Library History Round Table

The Library History Round Table (LHRT) encourages research and publication on library history and promotes awareness and discussion of historical issues in librarianship. It "exists to facilitate communication among scholars and students of library history, to support research in library history, and to be active in issues, such as preservation, that concern library historians."^[1] It is part of the American Library Association.

Louis Shores and Wayne Shirley were instrumental in founding the Library History Round Table in 1947.^[2]

In 1998, in celebration of LHRT’s fiftieth anniversary, Andrew B. Wertheimer and John David Marshall compiled a chronology of the round table’s activities covering 1947 to 1997.^[3] In 2023, in celebration of LHRT’s seventy-fifth anniversary, Bernadette A. Lear compiled a chronology from 1998-2023.^[4]

The American Library Association archives were established with input and support by the Library History Round Table as recounted by archivist Maynard J. Brichford. ^[5]

Publications

The Library History Round Table's official peer-reviewed journal is Libraries: Culture, History, and Society.^[6]

LHRT News and Notes is the blog of the Library History Round Table.^[7]

"Librarians We Have Lost: Sesquicentennial Memories -1976-2026, Digital Memorial" a project to encourage historical reflection, scholarly contributions, and community engagement for the 150th anniversary of the American library Association was formally recognized as a component of the 150th anniversary of the American Library Association.^{[8] [9]}

Library History Seminars

The Library History Seminars were established in 1961 by the Library History Round Table.^[10] The Library History Seminars are held approximately every five years and have been published in various outlets including separate proceedings, the Journal of Library History, and the journal, Libraries & Culture.^[11]

There have been fourteen seminars. The Library History Seminar XIV was held virtually June 10-12, 2021. The topic was "Libraries Without Borders," focusing on the history of library outreach. ^[12]

Edward G. Holley Lecture

The Edward G. Holley Memorial Lecture, established in memory of Holley is held at the American Library Association Conference.^[13] The endowment fundraising for the lecture began with contribution of royalties by Wayne Wiegand from his book, Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey.^[14]

The inaugural lecture was given in 2006 by John Y. Cole, Director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress and Jane Aikin, Senior Academic Adviser at the National Endowment for the Humanities.^[15]

Date	Lecturer	Title of Lecture
2025	George Boudreau[16]	"Complicating the Past: Historic Sites Interpretation and the Challenges of a More Accurate History."
2024	Jorge Leal [17]	"Rock Archivo de LÁ, the Online Archive of Southern California’s Latinx Youth and Musical Cultures."
2023	Rebecca Romney [18]	"Cultural Memory, Community Work: Why Every Librarian Should Care About Rare Books."
2022	Kurt Hackemer [19]	"Animated Cartoon Shorts and American Perceptions of World War II."
2021	Venkat Mani [20]	“Publics and Their Reading Publics: A Pact with Books.”
2020	Lisa Tetrault[21]	“The Fight by Remembering: The Making of a Suffrage Archive.”
2019	Dawn Logsdon and Lucie Faulknor [22]	“Through the Looking Glass: The Wonderland of Archival Footage.”
2018	Mary Niall Mitchell.[23]	"Girls in a Frame: Enslaved People, Their Stories, and the Archives in a Digital Age."
2017	Kathy Peiss[24]	“American Librarians and the Collecting Missions of World War II."
2016	John Cech [25]	“History, Childhood, Memory, and Imagination."
2015	Ezra Greenspan[26]	"Where do the Lives of Individuals, Books and Serials, Archives, and Libraries Intersect?"
2014	Thomas Augst [27]	“The Business of Lectures: An Itinerant History of Public Culture in Nineteenth-Century America.”
2013	Jacob Soll [28]	“Library of Power, Library of Enlightenment: Libraries as Foundations of the Modern State 1400–1800.”
2012	Abigail Van Slyck[29]	"Thinking Globally about Carnegie Libraries."
2011	Sarah Wadsworth[30]	"Ghosts and Shadows: Reading Race in the Woman's Building Library of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.”
2010	Ronald J. Zboray and Mary Zboray[31]	"The Bullet in the Book: Reading Cultures During the Civil War."
2009	David Paul Nord[32]	"Five Studies of Readers of Journalism."
2008	Martine Poulain[33]	"Public Library History in the Late 20th Century: A Comparative Perspective (France, Britain, and the United States)."
2007	Akira Nemoto [34]	“Library Policies of American Occupation.”
2006	John Y. Cole and Jane Aikin[35]	“History as Collaboration.”

