The Library History Round Table (LHRT) encourages research and publication on library history and promotes awareness and discussion of historical issues in librarianship. It "exists to facilitate communication among scholars and students of library history, to support research in library history, and to be active in issues, such as preservation, that concern library historians." [1] It is part of the American Library Association.
Louis Shores and Wayne Shirley were instrumental in founding the Library History Round Table in 1947. [2]
In 1998, in celebration of LHRT’s fiftieth anniversary, Andrew B. Wertheimer and John David Marshall compiled a chronology of the round table’s activities covering 1947 to 1997. [3] In 2023, in celebration of LHRT’s seventy-fifth anniversary, Bernadette A. Lear compiled a chronology from 1998-2023. [4]
The American Library Association archives were established with input and support by the Library History Round Table as recounted by archivist Maynard J. Brichford. [5]
The Library History Round Table's official peer-reviewed journal is Libraries: Culture, History, and Society. [6]
LHRT News and Notes is the blog of the Library History Round Table. [7]
"Librarians We Have Lost: Sesquicentennial Memories -1976-2026, Digital Memorial" a project to encourage historical reflection, scholarly contributions, and community engagement for the 150th anniversary of the American library Association was formally recognized as a component of the 150th anniversary of the American Library Association. [8] [9]
The Library History Seminars were established in 1961 by the Library History Round Table. [10] The Library History Seminars are held approximately every five years and have been published in various outlets including separate proceedings, the Journal of Library History, and the journal, Libraries & Culture. [11]
There have been fourteen seminars. The Library History Seminar XIV was held virtually June 10-12, 2021. The topic was "Libraries Without Borders," focusing on the history of library outreach. [12]
The Edward G. Holley Memorial Lecture, established in memory of Holley is held at the American Library Association Conference. [13] The endowment fundraising for the lecture began with contribution of royalties by Wayne Wiegand from his book, Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey. [14]
The inaugural lecture was given in 2006 by John Y. Cole, Director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress and Jane Aikin, Senior Academic Adviser at the National Endowment for the Humanities. [15]
| Date | Lecturer | Title of Lecture |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | George Boudreau [16] | "Complicating the Past: Historic Sites Interpretation and the Challenges of a More Accurate History." |
| 2024 | Jorge Leal [17] | "Rock Archivo de LÁ, the Online Archive of Southern California’s Latinx Youth and Musical Cultures." |
| 2023 | Rebecca Romney [18] | "Cultural Memory, Community Work: Why Every Librarian Should Care About Rare Books." |
| 2022 | Kurt Hackemer [19] | "Animated Cartoon Shorts and American Perceptions of World War II." |
| 2021 | Venkat Mani [20] | “Publics and Their Reading Publics: A Pact with Books.” |
| 2020 | Lisa Tetrault [21] | “The Fight by Remembering: The Making of a Suffrage Archive.” |
| 2019 | Dawn Logsdon and Lucie Faulknor [22] | “Through the Looking Glass: The Wonderland of Archival Footage.” |
| 2018 | Mary Niall Mitchell. [23] | "Girls in a Frame: Enslaved People, Their Stories, and the Archives in a Digital Age." |
| 2017 | Kathy Peiss [24] | “American Librarians and the Collecting Missions of World War II." |
| 2016 | John Cech [25] | “History, Childhood, Memory, and Imagination." |
| 2015 | Ezra Greenspan [26] | "Where do the Lives of Individuals, Books and Serials, Archives, and Libraries Intersect?" |
| 2014 | Thomas Augst [27] | “The Business of Lectures: An Itinerant History of Public Culture in Nineteenth-Century America.” |
| 2013 | Jacob Soll [28] | “Library of Power, Library of Enlightenment: Libraries as Foundations of the Modern State 1400–1800.” |
| 2012 | Abigail Van Slyck [29] | "Thinking Globally about Carnegie Libraries." |
| 2011 | Sarah Wadsworth [30] | "Ghosts and Shadows: Reading Race in the Woman's Building Library of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.” |
| 2010 | Ronald J. Zboray and Mary Zboray [31] | "The Bullet in the Book: Reading Cultures During the Civil War." |
| 2009 | David Paul Nord [32] | "Five Studies of Readers of Journalism." |
| 2008 | Martine Poulain [33] | "Public Library History in the Late 20th Century: A Comparative Perspective (France, Britain, and the United States)." |
| 2007 | Akira Nemoto [34] | “Library Policies of American Occupation.” |
| 2006 | John Y. Cole and Jane Aikin [35] | “History as Collaboration.” |
The Library History Round Table publishes the "Bibliography of Library History" database. [36] The database contains over 7,000 entries for books, articles, and theses in library history and related fields published since 1990. Eric C. Novotny, founder of the database, was honored with the 2025 Innovation and Advocacy in Library History Award. [37]