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This article discusses the history and experience of women librarians in Australia as identified in the extant literature and historic record. It seeks to explore the broader context of women librarians in Australia since white colonization including issues of equity employment and suffrage in an attempt to provide greater insight into the forces that have shaped the experience of women in Australian libraries. The article identifies key issues significant individuals and gaps in the published record of Australian women librarians. It identifies some key political social and cultural factors that may have influenced women's contribution to Australian librarianship and explores the often-complex nature of understanding this history in a country that was established not as a unified nation but as a group of loosely related colonies. The article finally serves to raise questions about how Australian library history has been framed and who may have been forgotten or ignored and provides suggestions for future research opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mary Niles Maack was a librarian professor scholar of comparative library history feminist and encyclopedist. In this essay I consider aspects of the evolution of the encyclopedia vision to its current online manifestation as Wikipedia. I also look at how essential it is that librarians contribute to the reliability of Wikipedia and contribute citations and suggest that librarians work to overcome paywalls that create a barrier to more robust documentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mary Niles Maack's 1978 dissertation on the history of libraries in Senegal constitutes a landmark contribution to the historiography of librarianship in Africa and to international librarianship. In this article Maack's dissertation her 1981 book-length adaptation of it and her subsequent writings about West African library development are first situated in the political-economic professional and scholarly context of the late 1970s before the dissertation is evaluated in terms of her sources and methodology. Her key theme of continuity and change her analysis of the French colonial heritage and postcolonial French efforts to preserve influence in West Africa and the wider relevance of the study are discussed. Maack's book was well received. Her work provided raw material for various other authors as well as for five subsequent journal articles by Maack herself. An attempt is made to answer the question What might a dissertation on library and information science development in a francophone African country such as Senegal cover today? It is suggested that the precolonial heritage political-economic factors information technology development aid and renewal of the library profession in Africa would require more attention. However it would not be easy for a PhD student today to match Maack's scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mary Niles Maack began her research in library history at a critical time in American feminist studies. Earlier scholars laid the groundwork for feminist research by identifying the contributions of women gathering sources about them and writing histories that corrected predominantly male perspectives on the role of women in American history. Maack addressed the problem of premature generalization in library history research in her 1982 article "Toward a History of Women in Librarianship: A Critical Analysis with Suggestions for Further Research." One focus of her scrutiny was Dee Garrison's work. When Maack's article was published the first women's studies programs were just being established in American universities; her research was an important contribution to a nascent field. This essay considers that evolution. As women's studies grew to embrace gender studies Maack's work evolved as well. This article considers "Toward a History of Women" and her unpublished 1998 paper "Book Women: Writing Feminist Biography" to understand the evolution of Maack's work in an evolving field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following World War II the City of Las Vegas was in desperate need of infrastructure improvements to serve its growing population. Although tourists and gamblers were dazzled by hotel-casinos lining the future Las Vegas Strip local citizens were faced with a public library that had not been updated since 1916 and a book collection that amounted to only half a book per resident. City Librarian Reba McKinster struggled admirably to serve her patrons with the help of local volunteers. One such volunteer was Beda Cornwall who had moved to Las Vegas with her family in 1943. Beginning in 1948 as head of the Citizens' Library Association Cornwall energetically took up the cause of building a proper public library for her adopted city. Although the city provided the land it did not have the funds to construct or furnish the building. Working with women's clubs and fraternal organizations Cornwall and her team raised some $60000 for the library cause from Las Vegas residents. Generous donations from some notable (and notorious) casino owners also helped push the project to completion. As the driving force behind the building's construction Cornwall spoke movingly at its dedication in June 1952 describing the library as "something that belongs to all of us." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article in Library Trends honors the academic career of Mary Niles Maack, a respected scholar whose work influenced scholars worldwide. The issue includes profiles of Maack, focusing on her research areas such as gender issues in library history and international librarianship. The articles highlight Maack's impact as a mentor and scholar, showcasing her lasting influence on the field of libraries and archives. [Extracted from the article]

