"Libraries and Readers: Toward a History of Libraries and Culture in America" is the topic of a lecture on Sept. 12 by Kenneth E. Carpenter, assistant director for research libraries at Harvard University.
The lecture will be delivered at 5:30 p.m. in the Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the Madison Building; it is free and open to the public.
Mr. Carpenter's presentation will focus on the need for a collaborative, multivolume history of libraries and culture for the United States. Prominent library, book and cultural historians from the United States and Britain have been invited by the Center for the Book to the lecture and to a conference the next day.
Participants will include Phyllis Dain, author of The History of the New York Public Library (1972); Donald G. Davis Jr. of the University of Texas; Peter Hoare, editor of the planned A History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland; John Hench of the American Antiquarian Society; Jane Aiken Rosenberg, author of The Nation's Great Library: Herbert Putnam and the Library of Congress, 1899-1939 (1993); Wayne A. Wiegand of the University of Wisconsin; Michael Winship of the University of Texas; and Ian Willison, co-editor of the forthcoming The History of the Book in Britain.
SHARP Meets in Edinburgh. Larry Sullivan, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, and John Y. Cole, director of the Center for the Book, represented the Library of Congress on June 14-17 in Edinburgh, England, at the third annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP). The second annual meeting of this rapidly growing organization (the membership now exceeds 800) was hosted by the Center for the Book in July 1994 at the Library of Congress (see LC Information Bulletin, Sept. 19, 1994).
Edinburgh University's Department of English Literature hosted the 1995 meeting, at which more than 100 book historians and literary scholars presented papers. Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein presented the keynote address, titled "Proclaiming the End of the Book: Some Perspectives on Media Change," on June 15. Ms. Eisenstein reminded the audience that she had been one of the Center for the Book's first visiting scholars and, in fact, had suggested that the center's true focus was not "the book," but instead "print culture." The larger themes she addressed were considered from a different perspective on June 16 by the conference dinner speaker, Ian Donaldson of King's College, Cambridge, whose topic was "The Destruction of the Book."
There were 34 sessions at the conference, each consisting of a minimum of three papers (at the Library of Congress in 1994 there were 27 sessions). Larry Sullivan presented his paper, "On Nietzsche in Prison: Readings and Misreadings" during the session "Reading and Reading Practice" on June 15. John Cole chaired the session on "Literary Celebrity and Self-Promotion" on the same day, and spoke about the Center for the Book and its activities at the plenary session on July 17, titled "The History of the Book."
He described the Center for the Book's efforts to encourage the study of library, book and print culture history and announced its forthcoming (Sept. 12-13) lecture and conference about American library history.
Information about SHARP and its activities may be obtained from Linda Conners, Drew University Library, Madison, NJ 07940. The annual membership fee of $15 includes a subscription to the quarterly SHARP News.
Drew University Establishes History of the Book Center. The Graduate School of Drew University in Madison, N.J., has formally approved the creation of a Center for the History of the Book. In addition to other activities, the center will manage the New York Area Book History Consortium, a cooperative program of graduate- level studies.
Planning meetings to develop a program of courses, expected to be launched in fall 1996, are being held; plans are also being made for off-campus activities such as lectures and exhibitions. For information, contact Jonathan Rose, History Department, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940; telephone (201) 408-3545.
History of Copyright Article Available. As part of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the landmark Copyright Law of 1870, which centralized U.S. copyright registration and deposit at the Library of Congress, the Copyright Office has reprinted an article by Center for the Book Director John Cole. "Of Copyright, Men and a National Library," a 26-page illustrated article originally published in the Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress in April 1971, tells the story of how copyright was centralized at LC and assesses the significance of copyright deposits to the development of the Library's collections.Single copies are available from the Center for the Book, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540.
Chinese Publishers Visit LC. On June 9 the Center for the Book hosted a delegation of Chinese publishers at the Library. Headed by Vice Minister Xie Hong of the Press and Publication Administration of the People's Republic of China, the delegation met with Dr. Billington; Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights; Carol Risher of the Association of American Publishers; and John Cole, who also gave them a tour of the Jefferson Building. In addition, they received briefings from William Lofquist of the Commerce Department and from George F. Beasley, Lorraine Toly and Betty Ann Felthousen of the U.S. Information Agency.
Library Publishers Meet in Canada. John Cole, who served as the Library's acting director of publishing from September 1993 through May 1995, represented the Library of Congress at the sixth biennial conference of the International Group of Publishing Libraries (IGPL), which met in Montreal and Ottawa on June 11-14. The meeting was hosted jointly by McGill University Libraries and the National Library of Canada.
Other participating institutions included the American Antiquarian Society, the BibliothŠque nationale de France, the BibliothŠque national du Quebec, the BibliothŠque Royale de Belgique, the British Library, Cambridge University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Harvard University Libraries, Herzog August Bibliothek, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Archives of Canada, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, New York Public Library and the University of Toronto Library.
The presentations, discussions and exchanges of ideas were organized into five sessions: Trends in Scholarly Publishing, Communication and Dissemination; Experiences in Using Research Collections to "Extend Knowledge," "Popularize Culture" or "Reach Donors" Beyond the Scholarly Community; Evaluating the Results of Publications, Exhibitions and Public Programming; Using New Technologies; and Planning for 2000.
Many of the suggestions growing out of the discussions recognized: (1) the widening scope of publishing, which now is intimately tied to exhibitions, public programming, institutional "marketing" and communication in general; (2) the rapidly changing nature of publishing, which is being revolutionized by electronic technologies; (3) the need for future conference "update" sessions on information technology and sessions on topics such as electronic licensing agreements; and (4) the need for improved communication among IPGL members and others who could become part of collaborative or bilateral projects in the future.