Main Street Public Library

Political intrigue, funding woes, board-driven collection decisions, librarians doing janitorial duties. Sounds like today, but these same concerns were the daily bread of libraries and library staff in Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Iowa in the first half of the last century. Library historian Wiegand (F. William Summers Professor of Library & Information Studies Emeritus, SLIS, Florida State Univ.) takes us to a pre-Internet and precomputer way of providing library services. While some of today's librarians may pine for the old days, Wiegand dissuades us from doing so. One public library managed to fill its librarian position only after 48 tries by the city council. Another hoped that by naming itself after William Cullen Bryant it would get a donation from him; instead, it received a signed book of poems. Despite the best efforts of library associations and professionals to promote "good reading," then as now, popular fiction drove circulation and usage.