Reading & Libraries II || The Context for a History of the American Library Association

The Context for a History of the American Library AssociationAuthor(s): Maynard BrichfordSource: Libraries & Culture, Vol. 26, No. 2, Reading & Libraries II (Spring, 1991), pp. 348-356Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25542341 .

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The Context for a History of the American Library Association

Maynard Brichford

This essay discusses the organizational, archival, and research contexts for

a history of the American Library Association, examining the organizational

complexity of the ALA, the substantial quantity of original source material in

the ALA Archives at the University of Illinois, and the context for research on

the history of the ALA as a professional organization. Technological changes, statistical indicators, vendor influences, the rapid development of academic

and corporate institutions served by librarians, and the financial bases for

the development of libraries and librarianship are among the factors con

sidered.

The Organizational Context

What has 46,455 members, 943 committees,

46 subcommittees,

92 task forces, 107 discussion or interest groups,

11 associations or divisions,

15 round tables, 51 sections,

23 offices, 234 chapters and affiliates,

and 13 editorial boards?

You should all know the answer and qualify for the advanced course in

library history. The administrative structure of the American Library Association provides the organizational context for its history. Constantly

Maynard Brichford is university archivist and professor of library administration, University

of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Libraries and Culture, Vol. 26, No. 2, Spring 1991 ?1991 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713



349

changing in names and numbers, these units are the ALA. Under the

association's umbrella, also known as a bumbershoot, there is shelter from

both sunlight and moisture. Many dry discussions have taken place there in

the dark. Through the administrative histories in the ALA Archives, we

have sought to record this organizational development.1

The Archival Context

The second context is archival. The ALA Archives includes research

material of long-term value in five general categories. First are the ad

ministrative and staff offices. The five largest record groups in this area are

the Executive Board, 1909-1987, with 158 cubic feet (for the uninitiated, one file drawer is about 1.5 cubic feet, so we have about 105 file drawers

from the Executive Board); International Relations, 1922-1981, 92 cubic

feet; Publishing Services, 1908-1985, 76 cubic feet; Washington Office,

1943-1976, 48 cubic feet; and Annual Conferences, 1876-1989, 30 cubic

feet.2 Among these archives are the Executive Board Proceedings, 1909

1987; the papers of eleven ALA presidents and three executive directors; World War II-era international relations project files; the American

Library and Library School in Paris; Publishing Services correspondence, 1937-1985; Washington Office subject files, 1953-1976; and annual con

ference programs. In order of holdings, the other administrative record

groups are Administrative and Fiscal Services, Public Relations, Head

quarters Library, Council, Library Education, Library Personnel

Resources, Research, Library Technology, Library Outreach, Member

ship Promotion, and Intellectual Freedom. We are processing major addi tions to our holdings for the Library Technology Program and Office for

Library Personnel Resources.

The second category includes associations and divisions. There are

eleven active membership associations and one defunct association. (I will

now speak in acronyms.) In order of archival size these associations are

ACRL, 1930-1986, 120 cubic feet; ALCTS, 1931-1987, 82 cubic feet; LAMA, 1954-1975, 72 cubic feet; LED (defunct), 1922-1978, 69 cubic

feet; AASL, 1964-1987, 55 cubic feet; RASD, 1954-1972, 45 cubic feet; PLA, 1926-1984, 35 cubic feet; ALSC, 1932-1984, 31 cubic feet; ASCLA, 1947-1986, 25 cubic feet; YASD, 1953-1984, 9 cubic feet; LITA, 1964

1980, 6 cubic feet; and ALTA, 1932-1973, 6 cubic feet. ACRL, PLA, and ALCTS provide nearly half of the association archives and contain more

than 53 percent of the 1,174 organizational units. Among these archives are executive secretaries' subject files; Cataloging and Classification Section and code revision files, 1931-1979; library statistics, 1920-1947; personnel ad

ministration and federal relations files from the 1930s; college catalogs, 1888

1965; and Library Extension and Adult Education Board records, 1924-1956.



350 L&CI The American Library Association

In the third category are the round tables, which provide an organiza tional home for members with special interests and concerns. The largest archival holdings are for JMRT, 1924-1989, 25 cubic feet; SRRT, 1968

1986, 13 cubic feet; CLENERT, 1975-1983, 9 cubic feet;MAGERT, 1978-1989, 6 cubic feet; and IRRT, 1963-1972, 3 cubic feet. There are

also round table archives for Services to the Blind, GODORT, LHRT, and six others. The most extensive documentation relates to new members

(JMRT), social concerns (SRRT), and continuing education (CLENERT). The fourth category includes committees and members. In order of size,

these are the World War I Library War Service Committee Archives,

1917-1923, 36 cubic feet; Accreditation Committee files, 1938-1971, 17

cubic feet; and International Relations Committee files, 1958-1972, 9

cubic feet. Smaller volumes are held for ad hoc committees, special com

mittees, National Library Week, Reference & Subscription Books, joint committees, Audiovisual, Intellectual Freedom, Organization, Constitu

tion & Bylaws, Awards, and Program Evaluation. The archives hold 25 cubic feet of members' personal papers and 12 cubic feet of photographs and posters. Collectors have provided large accumulations of postcard

views of libraries and autographs of librarians. Our experience with other

archives indicates that the photograph collection should steadily increase in

size. Please send your identified and dated prints and negatives to us at

Room 19 Library, 1408 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL 61801.

