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“A Search for Better Ways into the Future”: The Library of Congress and Its Users in the Interwar Period
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
I always regarded LC, in spite of its responsibilities to Government and in spite of its scholarly and museum-like characteristics, to be in essence a public library—the pinnacle of the library system of the country indeed, but of the library system viewed rather as a public library system than anything else,” Verner Clapp recalled. During the early years of his employment at the Library of Congress, Clapp worked at the public service desk in the Reading Room, and he retained more than an impressionistic view of its character and clientele.1 His recollections of that period, together with the observations of other library staff, illustrate the extent to which the library had a “public” character as 1920s prosperity gave way to the Depression. The Library of Congress chiefly has served Congress and the federal government but is open as well to scholars, researchers, and the general public. For the years before 1913, its archives contain little detailed information on library use.2 However, beginning with 1914 there is a long file of the reports of the chiefs of divisions.3 Their reports were never published, but the chiefs often wrote of matters not included in the librarian’s official annual report: for example, they discussed staffing and space problems, commented on interdivisional operations, and sometimes described library use and library users. Before the United States entered World War I, the chiefs wrote more about building the collections than about reader services, and for good reason: the library’s specialized divisions at that time acquired and processed most of their own material. It was a period of steady collection growth through copyright deposits, gifts, exchanges, federal documents deposits, transfers from other federal libraries, and bequests. From 1870 forward (when copyright deposit 78 “A Search for Better Ways into the Future” The Library of Congress and Its Users in the Interwar Period jane aikin “ began), the library rapidly amassed a massive book collection that, from about a million volumes around the turn of the twentieth century, would double by 1912 and reach 4 million by 1930. And that total takes no account of the maps and charts, music, and prints collections, much of which also arrived through copyright deposit. By 1930, the nonbook collections amounted to more than 2.5 million additional items.4 In 1933, Librarian Herbert Putnam announced to Congress that with over 4.8 million volumes, the Library of Congress had become the world’s largest.5 As the staff continued to build the collections, during the 1920s and 1930s, library use increased rapidly, notably including American and foreign scholars, government agencies and officials, officers and staff members of foundations and organizations, and students at all levels. Whereas 132,576 readers entered the Reading Room during 1910, a level of use that did not change much before or during the World War I years, the number suddenly increased to 172,549 in 1919 and began a steady upward climb, in 1924 reaching a peak of 236,415. It then dipped back by around fourteen to eighteen thousand readers, remaining rather static for the next few years, but in fiscal 1930 (which included the October 1929 stock market crash), use again increased, reaching a higher level than ever before, at 278,512 and rising during most of the Depression years, until in 1939 the Reading Room staff reported 421,878 visitors.6 There were a number of reasons, in addition to overall collection growth, for postwar increases in library use. In 1925, Congress accepted Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge’s offer to construct an auditorium and endow music-related activities and then established the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board to enable the library to accept gifts and endowments. During the late 1920s, gift followed gift, enabling the library to acquire more materials and hire staff consultants to systematically build the collections in specialized collecting areas such as aeronautics, American history, the fine arts, and Hispanic literature . Then in 1930 the congressional decision to purchase the three-thousandvolume Vollbehr Collection of incunabula, including a perfect Gutenberg Bible, drew international attention and brought new distinction to the library’s rare book holdings. All these were customary areas of interest for a national library, but not all the new initiatives represented high culture. Begun in the late 1920s, a project to record or otherwise collect American folk songs represented an important commitment to an area of popular culture. It brought to the collections tunes familiar to Appalachian rural dwellers, dockworkers, state-prison...