The GLBT Round Table is a group with a lot of firsts. Formed during the 1970 Annual Conference in Chicago as the “Gay Liberation Task Force,” a part of the larger Social Responsibilities Round Table, they were the first profession-based gay organization. [1] The next year, they established the first award for gay literature, now called the Stonewall Award. That same year they also published the first gay bibliography, which was a response to the lack of gay-positive books in libraries.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, or so you will think when you look at this laundry list of key considerations Katherine L. Sharp outlines for someone setting up a library in her writing “Catechism for Librarians.” Unlike a religious Catechism, she outlines not what to believe but a series of questions a librarian must answer for herself. Despite being only 3 by 5 inches in size, 24 pages long, and never published, these 180 questions still provide a reasonable guide to someone setting up a library today. And their relevance is still more interesting when you consider that this was written in 1891, with no knowledge of the sweeping changes in librarianship and technology that were to come. A few of the more prescient questions are presented here in their modern context: Continue reading “Have you a card catalog? Katharine L. Sharp’s Catechism for Librarians”
For an educated woman at the turn of the century, there were few options for a intellectually satisfying career, as Katharine L. Sharp discovered as a newly minted college graduate in 1885. She taught foreign languages at a high school in Illinois for two years, but then she took a position as Assistant Librarian at the Scoville Institute and seems to have found her calling. Believing so strongly in the burgeoning field of professional librarianship, she enrolled in the new New York State Library School in 1889, where she studied under Melvil Dewey. [1] Continue reading ““The Best Man in America is a Woman”: Katharine L. Sharp and the First “Lady Librarians””
As part of her 2007-08 presidential term, Loriene Roy initiated an oral history program for retiring librarians, “Capturing Our Stories.” So far this program, which is still on-going, has produced 35 recordings with full transcripts, which have now been added to the ALA Digital Archives and made available to researchers online.
Librarians interviewed range from school librarians to public library directors to catalogers, from California to New York. One librarian of note interviewed is Sanford Berman, author of Prejudices and Antipathies, famous criticism of the sexism and racism inherent in the Library of Congress subject headings of the 1970s. Berman’s personal papers are also held in the ALA Archives.
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Explore the full holdings of these oral histories here.
If you’re interested in helping with the “Capturing Our Stories,” you can find more information at the project website.