A final category consists of affiliated and associated organizations. The

largest holdings are for AALL, the law librarians, 1951-1983, 90 cubic

feet; ALISE, the library educators, 1911-1988, 33 cubic feet; FOLUSA, the "Friends" of libraries, 1982-1986, 3 cubic feet; and ALI, an early elitist group, 1907-1951, 1 cubic foot.

The resources of the University of Illinois Archives complement those of

the ALA Archives. These include the archives of the University Library, 1870-1990, 228 cubic feet; the Graduate School of Library and Informa

tion Science, 1893-1990, 320 cubic feet; and archives of five additional

library associations, amounting to 22 cubic feet. The next addition will be

the archives of the U.S. Serials and Book Exchange.3 Archives are a gamble that appraisal will be justified by use. However,

there is no element of chance in the statements that substantial parts of the

ALA Archives are rotting and will not be available unless they are refor

matted and that a similar amount will be reappraised and discarded if

demonstrated use does not justify retention.

The Research Context

Research is the third context for the history of the ALA. I submit that the

study of the American Library Association is not only broader than the



351

"applied research that studies library institutions and library services" but

that it is far broader than "reading" or "history." Researchers in the

whole range of academic disciplines can find significant topics in the

organizational and societal experience of the professional association of

American librarians.4

Founded in 1876, the ALA is 115 years old. Like most professional

associations, it has tended to regard its past as an epic story of heroes and a

few villains. The triumph of a succession of pioneers or leaders over dif

ficulties is a common theme or context for institutional history. The history of the American Library Association is more than a chronicle of the noble

struggle of dedicated leaders to develop new policies, procedures, and

organizational structures to meet society's demands for information and to

establish standards of service. It is more than hagiographical or prosopo

graphical studies. There is a gap between history and library history and a

gap between institutional and professional history. The ALA is understand

able as a professional association only in relation to the social role of

librarianship and America's world position in the twentieth century. Urbanization and technological innovation have shaped the development

of libraries in American cities and campuses. When the ALA was founded, an

agricultural nation was watching the inexorable march of the center of

population across the Midwest. In 1876 it was just east of Cincinnati. It is now about sixty miles southwest of St. Louis and headed for Mexico. The

westward movement has run its course. Today's population shift is to the

south. Urbanization is even more significant. Since 1876 Americans have

moved to the city and its suburbs. Our readers are a mobile population.

Contemporary versions of McGuffey's precepts are now transmitted by outdoor advertising and videotapes.

The ALA is the very model of a modern professional association. In the 30 September 1876 Library Journal, Melvil Dewey welcomed librarians to

professional status. He depicted them as "positive, aggressive characters"

who "can readily produce any book asked for,'' create "a desire to read the

best books," and supply school graduates "with reading which shall serve

to educate"; 115 years later, thousands of "proactive professionals respon sible for ensuring the free flow of information and ideas to present and

future generations of library users" are still seeking to attain what Dewey

proclaimed. The ALA is a major twentieth-century American response to

the information needs of contemporary society. Recognizing its "broad

social responsibilities" for "ameliorating or solving the critical problems of

society," it has special missions for children, educational institutions, and

adult education. Its exceedingly complex organizational structure includes

units devoted to ensuring "access to information" and promoting and en

couraging its membership to use standards and technology to achieve its

goals.5



352 L&C / The A merican L ibrary A ssociation

The ALA has also developed in the age of electricity. The telephone, mo

tion pictures, radio, television, copy machines, and computers have

quickened communication and dramatically increased the volume of

reading material. We don't need the information resource managers'

tabulations of "

information professionals" to realize that libraries as infor

mation service enterprises employ an increased portion of the work force.

World War I, World War II, and revolutions brought worldwide propa

ganda campaigns. The ideological turmoil of the past century has increased

the volume of the published record as the Reformation hastened the

development of sixteenth-century printing. Railroad systems brought pulp wood for the paper to print books. Highway systems moved the books to

the libraries and shopping malls.

