Featured Web pages on the Library History Buff Web site:

Catalogue Cards of Harvard College Library

Chicago's Public Library

U.S. Libraries on Stamps

Philatelic Libraries

Library Bookmarks (the kind that go in real books)

Library Cards

Library Buttons

The American Library Association: An Illustrated History

Library Service to the Blind Using the Mail

A Place Called Library

The Rudolph Continuous Indexer

A Tribute to the Bookmobile

National Library Heritage Day

Support a postage stamp honoring an American librarian and/or America's librarians. Don't you get just a little bit upset that not a single American librarian has been judged worthy of being honored on a United States postage stamp?

Support a postage stamp honoring America's public libraries.

Library Cover Story - July 2009
"Cover" is a philatelic term for an envelope, postal card, or similar postal artifact that has been sent through the mail (or is intended to be sent through the mail).  Philatelist often say every cover has a story.  I collect covers related to libraries, and I have found that these covers  often have interesting stories that relate both to library history and postal history. 

  At the World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, a library was formed as part of the Woman's Building which included 7,000 literary works by women from around the world. A list of the books included in the library is located here. The exposition attracted over twenty-seven million visitors. The Winter issue of Libraries & Culture for 2006  contained six essays related the Woman's Building Library. This special issue was edited by Sarah Wadsworth . The Fair Women by Jeanne Madeline Weimann (Academy Chicago, 1981) provides an extensive overview of the story of Woman's Building. Also at the exposition was a library exhibit developed by the American Library Association. The ALA exhibit was in the Government Building of the exposition. The Chicago History Journal blog contains a post on the Library.

The Official Souvenir Postal Card is on the back of the Grant postal card issue of 1891. These souvenir cards were predecessors of picture postcards. The Woman's Building is illustrated on the card which was mailed to Hamburg Germany in July 1893. The one cent stamp of the Columbian Exposition issue of 1893 has been added to makeup the international postal card rate.

Archive - Library Cover Stories for 2009

Archive - Library Cover Stories for 2008

Archive - Library Cover Stories for 2007

The Librarians' Index to the Internet (LII) has indexed this site. To see the entry click here.

 Statistics and fun facts for The Library History Buff Web site.