Fall 2005

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Message from the Chair || Highlights from LHS XI || From the Editors || Attendance at LHS XI || Call For Papers: LHRT Research Forum. June 2006 || LHS XII - Request for Proposals || Nominees Saught: 2006 History of Literacy Book Award || In Memoriam: John David Marshall || In Memoriam: Haynes McMullen || Call for Candidates || History in the Curriculum || Statement on History in Education for Library and Information Science || The Calendar


   

Message from the Chair

Many of us have just returned from the tremendously successful Library History Seminar XI, held at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana’s wonderful conference center, Allerton Park.  The very name sounds Austenesque, and the actual setting was just as elegant and gracious as this suggests.  You can read Jen Burek Pierce’s account of the conference later in this newsletter; let me just say that we are looking for a venue for LHS XII, to be held in 2010, the RFP for which is later in the newsletter.

LHSXI was only one of a number of significant LHRT events and activities this year. I’m especially happy to announce the inauguration—at last!--of an endowed lectureship. As many of you know, for the last ten years, LHRT has been working to establish an endowed annual lecture to be delivered at the summer conference of the American Library Association.  Wayne Wiegand was the one to initiate this project, and he, in conjunction with Forest Press, got us off the ground by donating royalties from his book Irrepressible Reformer:  A Biography of Melvil Dewey.   Over the next few years, LHRT members worked steadily to match these funds.  I am delighted to be able to tell you that sufficient funds are now available, and that at its last meeting, the LHRT Executive Board voted not only to transfer the remaining necessary funds, but also to designate the lecture the Edward Holley Lecture.  We are greatly honored to name the lecture after such a distinguished historian, one who has contributed so much to library education in general, and to library history scholarship in particular.   More details of the Holley Lectureship, and of the first Holley Lecture, will be available in the Spring Newsletter.

Jean Preer, outgoing LHRT chair, has made raising our visibility a high priority this past year, a focus which the Executive Board plans to maintain.  Under Jean’s leadership, we acquired maroon and gold conference badge ribbons for LHRT members attending ALA’s annual conference.  We have also inaugurated an email list for LHRT members, and this makes communicating as a group so much easier.  An ad hoc outreach committee consisting of Bernadette Lear and Suzanne Stauffer has been collecting ideas and making plans for extending our activities; you may have seen their listserv posting last month seeking reactions and responses to the long list of ideas they have devised.  If you’d like to help this outreach effort, please contact Bernadette ( bal19@psu.edu) or Suzanne ( smstauffer@earthlink.net).

Many thanks go to Jean Preer for organizing a fascinating program at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago last June.  Three speakers--James Elmborg, Joyce Latham, and Syma Zerkow--focused on the history of Carnegie Libraries, an especially appropriate topic now that so many libraries are celebrating the centennial of their Carnegie Corporation grant awards, and when local communities are showing such an interest in exploring their own histories.  The program was very well attended, and following the presentations, the audience and panelists engaged in a stimulating discussion.  At LHRT’s Research Forum in the morning of the same day, four speakers (Bernadette Lear, Gregory Prickman, Mary Saracino Zboray, and Ronald Zboray) presented refereed papers that illustrated the ways in which library records are “hidden treasures” that can be invaluable to researchers in various fields beyond library history.  This program, too, attracted a large audience and resulted in a lively extended conversation.

At the annual program, LHRT made two awards. The Phyllis Dain Library History Dissertation Award (a biennial award) went to Dr. Bonnie Mak, for her work “Redefining the Page for a Digital World.” Dr. Mak earned her doctorate from the Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, and is currently post-doctoral fellow of the interPARES project at the University of British Columbia. “Redefining the Page” is an examination of the pages of the Controversia de Nobilitate (1428) as flexible interfaces in manuscript, print, and digital media, and how their changing presentations have affected the categorization of the text through time. The annual Justin Winsor Essay Prize went to Donald C. Boyd of University of Florida, a Ph.D. student in the History of Education, for his article on a neglected story in library history--one that focused on successfully serving an underprivileged group: “The Book Women of Kentucky: The WPA Pack Horse Library Project, 1935-1943.” Congratulations to the award winners, and very many thanks to the two committees that read submissions and made the final selections.