Database of Library History

The Library History Round Table publishes the "Bibliography of Library History" database.^[36] The database contains over 7,000 entries for books, articles, and theses in library history and related fields published since 1990. Eric C. Novotny, founder of the database, was honored with the 2025 Innovation and Advocacy in Library History Award.^[37]

Awards

• The Justin Winsor Prize is awarded for the year's best library history essay. The award was established in 1978 and named for the American Library Association's first president, Justin Winsor, a writer, historian, and the long-time librarian at Harvard University. Honorees have included Steven Knowlton, Jennifer Burek Pierce, Robert S. Martin, Wayne A. Wiegand and John V. Richardson Jr.
• The Donald G. Davis Article Award is presented biannually to recognize the best article written in English in the field of library history in the last two years. The first award in 2000 was to Louise Robbins for "Fighting McCarthyism Through Film: A Library Censorship Case Becomes a Storm Center."^[38]
• The Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award is presented every third year to recognize the best book written in English in the field of library history, including the history of libraries, librarianship, and book culture.^[39] The award is named after Eliza Atkins Gleason, the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in librarianship in 1940 at the University of Chicago Graduate Library School. Honorees have included Louise Robbins, Christine Pawley, and Mary Niles Maack.
• Phyllis Dain Library History Dissertation Award recognizes outstanding dissertations in English in the general area of library history. It was first awarded in 1991 to Plummer Alston Jones Jr. for his dissertation, "American Public Library Service to the Immigrant Community, 1876-1948."^[40]
• The "Innovation and Advocacy in Library History Award" acknowledges individuals or organizations that have made recent, substantive contributions to LHRT or to the wider library history community. It recognizes those who have promoted library history in exceptional or new ways or who have reached audiences that have not been engaged previously. Amanda Belantara and A.M. Alpin received the inaugural Award in 2023.^[41]
• The Distinguished Service in Library History Award honors the career of a person who has a lifetime of scholarship and service in the field of library history. Andrew Wertheimer received the inaugural Award in 2023.^[42]

Additional reading

• Davis Jr., D. G. (2023). "Memories of the ALA Library History Round Table." Libraries: Culture, History & Society, 7(2), 155–160.
• Goedeken, Edward A. The "Literature of American Library History" was a bibliographic series that was published in the journal, Information & Culture, and its predecessors, Libraries & the Cultural Record and Libraries & Culture from 1990- 2017.
• Goedeken, Edward A. 2000. “The Library Historian’s Field of Dreams: A Profile of the First Nine Seminars.” Libraries & Culture 35 (1): 161–72.
• Goedeken, Edward A. "Being Part of the Conversation: The Most Cited Articles in Library History and Library & Information History, 1967–2015," Library & Information History 33, no. 1 (2017): 3–18.
• Hérubel, J.-P. V. M., & Goedeken, E. A. (1994). "Journals publishing American library history: a research note." Libraries & Culture, 29, 205–209.
• Krummel, D.W.. Fiat lux, fiat latebra: a celebration of historical library functions. Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois.Occasional Paper 209.August, 1999.
• Krummel, D.W. 2000. “Historical Bibliography and Library History.” Libraries & Culture 35 (1): 155.
• Lear, Bernadette A. "LHRT Leadership, Programs, and Awards, 1998–2023."Libraries: Culture, History, and Society. 7, No. 2, 2023: 181–215.
• Lear, Bernadette A. 2023. “Library History as a Community.” Libraries: Culture, History & Society 7 (1): 83–90.
• Robbins, Louise S. 2023. “LHRT: The Importance of Our History.” Libraries: Culture, History & Society 7 (1): 80–82.
• Shiflett, Orvin Lee. 1984. "Clio's Claim: The Role of Historical Research in Library and Information Science" Library Trends 32 (Spring 1984): 385-406.
• Tucker, John Mark. 2000. “Clio’s Workshop: Resources for Historical Studies in American Librarianship.” Libraries & Culture 35 (1): 192.
• Wertheimer, A. B. and J. D. Marshall. , 2000. "50 Years of Promoting Library History: A Chronology of the ALA (American) Library History Round Table, 1947-1997." Libraries and Culture 35 (1): 215-239.
• Wiegand, Wayne A. 2023. “Remembering LHRT.” Libraries: Culture, History & Society 7 (1): 66–71.

External links

• Bibliography of Library History Database
• LHRT News and Notes
• Libraries: Culture, History, and Society, official peer-reviewed journal of the Library History Round Table of the American Library Association.
• Library History Round Table (website)
• Library History Round Table Newsletter- 1996-2013.