Francis Stainforth (1797–1866), a British Anglican curate, owned the largest private library of Anglophone women's writing in the nineteenth century, comprised of works published between 1546 and 1866. This article argues that a study of Stainforth's library catalog, and the thousands of rarely studied works and authors within it, recovers women's book history from a historical perspective. Further, digital humanities (DH) methods, like mapping, are especially useful for studying and recovering women's book history at scale, as demonstrated by The Stainforth Library of Women's Writing project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of the development of Kosovan libraries and literature between the years 1990 to 1999, one of the most difficult decades in the county's history. During this time, both Kosovo's libraries and its Albanian people suffered under the effects of extreme political unrest. In addition to analyzing this period of social turmoil, the paper provides a brief history of Kosovan libraries, the oppression of the Albanians during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo, and an overview of the country's contemporary libraries and their vision for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, Croatian libraries have been influenced by four key factors: 1) becoming an independent state with new sociopolitical and economic systems in the 1990s, during which time the state transformed from socialism to a democracy with a market economy; 2) reconstructing after the devastation brought by war; 3) developing information and communication technologies; and 4) experiencing the effects of a global economic crisis, the impact of which is still strongly evident throughout Croatia. The present state of libraries in Croatia indicates that the profession of librarian-ship and libraries are facing many problems. Yet, there is also a sign of the significant potential resulting from the long tradition of librarianship in Croatian history, and the relatively high level of library development that had occurred centuries prior to the process of transition brought by upheaval in the late twentieth century. During the postsocialist period, libraries in Croatia saw the continued evolution of a historical, legal, and normative library framework invested in librarianship as a service to the public, coupled with an increase in international networking, cooperation, and education. The rapid global advancement of information and communications technologies in the last decade of the twentieth century expedited the construction of the technological infrastructure necessary to building Croatian libraries, enabling their innovation. At the present time, the country's libraries are characterized by a focus on the information needs of their patrons that is guided by the principle of freedom of access to information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the history of libraries in Belarus, including the library network development and its current structure. The paper uses data analyses of official state statistics, normative and unpublished legal documents, and scientific research conducted by the National Library of Belarus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a historical overview of the processes and changes experienced by libraries of all types in Montenegro during the past twenty-five years, as well as their current state. Major aspects of library work are covered: the general situation, legislation, buildings and equipment, collections, services, personnel, and automation. The period from 1989 to 2014 is characterized by a stream of social and economic turbulences as well as by rapid changes due to developments in information and communications technology. Libraries in Montenegro are keeping pace with developments in the library field generally, the National Library of Montenegro (NLM) being the primary moving force in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the complex situation that libraries in Bosnia and Herzegovina face and suggests possible avenues for improvement. After brief coverage of the history of libraries in the country from the Middle Ages to the communist period, the paper focuses on the devastation that occurred during the war that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995, which was formally brought to an end by the Dayton Peace Agreement. The problems that libraries have faced in the current period of peace cannot be understood without reference to this episode of the war. The most difficult problems they face today are the lack of adequate legislation, the politicization of library activities, and the war devastation. In addition, at the beginning of 2014, the library and information system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is based on a computer program for cooperative cataloging, was split into two parts. The fragmentation of contemporary Bosnian and Herzegovinian society is evidenced by the damage and division that politics has managed to effect, which the war did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from a communist to a democratic society has affected the entire social map of Moldova, including the library network. For over two and a half decades, Moldovan libraries have undergone major changes and reforms: from closed- to open-access stacks; from ideological institutions serving political platforms to public squares in support of democracy; from repositories of propaganda books to information centers serving the information needs of the communities they serve. This paper examines the changes in, and challenges faced by, Moldova's libraries from 1991, the year that marks the country's independence, to the present. Various projects-- government-sponsored or assisted by international organizations, such as the Open Society Institute and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation--are featured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a brief introduction to the Republic of Slovenia and presents a history of its library system. Although the first "public" library opened in 1569 and the first "public" research library in 1701, the current library system originated in the twentieth century, after World War I. The library system of Slovenia today is an organized network consisting of publicly funded libraries of all types, which have been in continuous development since the end of World War II. Several academic and research libraries started using informationretrieval systems in the early 1970s, while other Slovenian libraries started using automated services during the late 1980s. Slovenian libraries have recently reached a relatively high level of development and are now focused on providing digital resources and other new services to their users. While digital libraries are active these days and several acquisition consortia are currently providing user access to numerous resources after a long period of stable and significant growth, the recent global financial crisis provoked austerity measures that are threatening the continued development of the country's library system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, Croatian libraries have been influenced by four key factors: 1) becoming an independent state with new sociopolitical and economic systems in the 1990s, during which time the state transformed from socialism to a democracy with a market economy; 2) reconstructing after the devastation brought by war; 3) developing information and communication technologies; and 4) experiencing the effects of a global economic