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This article considers the artists' book collections in two academic libraries: New York University, where books circulate routinely, and Cornell University, where books circulate by special arrangement. The authors examine how these collections were formed, their evolution, the challenges and advantages to having open collections, recommendations for libraries considering making their holdings available to patrons in the open stacks, and how these initiatives can contribute to a more equitable and inclusive library environment. The authors focus on how these endeavors can bridge gaps between patrons from marginalized communities and academic libraries. [This article is a combination of two papers presented at the 50th annual ARLIS/NA conference held in Chicago, Illinois, in April 2022] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June, 2001 the CITY2000 Foundation donated 500,000 photographic negatives, over 500 audio- and videotapes, and office archives to the University of Illinois at Chicago. The collection represents an image time capsule of a major American city during the year of the millennium. Every class of individual, event of the year, and neighborhood was explored by 200 professional photographers and brought together in this unique archive. As part of its agreement in accepting the archive, the UIC Library committed to making the collection available at least until the year 3000. This paper discusses the steps UIC is taking to make this possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number and location of tornadoes in the greater Chicago area is a topic of frequent interest among the media, public, and local government agencies served by the National Weather Service (NWS) Chicago Forecast Office. While accounts of tornadoes over the last several decades are generally clear, tornadoes occurring prior to 1950—especially those considered to be weak—are often more difficult to discern owing to limited corresponding detailed reports. As part of an effort to review and update all tornadoes known to have occurred within the modern-day boundaries of Chicago, NWS Chicago staff reviewed the 22 May 1855 tornado, which is regarded as the first to impact the city of Chicago. Multiple sources reported that the tornado occurred near the town of Jefferson, which eventually became the Jefferson Park neighborhood of Chicago. However, after reviewing multiple historical records, newspaper articles, property maps, and genealogical information, the actual location of the tornado was determined to have been in present-day Des Plaines. Confusion over the name "Jefferson" likely led to the misunderstanding that, until now, has been perpetuated through numerous reports and media accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first Art Libraries Society of North America conference was held in New York City in 1973. The final session of the conference posed the questions, "Who are we? Where are we going?" Now in 2022, five long-time members of the society reflect on those questions, providing some perspective on the origins, early years, and accomplishments of ARLIS/NA. What was the impetus for a stand-alone organization, given the many other library associations with art librarian members? Who were the leaders who made it happen? How did regional chapters develop? Who were the exhibitors and sponsors? How did the publications advance the profession? What were some of the highlights along the way? [This article presents the talks from a special panel at the fiftieth anniversary ARLIS/NA Conference held in Chicago, Illinois, in April 2022.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of library union, Chicago Public Library (CPL) Local 88, in the development of the CPL in Chicago, Illinois, in 1937-1952. Based on the published newsletters and records available in the Chicago Public Library Municipal Reference Collection, Local 88 had carried out strategies to strengthen the weakening civil service practice within the CPL, improved educational opportunities for staff, and provided cultural and social events for employees. In addition, the union led to the development of a new moral model for public librarianship and rejected the patronage process of professionalism.

In this article, I reconsider the significance of Daniel Burnham’s contribution to the professionalization of city planning in light of contemporaneous practices of viewing and depicting the city from above. A closer look at the working methods employed and images produced by Burnham and his staff reveals their role in cultivating a shared civic imaginary. That is, drawing upon existing widespread cultural enthusiasm for viewing the city from above, they stimulated the imagination toward the city as it might be, while positioning themselves as new kinds of experts tasked with reconciling discrepancies between the built and imagined city on behalf of the public. I structure the article in particular around the discussion of three images: San Francisco as envisaged from the Twin Peaks viewing platform, published in Report on a Plan for San Francisco (1905); a bird’s-eye view of Chicago as envisaged in a watercolor by Jules Guerin, published in The Plan of Chicago (1909); and a Chicago civic center as envisaged in another watercolor by Jules Guerin, published in The Plan of Chicago (1909). Through formal and discursive consideration of these images, I argue that a burgeoning sense of the civic imaginary shared by professionals, elites, and ordinary citizens played a crucial role in the institution of the city-planning profession in the first decade of the twentieth century. Regardless of the specific details and subsequent status of the plans to which they refer, the images are important to consider in their own right. As instruments in a recasting of urban form, they materialize a new sense of the city as both malleable and the object of concern for a new kind of specialist. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Progressive Era Chicago, jobless men, sex workers, and black migrants were regulated through scales of vice, vagrancy, and race. But this regulation was challenged. The jobless and homeless men in Chicago’s vagrancy scale rejected popular censure and criminal sanction. The sex workers who made up Chicago’s vice scale resisted vice prohibitions. Like jobless and homeless men, they disaggregated and produced mini scales that defied the efforts of authorities to contain and eliminate their practices. Black migrants contested the de facto segregation and the racial covenants that bolstered Chicago’s race scale, which developed during the Great Migration on the city’s south side. Tracking the shifts and fluctuations of Chicago’s legal landscapes, this article stresses the agency of marginal men and women in the design and organization of the built environment in the industrial city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on African and African American performers and entertainers who participated in the world's fair Century of Progress held in Chicago, Illinois in 1933-1934. Accounts of the Century of Progress appearing in the African American newspaper "Chicago Defender" are explored. Some of the participants discussed include African American Jazz bandmaster Major N. Clark Smith, Ashanti Royal heir Duke Kwesi Kuntu who led an African performing group featuring Africans from Ashanti and Sierra Leone, West African prince and American college student Modupe Paris who featured traditional African ceremonies, African American tap dancer Bill Robinson, and African American pianist Earl Hines.