Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America

August 1, 2013

Part of a series overseen by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's (UW-M) Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, this volume focuses on the U.S. reading public since 1876. The essays, compiled by Pawley and Robbins, who have both served as professor and director of the School of Library and Information Studies at UW-M, are in four sections that travel in approximate chronology through topics surrounding readers' advisory and paper trail, the immigrant experience, intellectual freedom, and the alternative press in America's public institutions. Through analysis of library records in libraries ranging from the Library of Congress to Midwestern main street public institutions, the essays cover a number of regions and time frames, meaning that any particular reader may be interested in some more than others. However, there are also larger topics of general interest to the profession and to social historians. Highlights include the opening essay on early public libraries, the focus on the role of the library in immigrant life at the turn of the 20th century, the analysis of the 1992 formation of "Family Friendly Libraries" in retaliation against the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights, and the discussion of the development of girl zine librarianship. VERDICT Recommended for librarians and print culture enthusiasts; the content ranges widely enough to pique varied interests.--Jewell Anderson, Savannah Country Day Sch. Lib., GA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2014
Part of the Print Culture History in Modern America series, from the University of WisconsinMadison, this work examines public libraries and their role as reading centers from the late nineteenth century to the present day. The book is divided into four parts: Methods and Evidence; Public Libraries, Readers, and Localities; Intellectual Freedom; and Librarians and the Alternative Press. Some of the findings, such as the information in the chapter Reading Library Records: Constructing and Using the Middletown Read Database, where researchers reviewed the reading habits of one user of the Muncie Public Library over a number of years, would not be possible in today's library environment, as records are just not kept in the same fashion. This chapter and the studies of readers' book reviews in the 1920s stand out as examples of some of the more interesting ideas awaiting researchers of historical reading habits. Additional chapters examine libraries' relationships to their surrounding communities and issues of intellectual freedom, such as censorship and conservative activism.The only complaint is that the book emphasizes public libraries, as academic libraries also have a rich history with leisure reading. However, anyone (not just librarians) interested in the history of American reading habits will find the information in this work extremely valuable. Recommended for most public and academic libraries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)