Library Newz from the Past
Taken from “Public Libraries”, Volume 11, 1906.
Susan B. Anthony has offered copies of all her books on the suffrage question to the Oregon library commission for the traveling libraries of the state. (p40)
Cornelia Marvin, secretary of the Oregon commission library, has sent out a list of wholesome juvenile books, with prices, for holiday trade and for home libraries, together with some excellent facts about libraries. (p40)
The forty-second annual report of the Library association of Portland, Ore. gives an increase in the circulation in the library, notwithstanding the distraction of the Fair. The quality of books read has improved, the fiction per cent being on the decline; it is now less than 62 per cent. The circulation in the children’s department was 40,650V and through the schools, 9441V. The story telling is given as the chief cause of the decrease in fiction reading in this department, having dropped from 59 to 52 per cent. 10,914V. were prepared for the shelves and 7629 were cataloged. The work of the branches continues to grow. Thirteen distributing stations are in active work. (p475)
From “Public Libraries” Vol 13, (1908)
Courtesy of the University of Oregon’s willingness to lend bound periodicals via SUMMIT.
“We should look closely after the books we put into the hands of our children. The characteristics of eighteenth century fiction are summed up in the following:
Maria so attentive grew,
So Thoughtful and Polite;
Her friends admired and loved her too,
For all she did was right.
Perhaps the pendulum has swung a little too far the other way when we think of the numerous calls for “Peck’s Bad Boy,” of the deep interest in Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and other realistic tales. Somewhere between these two extremes, we must find the books that are suitable for our boys and girls and will hold their interest.”
“In regards to book agents, there is only one rule, never to be violated, and that is, buy nothing whatever from an agent.”
-From a talk by Mrs. Sara Judd Greenman of the Kansas City Kansas Public Library. (January, 1908 p 25.)
News from the past is brought to you by Tony Greiner, who is getting kind of long in the tooth himself. tony_greiner@hotmail.com
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