The 1885 annual meeting of the ALA at Sagamore House on Lake

George featured six sessions on library technology: "Notes on New or Im

proved Library Appliances, Devices, and Methods," "Blocks for Card

Catalog Drawers," "Fastening Catalog Cards and Shelf Supports,"

"Library Numbering and Other Machines," "Iron Stack System," and "The Electric Light in Libraries." The advertisements in ALA publications and the Library Technology Program provide excellent documentation on

more recent technologies. A study of the impact of technological

developments on librarianship would also require studies of census, com

mercial, and survey data and case studies of the introduction of selected

technologies in selected institutions.

A study of the adoption of technology in libraries faces two immediate

problems. The first, which is common to all studies of technological

change, is that a large part of the technological development occurred to

meet general social needs?photography, typewriters, telegraphy, electrical

power generation, and radio were intended to meet the needs of the larger

market, not libraries. The second is that the technology reached librarians

by means of systems purchased from vendors or by transfers of materials

from persons who had developed the technology in other markets. As a

vendor-dependent profession, librarians have been the purchasers of

technology since the days of booksellers Charles B. Norton (1853) and

Halsey W. Wilson (1898). In 1914 the ALA published a descriptive catalog for exhibits of "labor-saving devices" at its Washington conference.

Among the exhibitors were the forerunners of Addressograph-Multigraph, Art Metal, Demco, A. B. Dick, Commonwealth Edison, Gaylord, Globe

Wernicke, Remington Rand, Royal, Snead, and Underwood. The coop

erative efforts of librarians and such vendors as Demco in Madison, Wis

consin; Gaylord in Syracuse, New York; IBM in Hawthorne, New York; H. W. Wilson in New York City; and OCLC in Dublin, Ohio, must be

analyzed as a partnership. Librarians tend to cite your eyes out, but a

perusal of library literature from 1876 to 1970 would only present a story of



353

librarians' published perceptions of technology adoption without covering the motivations and actions of the developers and vendors.6

Technological changes have been accompanied by a

continuing move

ment to organize, classify, and systematize the growing accumulations of

recorded knowledge. Konrad Gesner, Francis Bacon, Gabriel Naude, Her

man Conring, Prosper Marchand, Carl Linnaeus, Armand Camus, Karl

Zinkernagel, Anatole de Montaiglon, Melvil Dewey, and Mortimer Adler

have all promoted formalized schemes for the organization of knowledge.

The ALA Catalogs, 1904-1952, and cataloging and classification publica tions since 1912 document the professional association's role in maintain

ing systems for the organization of library holdings. American science and

literature were based on our European background, but librarianship has

drawn heavily on the American experience. Melvil Dewey, Charles A.

Cutter, Herbert Putnam, Carl Milam, David Clift, and their colleagues have guided American librarianship to a

preeminent world position.7

Always open to forming organizations, Americans have founded many

professional associations. Mass literacy increased the volume of publica

tions. The public school system contributed to the establishment of the

AASL, as the Land Grant College Act did to the establishment of the ACRL. Melvil Dewey's library systems contributed to the establishment of the ALCTS. The theories of Max Weber and Frederick W. Taylor played a role in the establishment of the LAMA. Herman Hollerith's machines

contributed to the establishment of the LITA. John Dewey and other educators contributed to the establishment of the ASCLA and YASD, as

benefactor Andrew Carnegie and adult education advocate Arthur Bestor

did to the establishment of the PLA. The role of philanthropy needs

scholarly investigation, not only in the building of libraries and the educa

tion of librarians, but in the extension of library service, the adaptation of

new technologies, and the development of library practice. Researchers

sometimes lack a proper understanding of the "memorializing" power of

the published word. The rapid growth of higher education from 1870 to 1920 is a factor in the

expanding demand for library services. Rather than ending the scholar's

private library, the nineteenth century institutionalized the scholar. The seminar and laboratory collections of researchers became the centers for

academic library development. While technology and systems provided ac

cess to large quantities of information in an "information rich" society, librarians sought salvation in surveys, statistics, standards, and status. The

three 1987 studies by Krompart and De Felice, De Boer and Culotta, and Werrell and Sullivan indicate ambivalent attitudes on the issue of faculty

status for academic librarians. Librarians were interested in the prere

quisites of faculty status, but lacked time and training to carry out active

research programs. There is also a doubt that administrators were whole



354 L&C/ The A merican L ibrary Association

heartedly in support of faculty status. Facing financial constraints and

pressures to restructure academic libraries to emphasize administrative

duties, library administrators did little to advance the cause of academic

status.8

About twenty years ago political blunders by the national government

triggered a wave of protests and criticism in academic institutions. Several

movements joined forces to protest and call for changes in traditional

academic practices. Faculty groups joined the movement and sought

freedom of expression, curricular reform, and involvement in administra

tive procedures. One aspect of the latter activity was often called "par

ticipatory democracy." Many committees were appointed, conferences

convened, and elections held. A budget-cutting backlash swiftly terminated a brief era of long-range planning. The elections and committees con

tinued, but goals and objectives were seldom articulated or defined. When

they were listed, they rarely included measurements of quality and produc

tivity or planned program development. The eventual results often

amounted to what we describe among the lower orders as "territorial mark

ing" and "whining sessions." The published title will probably be

"Ethological Parallels in Academic Adversity." Within the ALA, there were continuing jurisdictional conflicts between