We are now in the process of planning next summer’s program.  Andrew Wertheimer, vice-chair and chair of the Research Committee has issued a call for proposals for the Research Forum (see below.)  The topic will be “The American Ethnic Experience in the History of Libraries and Print Culture,” and you can find more details in this newsletter.  The theme for the LHRT program, to be held on the afternoon of Sunday, June 25th, will be History as Collaboration—look for details in the next LHRT newsletter.    In the meantime, we hope you can join us for the Executive Board meeting at ALA Midwinter on Sunday morning, January 22nd from 8:30 to 11:30 am, location TBA. This is a public meeting, and we are always looking for involvement from new and old colleagues, so please do come along if you can.

Finally, let me thank Jean Preer for her wonderful leadership during the past year. Jean’s superlative organization and generous donation of time has made the handover to me as incoming new chair far smoother than I could have imagined.   Thanks to Jean’s efforts, we have been able to revise the LHRT Officers’ Handbook, a process that is complete now that we have published a printed version of the by-laws in this newsletter (an ALA requirement: in future, an electronic publication will suffice). Many thanks go too to Ken Potts, outgoing secretary/treasurer.  In addition to “keeping the books,” and helping to ensure the continued financial health of LHRT, Ken worked with Jean to revise the Handbook.  Having an up-to-date document to which to refer makes the job of new officers so much easier.  We’ll be making it available to everyone at the LHRT web site ( http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=lhrt). 

Best wishes, Christine Pawley
LHRT Chair

   

Highlights from the Library History Seminar XI: Libraries in Times of War, Revolution, and Social Change

International themes in librarianship and the effects of different sorts of social change were much in evidence in talks given in the warmly genteel setting of the Allerton Conference Center. Papers delivered in the Center’s book-lined library and rooms that looked out on the fall landscape explored the nature of library work in places from Belgium and the Americas to South Africa and Somaliland, and from twelfth century to the present. Yet, this scholarly work did not preclude a great deal of collegial conversation and informal interaction between sessions.

This engaging combination of topics and participants resulted from the efforts of numerous faculty and research centers at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, in conjunction with editors of leading library history journals. Seminar co-chair W. Boyd Rayward opened the Seminar acknowledging those who supported its planning and also offering a tribute to retiring editor of Libraries & Culture and University of Texas at Austin faculty member Don Davis. “This is seminar is a very special occasion,” Rayward said. “We would like to honor and recognize Don Davis’s contributions

Plenary speeches marked each day of the conference. Kathy Piess spoke on U.S. policy on European library and information resources endangered by World War II. .” In relating the efforts to preserve European cultural icons then with the unprotected looting of Iraqi institutions in recent years, Piess observed that the nation’s former action “challenges us in our own contemporary crisis.”

Jorge Orlando Melo Gonzalez of the Banco de la Republica Luis Angel Arango in Bogota explained Colombian education and library building policies in the twentieth century as an effort at cultural reform of peasants that resulted in contests between conservatives and liberals but ultimately ended with increasing literacy rates but dwindling funding for libraries.

In “The Books Were Just the Props,” Archie L. Dick of the University of Pretoria analyzed the ways libraries were implicated in anti-apartheid activities by activists whose use of libraries as communication centers was key to the movement. Enes Kujundzic provided the history of the destroyed but revived National Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Jacques Hellemans outlined international initiatives to provide electronic information access in developing nations as a means of rebuilding libraries in the Congo. Commentaries that wrapped up the Seminar considered the matter of moral obligations to preserve cultural heritage and ongoing efforts record oral histories in the Gulf Coast region following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In these invited talks and the papers presented by library history researchers, the way the prosecution of war imposes restrictions on reading and cultural activities was a recurring theme. The role of libraries and librarians in facilitating resistance and maintaining national identities was considered, with cautions that books are both powerful and fragile symbols whose meaning may either endure or be inconstant as times of change. Talks noted issues in service to African-American populations, as well as historical matters in Asian libraries. Children’s use of libraries and literature was another topic elaborated in different contexts, and attention was also given to developmental issues in library and information science education.