crisis, the impact of which is still strongly evident throughout Croatia. The present state of libraries in Croatia indicates that the profession of librarianship and libraries are facing many problems. Yet, there is also a sign of the significant potential resulting from the long tradition of librarianship in Croatian history, and the relatively high level of library development that had occurred centuries prior to the process of transition brought by upheaval in the late twentieth century. During the postsocialist period, libraries in Croatia saw the continued evolution of a historical, legal, and normative library framework invested in librarianship as a service to the public, coupled with an increase in international networking, cooperation, and education. The rapid global advancement of information and communications technologies in the last decade of the twentieth century expedited the construction of the technological infrastructure necessary to building Croatian libraries, enabling their innovation. At the present time, the country's libraries are characterized by a focus on the information needs of their patrons that is guided by the principle of freedom of access to information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at the McGill University in Canada which features a collection of rare medical and scientific texts of physician William Osler.

This article focuses on visual choices that American physicians made in representing their profession, their work, and themselves during the decades when modern medical culture was set in place, the 1880s through the 1940s. Historians have emphasized the role that image played in the formation of modern medicine, but the visual images they have explored in connection to this process have tended to take a reductionist aesthetic identified with experimental laboratory science as emblematic of medical modernity. Explored here instead are several counterexamples--genres of serf-representation in which medical students and physicians did not seek to link their identity with the laboratory and in some ways distanced themselves from the image and ideals of experimental science. The cultivation of these images invites us to see the cultural grounding of modern medicine as vastly more complex than a story scripted around the biomedical embrace of a stripped down, reductionist aesthetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

abstract: This paper provides a historical account of Ralph Halsted Parker and his work to automate libraries in the early to middle parts of the twentieth century. One of Parker's motivations to automate stemmed from a desire to professionalize academic librarianship, and this is evident in his administration as library director at the University of Missouri. Importantly, the motivation implies a simple means of judging the critical use of technology: that any substantive technology should be evaluated by how well it benefits librarians. Parker's additional contributions included consulting and coauthoring, with Frederick G. Kilgour, the report that led to the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), the world's largest bibliographic database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the collections of five rural midwestern public libraries to assess the presence of books with gay and lesbian content in the pre-Stonewall era. It considers how reviewers writing for standard library review sources (A.L.A. Catalog, Booklist, and H. W. Wilson's Fiction Catalog) described these works. Throughout the first six decades of the twentieth century, most gay and lesbian titles remained as closeted in the review sources as did the readers who sought them. Professional training contributed to a librarian's willingness to consider the purchase of such titles, but larger cultural factors shaped the context in which librarians and reviewers worked. While there may have been some intentional efforts to prevent such works from being reviewed, other factors kept books from the shelves, including the privately printed nature of some works, a library's practice of purchasing hardcover rather than paperback books, and the invisibility of gay and lesbian content to heterosexual reviewers. Thus, only the most sensational titles or the most innocuous works tended to find their way to the library's shelves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the contentious relationship between the irst few generations of librarians and series iction for girls. Librarians and library boards had mixed responses to twentieth-century series books; they favored earlier postbellum series that taught girls traditional religious behavior and caretaking, by authors such as Louisa May Alcott and Martha Finley. While such series could certainly of fer empowering kinds of agency, they left out a great many options that were opening up to women, including higher education, new professions, and individualized consumption. Keeping more con-temporary series off library shelves also meant that librarians were boycotting most of the work of publishing syndicates, particularly the work of Edward Stratemeyer. Syndicate volumes were often viewed as immoral and dangerously inluential by the newly professionalized arbiters of reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at changes in information provision and their significant impact on the development of the design of academic library spaces over the years. The history of the academic library as a building type is examined, and the move from the collection-dominated library buildings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the service-rich, user-focused ones of the twenty-first century is explored. Recent trends are identified, drawing on a number of mainly UK and other European examples. The effect of increasing availability of e-resources, new technology, and changing methods of teaching, learning, and research on design is also considered. Other issues covered in the paper include the importance of the design brief or program, interior space, fittings and fixtures, and finally the need to reflect on the success or failure of building projects through post-occupancy evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seventeenth century saw the increase in size of book collections in private hands. Domestic library collections were becoming more visible as important adjuncts to the lives of their socially and culturally engaged owners. This article explores the ways in which the practical and intellectual problems of storing books were addressed in the English home, through inventories and buildings accounts as well as contemporary literature. The changes in library furniture design over the course of the century are