TOL (type of library) and TOA (type of activity) divisions and associa

tions. ALA's philosophy was summarized in a January 1967 report by the

Committee on Organization on the "Role of the Library Administration

Division." The committee urged a

policy "which will encourage the in

dividual divisions to conduct as many and as varied activities as they can,

giving due consideration to monetary costs and the activities of other divi

sions or associations," and concluded that "it matters little if concerns

overlap." The organizational growth and complexity of the ALA merit

careful analytical study.9

The ALA has been a major publishing house for the library profession. Selection aids such as Booklist (1906-) and Choice (1964-) have been among its most successful publishing activities. Archival records of sales provide

valuable measurements of the demand for professional literature. Record

series 13/1/6 contains extensive information on book editing and sales from

1937 to 1985: 43 percent of ALA's annual budgeted income comes from the

sale of publications and 42 percent of its expenditures goes for their produc tion. Gary Facente's 1986 centennial history of ALA publishing provided an excellent survey of this activity.10

Libraries should be examined as institutions for marketing books. As the ''

spot'' at the end of a television documentary directs viewers to the library,

the dust jackets in the exhibit case by the library entrance direct readers to

the local bookstore. ALA's archival record includes many reading cam

paigns. The "Reading with a Purpose" campaign began in 1925 and has



355

been a recurring theme. Thomas Bullard's The Failure of Resource Sharing in

Public Libraries and Alternative Strategies for Service (1986) has provided a

stimulating critique of professional and budgetary commitment to high cost, low-volume programs for library networking and information

resource sharing. The role of the professional association in formulating

and guiding institutional policies and priorities is a worthy research topic.11 The role of the federal government in the development of professional

librarianship needs further study, especially ALA's relationship to the

Library of Congress, its lobbying efforts for the Library Construction and

Services Acts, the National Commission on Libraries and Information

Science, and the White House conferences. There is also a fertile field in

the exploration of the ALA's relationships with allied professional associa

tions. The American Library Institute, the Association of Research

Libraries, the Special Libraries Association, and the American Society for

Information Science have contributed interesting chapters to the history of

the ALA.

The United States has made major contributions to the organization,

duplication, and dissemination of information, especially the latter. In

library studies, more attention has been paid to information access and

retrieval than to information appraisal. Little research has been done on the

economic factors in librarianship and relationships between publishers and

clients. Librarianship, information management, and systems analysis in

the twentieth century are open fields.

A few years ago scientists enjoyed attacking persons who placed the ac

cent on the first syllable of research. For them, RE-search was anathema

and re-SEARCH placed the emphasis on empirical investigation. I con

clude with a similar caution. The delight is not in engaging in research or in

finding the "telling" document. It is in finding a topic that is worthy of the

many hours of difficult labor. Good luck!

Notes

1. A.L.A. Handbook of Organization, 1989-1990 (Chicago: American Library

Association, 1989). 2. Maynard Brichford and Anne Gilliland, Guide to the American Library Association

Archives (Chicago: American Library Association, 1987). 3. Maynard Brichford and William J. Maher, Guide to the University of Illinois Ar

chives (Urbana: University of Illinois Library, 1986). 4. Wayne A. Wiegand, "Library History Research in the United States," L&C

25/1 (Winter, 1990): 108. 5. Library Journal (3 September 1876): 5-6; American Library Association,

Strategic Long-Range Plan, Mission, Priority Areas, Goals, RG 2, ALA Archives, 1986.

6. Labor-Saving Devices (Washington, D.C: American Library Association,

1914), RS 27/1/4, ALA Archives.



356 L&CI The American Library Association

7. Rudolf Blum, Bibliographia (Chicago: American Library Association, 1980),

pp. 19, 35, 39-40, 49, 69, 105, 141.

8. ACRL Academic Status Committee, "Academic Status: Statements and

Resources," Journal of Academic Librarianship (1988): 25-49.

9. "Role of the Library Administration Division," January 1964 Report to

Council by the Committee on Organization in LAMA Publications, RS 27/1/4, ALA Archives.

10. ALA Treasurer's Report, FY 1989, 1990 Midwinter Meeting, pp. 2-3, RS

2/3/2, ALA Archives; Gary Facente, "A Century of Publishing at the American

Library Association, 1886-1986," a reprint from Library Science Annual, Vol. 2 (Lit

tleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1986). 11. Thomas Bullard, The Failure of Resource Sharing in Public Libraries and Alternative

Strategies for Service (Chicago: American Library Association, 1986).



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Reading & Libraries II || The Context for a History of the American Library Association