Technology

TechnologyPublic Libraries

Significant

Events

Reference Customer Service

Significant Events

in American Public Library Reference Service

See also: public libraries, history


Significant

Events


1731 - First circulating library set up by the Library Company of Philadelphia, organized by Benjamin Franklin. Members paid a fee to borrow materials and underwrote purchases of books.


Significant

Events


1833 – First free public library established in Peterborough Library, New Hampshire


Significant

Events


1852 - Boston Public Library founded by Josiah Quincy, Jr. (left), George Ticknor (middle), Edward Everett (right), Nicholas Marie Alexander Vattemare, and Joshua Bates.


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1876 - Samuel Swett Green (left) publishes "On the Desirableness of Personal Relations between Librarians and Readers," Library Journal, v. 1, October 1876, pp. 74-81) which reads remarkably like contemporary reference literature. It is often cited as one of the first articles to consider the library customer. See it online at http://www.ischool.washington.edu/jwj/520/green.htm (ignore obvious scanning errors)


Significant

Events


1876 - American Library Association (ALA) was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Justin Winsor, William Frederick Poole and Melvil Dewey, and incorporated in 1879. The Reference Services Division began in 1957.


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Events


1881 – 1917 – Carnegie libraries built worldwide. 1,681 libraries built in the United States, 2,507 built around the world.


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Events


1887 – First library school established at Columbia University, New York City, by Melvil Dewey.


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Events


1889 - Minneapolis Public Library separates children's books from the rest of the collection in 1889. In 1892, a separate room was set aside for children and children's books. In 1899, the storytelling hour was incorporated as a regular part of the program at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Anne Carroll Moore joined New York Public Library in 1906; in 1911, a Central Children’s Room opened in the new Central Library. (Pictured are Anne Carroll Moore and the Central Library Children’s Room of Madison Public Library, 1906.)


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Events


1919 - Approximately 3,500 public libraries in existence. Half were Carnegie libraries.


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Events


1913 - A gift from a local citizen established the first phonorecord collection outside the Library of Congress, at the St. Paul (Minnesota) Public Library.


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Events


1935 - New York Times first microfilmed past issues, 1914-1927. (First microfilm reader patented in 1922.)


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Events


1942 - Film lending became a part of library service. By 1955, over 250 libraries were lending films.


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Events


1980s - OPACs (online public access catalogs) begin to replace card catalogs.


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Events


1983 - Apple IIe first sold commercially. 1984 - The first portable PC by IBM is introduced in 1984, featuring 256-640 KB RAM.


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1991 - Introduction of World Wide Web interface to the Internet. Pictured is Tim Berners Lee, credited for inventing the World Wide Web and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).


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1999 - First virtual reference network in the United States. In 2005, the 24/7 Reference network merged with QuestionPoint.


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2003 - 16,421 public libraries in the United States, according to the American Library Association.


Significant

Events


**Much of this information was taken from Famous First Facts, 5th ed. H. W. Wilson, 1997.

Photos from Flickr, Wikipedia, Google Images and various web sites.

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