The Library History Buff

Promoting the appreciation, enjoyment, and preservation of 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.

See Also: World Library History On the Web

General History Sites (non-library)

Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Compiled by Mark Rothenberg, Patchogue-Medford Library/Suffolk Cooperative Library System
http://www.pmlib.org/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

Digital Book Index

Digital Book Index About Page
http://www.digitalbookindex.org/about.htm

Digital Book Index Main Page
http://www.digitalbookindex.com/search001a.htm

Digital Book Index
Libraries, Librarianship, Electronic Librarianship
http://www.digitalbookindex.com/_search/search010librarieslibrarianshipa.asp

Digital Book Index
US History: Libraries in the 19th Century
http://www.digitalbookindex.com/_search/search010histuslibraries19a.asp
 

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://www.library.uiuc.edu/archives/ala/

Libraries & the Cultural Record (Journal) Home
http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/~lcr/index.php

Libraries & the Cultural Record (Journal) Bookplate Archive
http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/~lcr/archive/bookplates.php

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

The First 100 Years (of the American Libraries magazine) PDF format
http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/resources/selectedarticles/0607_feature_timelin.pdf

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

Brief History of Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR)
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc/history.html

Pennsylvania Library History Project (Bernadette Lear)
http://www.personal.psu.edu/bal19/plhp.htm

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

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

Amherst College Library
http://www.amherst.edu/library/archives/info/libhistory.html

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

  This site created and maintained by Larry T. Nix

  Send comments or questions to nix@libraryhistorybuff.org

  Last updated: 5-01-08   © 2005-2008 Larry T. Nix