by Ronald J Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray
page 285-323
Recent studies of reading in America focus upon either libraries of great authors or reading's transformative effects upon life trajectories. This article looks instead at the everyday context of common reading. It considers three levels of influence upon reading habits and choices of texts: natural and family cycles; religious and political commitments; and ephemeral events and encounters. The Daniel F and Mary D Child diary offers an unusual opportunity, for it provides for a twenty-two-year period (1839-1861) comprehensive information about the place of reading in one upwardly mobile Boston family's life. A database of all reading acts and other pertinent information yields a bibliographic calendar of imprints and manuscripts, including the date when each text was read. We argue that non-literary biographical details operating on the three levels of influence are essential for understanding the motivation toward, and choices made, in reading.
by Peter J Wosh and Lorraine A Coons
page 324-336
The American Bible Society established an institutional library in the early nineteenth century as part of its broader Christian charge to promote a wider circulation of the Bible without doctrinal note or comments. By the early twentieth century, this special library had grown into a significant academic resource for historians of the book, religious scholars, librarians, and the general public. Within the institution, however, the library occupied a confused and often ambiguous bureaucratic position. This article explores the peculiar niche of special libraries in nonacademic environments and draws some historical lessons from the ABS's experience for library administrators.
by David J Jones
page 335-348
This article describes the impact of the outbreak of World War II on the operations of the state library in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and the changing fortunes of public library legislation during the course of the war. Drawing on archival sources, this study shows for the first time the extent of lobbying by librarians and the public in support of the legislation and the interest of others, including Ralph Munn and the Carnegie Corporations of New York, in the outcome. Implementation of the legislation did not occur until an Allied victory seemed assured, but the legislation was enthusiastically adopted at war's end.
by Bernd Frohmann
page 349-371
The ambivalences and tensions in Melvil Dewey's writings on the library's delivery of "best books" to readers reveal the contests for control of intellectual resources in his day. His writings mix support for the library's service to high culture with a modern technobureaucratic and managerial approach to librarianship which was seen by several of Dewey's antagonists as a threat to their authority over books and readers. The tensions in Dewey's texts show how the discourses of high culture are undermined by the discourses of technobureaucratic procedure. The kind of librarianship described in the language of commodities, markets, and readers' excited desires conflicts with one described in the language of high culture. Dewey's writings on "best books" reveal the contours of a newly emerging social order wherein authority over culture and intellectual resources shifts to managers of intellectual capital.
page 372-374
page 375-376
page 375-401
Transcribed by Kirsty A Smith
10 October 1997