traced, together with the emergence of formal organizing systems such as catalogues and subject classification. Finally, the adoption of a different stylistic approach is examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parliamentary libraries serve parliamentary institutions on a national or local level. Usually they are founded at the same time as the parliament itself and organized according to the parliamentary model of the country in which they are located. The parliamentary library's mission is to support and facilitate parliamentary activities and make available all useful sources of information to the parliament as a whole. Thus, the parliamentary library is a specialized library from the point of view of the collections' coverage and of patrons as well. Today, parliamentary libraries are at a turning point in their history. All over the world they are radically changing their nature and are reinventing themselves. They are facing two main challenges: the convergence toward a digital and networked society and the changing role of parliaments themselves. Parliamentary libraries are heading in two main directions: they are becoming documentation centers by integrating their services with other parliamentary offices and departments, meaning that they sometimes give up their physical structure; and they are extending themselves beyond their traditional roles by also serving the general public, by acquiring the status of national libraries, or by becoming central research libraries for a specific field such as political science and law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan's parliamentary libraries reflect the challenges that the democratic institutions they serve have faced since independence in 1948. This article provides a historical context to the development of the bicameral parliament in Pakistan and four provincial assemblies. It describes the founding and development of parliamentary library and research services in that context and presents some of the newest innovations and reforms that the institutions have initiated in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scope of parliamentary information is vast and is enhanced by communication technologies. Therefore, parliamentary libraries face the challenge of offering services to Members of Parliament (MPs) that are faster, more efficient, and more diverse. In Mexico the Parliamentary Library represents one of the bridges to democracy, a conduit that disseminates information generated by the Mexican Congress. The Internet ensures the public's access to parliamentary information. But this is not enough. The human factor, the librarian's experience and expertise, is fundamental in assisting citizens to retrieve relevant information. This paper highlights the new services provided by the Analysis, Information and Documentation Center (CEDIA) of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, particularly the products used by the Reference Service to provide information and assistance to the Mexican MP staff as well as to the general public seeking government information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a short historical overview of Montenegrin parliamentarism and activities in connection with the Library of the Parliament of Montenegro since its establishment in 1953. An emphasis is placed on the need to bring this library up-to-date and to turn it into a modern parliamentary library. The status of the library within its parent organization, the Parliament of Montenegro, is analyzed, as well as the library collections (acquisition policy and organization), user profile, use and nonuse of sources and services, and staffing. Finally, the inevitability of structural changes in the Library of the Parliament of Montenegro's activity is discussed along with its goal to step into the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the development of the New Zealand Parliamentary Library in the context of other significant parliamentary libraries in the English-speaking world. There are four phases of development in New Zealand's 150 years, which are also observable in other parliamentary libraries. The four phases are: getting established, building a strong library collection, supporting library functions, and focusing upon Parliament. This paper tells the story of one library's development, highlighting the influences, connections, and similarities with other well-known examples. Although the world's parliamentary libraries take varying paths because of the different cultures, parliamentary models, and national library frameworks in which they operate, comparisons can be fruitful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Britain's House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries have a lengthy history beginning with small collections of books and papers in the eighteenth century and evolving into today's large organizations offering a sophisticated range of services. The central theme of this article is the conservatism of these institutions over most of their history, with the creation of modern library facilities only beginning in 1945 for the Commons Library (a process that did not accelerate until some three decades later) and in 1976 for the Lords. By way of comparison I will discuss: the U.S. Library of Congress (founded in 1800); Japan's National Diet Library (created in the postwar reconstruction in 1948); and, to offer an example of a smaller country, Ireland's Oireachtas Library. In summarizing the history of the British parliamentary libraries, I have also tried to indicate some ways in which we might draw upon this historical experience to identify fruitful new future directions for libraries supporting legislatures throughout the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a historical overview of parliamentary libraries across the world. It comments on the evolution of parliamentary libraries in France which were established after the French Revolution. It talks about the British Parliament and how its library was a traditional club library with a large collection of general books and parliamentary materials but a small staff until 1945-1946 when its funding was increased and additional staff hired. It mentions parliamentary libraries in Europe and Russia and the restrictive nature of the European Parliament Library which does not provide services to external bodies. It also talks about the history of the U.S. Library of Congress and comments on parliamentary libraries in Asian and Pacific nations and in Africa.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses several articles about the history, traditions, and development of parliamentary libraries in different parts of the world.

