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This article is a think-piece, exploring the potential for developing inter-operable systems or unitary databases for collecting, storing, analysing, and cross-referencing various historical bibliometric data. It particularly focuses on the conceptual development, use, and benefits of such a database or databases in library history. The author surveys a range of leading digital library history and book history projects, establishing their uses and commonalities, before exploring how far the tools for developing a common database system are already being developed out of his 'French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe' (FBTEE) project by a team centred on the University of Western Sydney. In the process he also outlines much of the current work being done in library history by members of an international research network devoted to community libraries, and lays out a vision and hypothetical case study of how, and with what results, this work could be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1918, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) partnered with libraries to develop International Mind Alcove collections in the United States and abroad. These collections aimed to help put an end to war by encouraging international understanding and developing cosmopolitan perspectives across the globe. During the programme's forty-year history, the alcoves grew from a group of small informal collections to a well-funded and highly organized operation. As the programme evolved, it utilized libraries, books, and the media to advocate for internationalism, educate the public about other nations, and instil cross-cultural understanding in children before they became embroiled in political controversy. The Mind Alcove programme and the work of librarians in its creation represents a significant episode in library history, placing the library profession within the early twentieth-century development of international organizations and global information networks that are the forerunners of contemporary international non-governmental organizations and global social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unpublished collection of watercolours entitled 'The Fruits of the Lima market. by M rs. D. E. Smith, between the years 1850 & '53' can be credited to Dorothea Eliza Smith (1804-1864), wife of the Scottish physician Archibald Smith (1797-1868) who published Peru as it is. The watercolours were once in the Crewe Hall library and were purchased by Paul and Rachel Mellon in 1957. They are now in the Oak Spring Garden Library in Virginia, USA. The identification of the artist has also revealed fascinating aspects in the life of the Smith family, including a tragedy at sea off the coast of Peru and a personal art collection that included works by van Dyck, Murillo, Jordaens, Andrea del Sarto, and Zurbarán, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a very brief introduction to the history of Quaker meeting libraries. It is based on printed catalogues, meeting histories, rules and advice issued at the national level, and some secondary sources. The possible number of such libraries is considered. Examples are given of the size of some libraries. Finally, something is said about the present situation in the Society of Friends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the New York Public Library entered the post-war era in the late 1940s, its operations fell under the zealous scrutiny of self-styled 'redhunters' intent upon rooting out library materials and staffers deemed un-American and politically subversive. The high point of attacks upon the New York Public Library came during the years 1947-54, a period that witnessed the Soviet atomic bomb, the Berlin airlift, and the Korean War. This article charts the narrow and carefully wrought trail blazed by the Library's leadership during that period. Through a reading of materials in the Library archives, we see how political pressures were perceived and handled by Library management and staff. We witness remarkable examples of brave defence of intellectual freedom alongside episodes of prudent equivocation. At the heart of the Library's situation stood the contradictions between the principled commitments of individual Library leaders and the practical political considerations underlying the Library's viability. As a general rule, the New York Public Library did not hesitate to acquire materials considered subversive by pressure groups, but the Library frequently struck a course that sought to avoid controversy when possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]