The many talks that demonstrated pain-staking research and thoughtful analysis are not the whole story of the seminar. As this writer types this report, the sounds of a merrily raucous auction in support of the Library History Round Table’s speaker series ensue, with fundraising efforts led by Louise Robbins and supplemented by Sharon McQueen. The book auction eventually raised $900 for the Round Table. Pictures below.

As the Seminar's conclusion neared, participants noted the emergence of thematic strains that linked the range of papers. It was said that the research presented certain ambiguities and paradoxes regarding the symbolic value of books and libraries. The active role of librarians in reform and revolutionary moments was also discussed. While the conference theme resulted in a focus on conflict-ridden and war-torn libraries, considering the ways reading served to alleviate the tensions of the times; in this, libraries were said to serve principles identified in documents like the U.S. Constitution, such as the pursuit of happiness. Calls for continued research into these issues were also heard.

Note from the editor: By the end of the conference there was a fair amount of discussion going around the halls and dining tables about the possibility of holding the seminar every three years instead of every five. The Library Research Seminar made the switch and it seems to be successful. I am sure the topic will be raised at the executive board meeting at Midwinter.

   

From the Editors

This issue is heavy on Round Table business, and the report on Library History Seminar XI, which was a rousing success. In the interests of space and not confusing everybody, we have retained the Bookman Old Style font- which has proved popular. Charley has resisted the impulse to experiment with a lovely Art Nouveau font designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but reserves the right to try it in the future. Please note the call for papers for the LHRT research forum in New Orleans next summer, and the RFP for the next Library History Seminar

Charley and Tom

   

Who Was There?  Attendance at Library History Seminar XI

The crowd at Allerton Park was a varied and eclectic group.  Looking at the list of participants reveals the following:

Total registration: 119.

Of which 42 were professionals of some description.  Mostly practicing librarians but with some other folks in the mix.  36 faculty members, mostly from the familiar LIS schools, but with a number of other disciplines as well.  This speaks well for a broadening interest in our field.  15 doctoral students.  The majority (9) from the University of Illinois GSLIS, but four (ahem!) from the University of Missouri, and one each from UT-Austin, and the history department of the University of Chicago.  There were six MA students, mostly from Illinois, one from Missouri.  Twenty individuals in the "other" category, most of whom are visiting scholars at the Illinois Mortensen Center for International Library Programs.  About which more below.

There were 27 international participants, many associated with the Mortensen Center, but some unconnected and on their own.  Some of the countries represented include Canada, the United Kingdom, Colombia, Belgium, Japan, and South Africa.  Let us hope that this level of international participation continues.

   

Call for Papers: LHRT Research Forum, June 2006

"The American Ethnic Experience in the History of Libraries and Print Culture"

The Library History Round Table (LHRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) seeks papers for its Re-search Forum at the 2006 ALA Convention, New Orleans, 22-28 June 2006. While we welcome the submission of any research paper that takes a cultural and historical perspective on libraries, we are especially interested in research or libraries in relation to ethnic groups underrepresented in the literature, such as Native Americans, Latinos/Latinas, Asian Americans, Acadians, Italian-Americans, etc.

We encourage new scholars to submit papers, but welcome papers by any interested student, faculty or practitioner.

Proposals for papers should give the paper title, an abstract (up to 400 words), along with the scholar’s one-page vita.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 30 NOVEMBER 2005.

