Rebecca Browning Rankin Uses Radio to Promote the Municipal Reference Library of the City of New York and the Civic Education of Its Citizens

This article examines the use of emerging technology by Rebecca Browning Rankin, the director of the Municipal Reference Library of the City of New York, to promote the resources and services of the library to its intended clients. When budget cuts forced her to curtail the traditional publications used for publicity and outreach, Rankin took the pioneering step of employing radio to communicate with prospective customers in the local government and their constituents. Rankin and her staff prepared and presented over three hundred radio speeches between 1928 and 1938. The success of this publicity strategy was demonstrated by an increase in patrons and requests. The weekly broadcasts over WNYC also succeeded as an outreach service by communicating information about the local government directly to the radio audience.