This article looks at two libraries founded in 1934 as counter-symbols to the Nazi book burning: the German Freedom Library in Paris and the American Library of Nazi-Banned Books at the Brooklyn Jewish Center in New York. It describes these two libraries as agents of cultural memory, as privileged sites for redefining German, German-Jewish, and Jewish-American cultural identity in times of radical change. Created on different continents and in different social, cultural, and political contexts, they reflect the dynamics of cultural memory from 1933 through World War II and the Cold War era to the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jews crowded into the ghettos and concentration camps of World War II were desperate for any avenue of resistance or escape, not only physically but also mentally. In the ghetto concentration camp Theresienstadt, the prisoner-run Ghetto Central Library, complete with bookmobile system, reading room, and branch libraries, served as a reminder that minds and imaginations remained active and free, even amidst devastating persecution. With the inclusion of Jewish book collections confiscated by the Nazis, it grew to 100,000 volumes. Brought to the Jewish Museum of Prague Library after liberation, the books are still being returned, whenever possible, to original owners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Library in Paris remained open to readers throughout World War II, and its history during tile darkest period of the occupation is a tribute to the leadership and courage of an American-born countess, Clara Longworth de Chambrun, and her small but dedicated staff. This article presents the drama as it unfolded--through the phony war, the fall of Paris, and the bleak years following the American declaration of war on Germany. The Concluding section offers a brief analysis of the American Library's unlikely survival and explores its complicated wartime history by using concepts borrowed from institutional sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tianyige (TYG) Library is the most ancient private library still in existence in China. It is also the oldest private library in Asia and one of the three earliest private libraries in the world. It was built between 1561 and 1566 by the Defense Minister Fan Qin during the Ming Dynasty. TYG witnessed the glories and the turmoil of the Ming and Qing dynasties, war, revolution, and numerous social changes and its own triumphs and downfalls. After 400 years of preservation and management by thirteen generations of the Fan family, in 1949 it was donated to the government at the time of the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The collection is strongest in local histories and imperial examination records during the Ming period. It is a remarkable representation of the Chinese private book-collecting tradition as well as a symbol of the continuity of Chinese culture and civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effie Louise Power (1873-1969) represented the high standard of collaboration among children's librarians that characterized the entire development of youth services work. This article examines Power's role in U.S. library history as a practitioner, library and information science educator, national and regional professional leader, and author. Particular emphasis is given to Power's place in the network of children's librarians in the early twentieth century, her professional authority as the librarian selected by the American Library Association to write the first textbook for children's librarianship, and her success as one of the many librarians who have written and edited children's books, especially folktale collections for use in storytelling programs. Emerging most notably from this research is the discovery of how energetically, albeit quietly, Power influenced not only her contemporaries but also the next several generations of children's librarians who have followed in her professional footsteps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides an overview of the shaping forces in health sciences libraries from 1974 to 1994. Discussion of selected developments; Description of the contributions of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to health sciences libraries and biomedical communications; Conclusions and observations on the role of libraries and librarians in information access and management.