Submit proposal or send inquiries to:

Andrew B. Wertheimer, Ph.D.
Library & Information Science Program
Info. & Computer Sciences Department  
305F POST Bldg., 1680 East-West Rd.
University of Hawaii-Manoa  
Honolulu HI 96822 USA 
(808) 956-3494
FAX (808) 956-3548   
email: wertheim@hawaii.edu

The full CFP may be viewed at: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~wertheim/LHRT2006CFP.html

The program will be publicized on or before 15 January 2006. Presenters must be members of ALA and LHRT before 1 May 2006. Please see http://www.ala.org for membership details.

   

Library History Seminar XII (2010)
Request for Proposals

The ALA-LHRT is issuing this Request for Proposals for an institutional host for Library History Seminar XII to take place in the year 2010.

History & Overview
The Library History Seminar (LHS) was established in 1961 and has become the most prestigious international conference dedicated to the study of the history of librarianship. LHS takes place every five years. The Library of Congress (2000) and major research libraries and schools of library and in-formation studies, most recently at the University of Illinois’ Allerton Institute, have been LHS hosts.  The conference often attracts over 100 scholars from across the United States and abroad. Most of these conferences have been published as a special issue of the journal Libraries and Culture and also in monograph form.
 
The Selection Process
The LHRT Executive Board is charged with selecting a site in the same year that the LHS is held. This allows time for the host to gather funding, co-sponsors, and complete a proposal. In order to facilitate that decision the LHRT Ad Hoc Committee on Library History Seminar XII created this re-quest for proposal document to guide potential hosts.  The LHRT Executive Board will make the final decision at the ALA Midwinter Board meeting in January 2006. Executive Board members will select a site primarily based on written proposals received by the deadline.
 
The host institution finances the Library History Seminar using grants, gifts, internal budget allocations and registration fees. Previous conferences featured a limited number of scholar-ships for graduate students. The ALA-LHRT might also provide a small grant. It is imperative that proposals include information on budgeting the conference, and potential sources of funding to make the seminar possible.

LHRT decided at the 2002 Annual and Midwinter meetings to select the institutional host on factors besides the conference theme, so this section is optional. The Ad Hoc Committee recommends that hosts select a theme, but emphasizes that this is an important scholarly forum that should provide ample opportunities for historical re-search presentations on other aspects of library history in its widest scope, and encourage diversity of speakers in terms of geography, ethnicity, gender and subject specialty while also maintaining LHS’s high standards for his-torical research.
 
Please send your proposal by 1 January 2006 in electronic form (as either MS Word attachment or as plain e-mail text) to Andrew Wertheimer at
wertheim@hawaii.edu

The document should be 2 to 5 pages long. Dr. Wertheimer will then send the proposals to Executive Board members. Please e-mail any questions to Dr. Wertheimer at the above e-mail address or call 808/ 956-3494.

Information on past Library History Seminars is available in Edward Goedeken’s “The Library Historian’s Field of Dreams: A Profile of the First Nine Seminars,” in Library History Research in America, edited by Andrew B. Wertheimer and Donald G. Davis, Jr. (Washington, DC: Center for the Book, 2000), 161-172, which also appeared in Libraries and Culture 35 (Winter 2000): 161-172.

The application should include the following information:

Proposal to Host Library History Seminar XII

Committee Chair:
Name:
Address:
E-mail:
Telephone:
Fax:

Committee Members:

Institutional Sponsor:

Potential Co-sponsors:

Planned number of days:

Proposed dates:

Conference Location:

[Please provide specific details, including whether the conference facility would be a private or public space. How many meeting rooms will be avail-able for the LHS and specify fees. Please also briefly address transportation issues relating to the location (i.e., what is the closest major airport and how does one get to/from there and the conference location).]

Accommodations:
Please specify what hotel/dormitory facilities are available within walking range of the conference location.

Financial and Institutional Support
This section will understandably be rough and tentative, but the committee wants to see that the host will be able to arrange clerical support to take care of publicity and handle reservations. Please also propose an estimated registration fee.

