for LGBTQ+ people.

[landsccape]

[ditzybat]

jason: you don’t even know what my favorite book is, how could you even stand to call yourself my father if you don’t know me anymore!?

bruce: jay, your favorite is pride and —

tim: the velveteen rabbit.

jason: … i’ve had like two conversations with you outside of murder attempts, how do you know that?

tim: im not an amateur, i took my baby stalker duties very seriously!

[nickyfrancis24]

World’s oldest libraries

The World’s Oldest Libraries Article Title: World’s oldest libraries Author: Nicky Sinha Francis Genres: Article A heaven of books When your world revolves around books, all you can think of a cozy beautiful place only for your books and you. For others, it’s point to laugh, but for you it’s your passion and your own personal space where you can escape from your stress and pain that you go…

[laziestgirlintown]

Hooray for everything said here, three cheers for public libraries, and three cheers for Ao3, which is an archive, and one beautifully run and catalogued. Two thoughts:

* If there were an archive of tags for the books found in public libraries 🤩 (Such as #every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, or #I love Big Brother, both of which I expect would fit a host of books, not just the originals) Now, of course, that archive is librarians, but sometimes we forget, and few of us have actually read all the books.

* When I was in library college, late 1990s in Sweden, there was very much a discussion about literary quality and library acquisitions. It was centered around several popular crime writers of the time, whose books were crap as novels, but everyone wanted to read them, each for a short window of time. And the libraries had a limited budget, and also the mandate and mission to stock books you couldn't get everywhere, that were important to widen the culture available, or that actually would last the test of time. Do we buy 50 copies of Shit Prose Murders Women Gruesomely or do we buy 50 books that will widen people's horizons and people will still ask for 20 years from now? The side for not stocking Shit Prose at all was quite strong at the time. - Part of the history is also that Swedish public libraries grew out of the Labour and Temperance movements: their stock should be improving, bettering. - We could pile the issue of subversive literature on top of this but a) Swedish 20th century was mainly leftist and subversive was often bettering and b) that's a whole other tangent but this is long enough for tonight isn't it

Just saw a tweet like "REAL libraries check for quality!" as some kinda gotcha at AO3?? But I'm a librarian, so... heads up that "quality checks," AKA "weeding" or "pulling," means looking for damaged books or ones that haven't circulated in a few years to clear up shelf space. We don't Quality Check for if the library books have nontoxic romance or good grammar. :U I assure you every library in your area has absolute ABOMINATIONS of bad storytelling as well as your favorite pop lit.

[cansu-m]

[book-historia]

A jewel box of a book ✨ This 19th century French sales sample book contains very thin metal ornaments, made of foil over card. These would have been used like fancy sequins, and adorned everything from cards to clothes! They’re sometimes called Dresdens after the town in Germany where many were made. I know I say this a lot, but this book really floored me 🤩 Part of col. 838 in the Winterthur Library 📚

[0bsessiv3s0ul]

I can't wait for Autumn 🍂🍁

[ur-daily-inspiration]

Museum of the Moon 🌙

[opencommunion]

recommended resources on Lebanese resistance and its context

this has been in my drafts for a long time bc I wanted to find more audio resources but in light of recent events I'm posting as is, and will add more later. pdfs for texts without links can be found on libgen ⭐ = start with these 📺 = video resource 🎧 = audio resource Hizballah ⭐ Lara Deeb, "Hizballah and Its Civilian Constituencies," in The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)

⭐🎧 Electronic Intifada Podcast with Rania Khalek, "Why Hizballah would deal Israel a deadly blow" (2024)

⭐🎧 Electronic Intifada Podcast with Amal Saad, "How Hizballah Aims to Deter Israel" (2024)

📺 Rania Khalek, Interview with Hezbollah's Second-in-Command Sheikh Naim Qassem (2023)

🎧 Rania Khalek and Julia Kassem, "The Hybrid War on Lebanon is All About Weakening Hezbollah" (2022)

Hassan Nasrallah, "Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah," ed. Nicholas Noe (2007)

Judith Harik, "Hizballah's Public and Social Services and Iran," in Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the last 500 years (2006) Sarah Marusek, Faith and Resistance: The Politics of Love and War in Lebanon (2018)

Abed T. Kanaaneh, Understanding Hezbollah: The Hegemony of Resistance (2021)

Karim Makdisi, "The Oct. 8 War: Lebanon's Southern Front" (2024) Political theory ⭐ Ussama Makdisi, "Understanding Sectarianism," in The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)

⭐ Rula Juri Abisaab and Malek Abisaab, The Shi'ites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism, and Hizbullah's Islamists (2014)

Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914 (2010) Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline S. Ismael, The Communist Movement in Syria and Lebanon (1998) 2006 war ⭐ Gilbert Achcar and Michel Warschawski, The 33-Day War: Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Consequences (2007)

The Electronic Intifada with Dahr Jamail, "The world just sat by" (2006)

The Electronic Intifada with Bilal El-Amine, "Lebanon in Context" (2006) The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)

Civil war and 1982 invasion ⭐📺 Up to the South, dir. Jayce Salloum and Walid Ra'ad (1993)

⭐📺 Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon, dir. Mai Masri and Jean Khalil Chamoun (1987)

⭐ Souha Bechara, Resistance: My Life for Lebanon (2003)

Jean Said Makdisi, Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir (1990)

Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout, Sabra and Shatila, September 1982 (2004) Ottoman era Charles Al-Hayek, "How, then, did you try to rebel?"

Lebanon Unsettled, "Lebanon's Popular Uprisings"

Axel Havemann, "The Impact of Peasant Resistance on Nineteenth Century Mount Lebanon," in Peasants and Politics in the Modern Middle East (1991) Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (2000)

Peter Hill, "How Global was the Age of Revolutions? The Case of Mount Lebanon, 1821" (2020) Mark Farha, "From Anti-imperial Dissent to National Consent: the First World War and the Formation of a Trans-sectarian National Consciousness in Lebanon" (2015) French mandate era ⭐ Kais Firro, Inventing Lebanon: Nationalism and the State Under the Mandate (2002) Sana Tannoury-Karam, "Founding the Lebanese Left: From Colonial Rule to Independence" (2021) Idir Ouahes, Syria and Lebanon Under the French Mandate: Cultural Imperialism and the Workings of Empire (2018)

Malek Abisaab, Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (2009) Misc ⭐📺 Leila and the Wolves, dir. Heiny Srour and Sabah Jabbour (1984)

⭐ Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon (2007)

Karim Makdisi, "Lebanon's October 2019 Uprising" (2021)

[stardustemotions]

I used to think communication was the key until I realized, comprehension is. You can communicate all you want with someone but if they don't understand you, it's silent chaos.

[pagesofjasmine]

“Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that’s why we’re so anxious to lose them, don’t you think?”

– The Secret History