The committee also encourages the host to look for internal/external grants to support the seminar. The host will be responsible for securing these grants. Grants make it possible to keep registration fees affordable, and bring graduate students and keynote speakers. Please list possible sources of grants or other income you might approach in order to finance the seminar.

   

Nominees Sought: 2006 History of Literacy Book Award

E. JENNIFER MONAGHAN BOOK AWARD
 
Guidelines for 2006 Award

HISTORY OF READING SPECIAL
INTEREST GROUP

The History of Reading Special Interest Group of the International Reading Association sponsors a triennial award for an outstanding book on the history of literacy.  A prize of $100 will be awarded to the single or co-authored book that represents the best scholar-ship on the history of literacy, broadly defined to include the history of au-thorship, books, instruction, audi-ences, publishing, spelling, libraries, reading, and writing.
 
The winning book is announced at the annual meeting of the History of Reading SIG, which coincides with the International Reading Association’s annual meeting in early May of each year.  Winners of the award receive a special plaque as well as a three-year membership in the SIG.
 
Recipients of the award are invited to present a paper based on their book as part of the next annual meeting of the SIG. The deadline for submitting applications for the 2006 award is January 15, 2006; books must have a copyright date between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2005.

GUIDELINES FOR APPLYING

1. Submit three copies of the ‘Title Page Form.’ – A downloadable copy of this form can be found on the SIG’s website:  http://www.historyliteracy.org.
 
2. Submit three copies of an abstract.  The abstract should be typewritten.
 
3. Submit three copies of a 1-2 page letter that outlines the merits of the book, including the reasons for its unique contribution to the history of literacy and the soundness or originality of its methodology.  It should be single-spaced and written in English.  Font size should be no smaller than 12 point.  The letter should be written on letterhead and signed by the nominator.

4. Submit a photocopy of the book’s copyright page, attesting to the date of its publication.

5. Only books published between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2005 will be considered for the 2006 award.  More than one book may be submitted from a single publisher or author.

6. The author’s/authors’ book must clearly be an historical research project related to literacy.

7. All entries will be judged by a jury of three literacy historians who are members of the E. Jennifer Monaghan Book Award Committee. The decision of the judges will be final.

8. The envelope containing 3 copies of the Title Page Form, 3 copies of the Abstract, 3 copies of the Letter, and a photocopy of the Copyright Page must be postmarked no later than January 15, 2006, and sent to:
 
Douglas K. Hartman, Chair
Monaghan Book Award
Neag School of Education
224 Gentry Building
249 Glenbrook Road, Unit 2033
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06269-2033
( (860) 486-1154
email: douglas.hartman@uconn.edu

9. Additional information and copies of forms can be found at the SIG’s website: http://historyliteracy.org.

10. Application materials that do not adhere strictly to the above guidelines will be eliminated from the competition.  Final determination of adherence to the guidelines will be made by the Award Committee.

   

In Memoriam: John David Marshall, 1928-2005

The library history community lost a fine friend and colleague when John David Marshall died on 6 June 2005.  Marshall will be remembered as a southern gentleman in the best sense of the word.  He was an academic librarian, a scholar and bookman, an editor and anthologist, and a voracious reader and prolific book reviewer.  Books and articles referring to the early years of the Library History Round Table (formerly American Library History Round Table) make frequent reference to Marshall and his contributions.

A native of McKenzie, Tennessee, Mar-shall earned a BA at Bethel College in 1950 and an MA in 1951 at the Florida State University School of Library Training and Service.  He studied under Louis Shores and became a Shores protégé and fellow laborer in academic library practice and library historical writing.  After brief stints doing reference work at Clemson and Auburn universities, he was appointed Head of Acquisitions at the University of Georgia, a post he held from 1957 to 1967.  He left Georgia to become University Librarian at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.  In 1976, he was appointed University Bibliographer, a new position at MTSU designed to allow Marshall more time than previously for editorial and bibliographical enterprises.

Among historians and practitioners, Marshall is perhaps best known for his anthologies Of, By, and for Librarians (1960 and 1974) and An American Library History Reader (1961).  The latter collection features biographical and historical essays many of which had been presented at ALA summer conferences (ALHRT program sessions) and were appearing in print for the first time.  Thus, in a very real sense, Mar-shall rescued and preserved early LHRT proceedings.

Marshall published sixteen books of bibliographical compilations and anthologies of library literature including collected essays of Louis Shores and Lawrence Clark Powell.  He wrote bio-graphical essays on Charles Ammi Cutter and John Cotton Dana for Encyclopedia Americana and library history colleague Wayne Shirley for the Dictionary of American Library Biography.  For ten years, Marshall served as book review editor for the Journal of Library History, later Libraries & Culture; his three hundred book reviews remain as models of literate, judicious writing.
 
Less well known, perhaps, is Marshall’s expert knowledge of Winston Churchill.  Deeply moved by the magnificent Brit’s rhetorical skills, Marshall collected Churchilliana.  Marshall was elected Churchill Fellow of Westminster College and to the Board of Governors of the Winston Churchill Memorial in Fulton, Missouri.  He sometimes provided Churchill-related information to the mass media.
 
Much appreciated and respected in Tennessee and the South, Marshall was elected an honorary life member of the Southeastern Library Association.  He won the Honor Award and the Fran-ces Neel Cheney Award from the Ten-nessee Library Association and distin-guished alumni awards from his re-spective alma maters.  John David Marshall is survived by three cousins including David Marshall Stewart, for-merly director of the Nashville Public Library and Visiting Professor in the George Peabody College for Teachers School of Library Science.

Memorials for John David Marshall may be sent to the First Cumberland Presbyterian Church or to Bethel Col-lege, both in McKenzie, Tennessee.

Reported by John Mark Tucker

   

In Memoriam: Haynes McMullen

Charles Haynes McMullen, 90, passed away on Tuesday, Aug. 30,2005, at Houston Medical Center, Perry, Georgia.McMullen was born in Tarkio, Mo. He was a respected and recognized expert in the field of library science. The culmination of his life's studies American Libraries before 1876 was published in 2000. He taught for many years at the Indiana University Library School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was an emeritus Professor of Library Science. He was head librarian at what is now James Madison University more than a half century ago.Excerpted from the obituary in the Houston Home Journal, September 5, 2005.  If somebody would write a tribute similar to Mark’s for John David Marshall the editors would appreciate it.

   

Call for Candidates

The Round Table seeks candidates willing to run for office in the coming year, and is soliciting expressions of interest and nominations from its members. We will be electing a vice chair/chair elect and a secretary/treasurer, and would very much like to involve newer members (as well as our long-standing ones) in the workings of the Round Table. 
 
Officers serve on the LHRT Executive Board, which meets at the Midwinter and Annual conferences; and both offices spend a year learning about their positions and responsibilities before assuming their duties.  Candidates elected in Spring '06 would assume their "-elect" status after the Summer '06 meeting in New Orleans ends, serve during Midwinter and Summer '07 in their "-elect" role while learning (Seattle and Washington DC), and assume full responsibilities for Midwinter and Summer '08 (Philadelphia and Anaheim).

For more information, to indicate your interest, or to put a colleagues' name forward for nomination, please contact the nominating committee members Mary Barbosa-Jerez ( mbarb01@gwise.louisville.edu), Steve Sowards ( sowards@mail.lib.msu.edu) and Holly Willett ( willett@rowan.edu).

   

History in the Curriculum
Reported by Charley Seavey

In October, 2005 I conducted a highly informal, unstructured, and doubtless unscientific survey on the state of history in the curriculum.  Emails went to JESSE (the library educator’s list) and to the LHRT list asking for input.

I received quite a bit of correspondence on the topic!  Replies came in from 23 of the ALA accredited schools of L&IS, which is good, although it does make me wonder a bit about the 27 or so that did not reply. 

Other replies came in from a community college, two unaccredited school media programs, and a department in Australia.  The person from Australia was the only one who reported no history content in their program.

The range of history content runs from the availability of three credit courses, with at least some combining library history with books and printing, to foundation courses that contain a large amount of historical material, to general statements that historical content is part of a great many courses across the curriculum. 

In a way this is a good-news, bad-news dichotomy.  A lot of schools did not report at all, although of the ones that did the place of history in the curriculum seems fairly secure.  Doubtless we could all do better.  It is probably worth noting the Round Table’s

   

Statement on History in Education for Library and Information Science

Rather than simply train students to be competent, successful practitioners, faculties need to make greater efforts to prepare people who will look beyond their practice and strive continuously to raise the standards of the profession and improve the system in which it functions...Faculties could do much more to expand the vision of their students by encouraging them to study the history and structure of their profession.

--Derek Bok, Higher Learning, (1986)

A knowledge of history and an under-standing of historical methodology are indispensable elements in the education of library and information professionals. A knowledge of history provides a necessary perspective for understanding the principles and practices of information science. Many of the most important issues of our day -- including, for example, intellectual freedom, fees for service, service to minorities, access to government information, the role of new technologies, and the place of women in the profession -- can only be understood in the light of their historical contexts. And the research process, an essential component of contemporary professional education and practice, can be significantly in-formed by awareness of both historical precedents and historical methodology.

The Library History Round Table of the American Library Association therefore strongly advocates that history and historical methodology be fully incorporated into the curriculum of all programs of library and information science education. Schools of library and information studies are urged to implement this recommendation in the following ways:

  1. The entire curriculum should be informed by historical contexts. All courses, regardless of subject matter, should provide a foundation in the historical background of the subject rather than focusing only on current practices and principles.
  2. A strong historical component should be part of any required core curriculum.
  3. There should be offered, every year, one or more courses devoted specifically to the history of recording, communicating, organizing, and preserving knowledge, and of the institutions, individuals, and professions engaged in such efforts. Such courses should be taught by a qualified member of the faculty and be based on the research literature.
  4. Historical methodology and historical approaches to knowledge should be included in the study and discussion of research methods.
  5. The use of historical methodology should be encouraged, where appropriate, to investigate issues and problems in library and information science.

That statement was adopted by the Round Table in 1989.  I think it significant in that it specifically includes information science in the discourse.

   

The Calendar

ALA

2006 Midwinter Meeting, San Antonio, TX: Jan 20–25, 2006
2006 Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA: June 22-29, 2006

SHARP

The fourteenth annual conference of the Society for the History of Author-ship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) will be held at the National Library of The Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) in The Hague and in Leiden, The Netherlands, on 11-14 July 2006. Call for papers at http://www.sharpweb.org/index.html#programs

American Studies Association, 2006 Annual Meeting Information

The United States from Inside and Out: Transnational American Studies, Oakland, CA, October 12 - 15, 2006
www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/asainfo.html

IFLA

World Library and Information Congress: 72nd IFLA General Conference and Council, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 20-24 August 2006.  See http://www.ifla.org/VII/s44/index.htm for the Library History Section.

Any member of the Library History Round Table may nominate one or more articles by sending a recommendation to the Chair of the Davis Award Committee. Also, the editor of the LHRT Newsletter Library History Bibliography will submit a list of candidates. Nomi-nations should be sent by Wednesday, March 1, 2006, to Mary Niles Maack, Chair, Davis Award Committee, Professor, Dept. of Information Studies, University of California Los Angeles.

This one is a bit early, but dissertations do take time to write.  Major professors take note :  The Library History Round Table sponsors the biennial Phyllis Dain Library History Dissertation Award. The award is offered only in odd numbered years.  Applications must be received by March 1, 2007.