International Trends in Library History

In 1998 Mary Niles Maack, faculty member at UCLA and longtime colleague in the Library History Round Table (LHRT) of the American Library Association, presented a paper entitled "International Dimensions of Library History: Leadership and Scholarship, 1978–1998." Her brief survey reviewed the progress and significance of three types of conference initiatives: awards and programs within the American Library Association, the Library History Seminars held every five years, and the number of international conferences—all of which had grown in their inclusion of international topics and speakers.

Maack closed by suggesting two ongoing complementary trends—the expansion of interest in international topics by American scholars and the broadening scope for library historians, one that embraces the history of books, publishing, reading, and scholarship. In addition to covering the activities of the LHRT, Maack also noted the founding of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) in 1991 as evidence for these trends. She closed her survey by reminding her readers of the impact of electronic communication technology on libraries as they have been known historically. This, she says, has

significant implications for the library, which, as a social agency, has for almost all its history been associated with a place, a building, and a collection of physical materials. As we enter the twenty-first century, we are already experiencing the issue of dealing with digital records that can be simultaneously accessed from many locations, and we are being forced to ask some deep questions about what libraries have been in the past, what they have done for us, and what profound effects they have had on scholarship and on society.¹

More than a decade later, what are the identifiable trends in the international world of library history? The three types of program events that Maack pointed out have continued with ripples, if not tidal waves, across our subdiscipline, although they seem to have declined in attendance. The two complementary developments—more interest in international topics and the coupling of library history with book history and reading history—also continue, though they have taken a slightly different direction than she might have envisioned. Moreover, there are new trends that warrant notice that are a consequence of earlier developments. Without striving to be comprehensive, this article seeks to outline with a broad brush the evolution and current status of international library history as we move into the new century's second decade. It is not intended to be a bibliographical review.

In preparation for this review I queried several international colleagues.² Together we identified four trends that have resulted from the efforts put forward in the twentieth century. With regard to library history, they are 1) a broader base of scholarship that incorporates new approaches, 2) a wider scope of related research and publishing that reaches special groups of readers, 3) a greater appreciation of the role of libraries that considers varying audiences, and 4) more pragmatic considerations that make for new challenges.

A Broader Base of Scholarship That Incorporates New Approaches

Library history writing in the United States has exhibited an international emphasis to a greater degree than in the past, possibly because international graduate students have been attracted to researching the history of libraries in their homelands.³ Another part of this picture is the number of substantial national histories of libraries that have appeared, are in progress, or are projected.⁴ These endeavors, supported by a number of scholars within and outside the profession, have codified the library history of a nation or region in an encyclopedic form. Finally, there is evidence that more and more trained library historians are utilizing primary source materials more extensively in their research, resulting in more analytical approaches and treatments, in contrast to progressive and celebratory treatments.⁵

A Wider Scope of Research and Publishing That Reaches Special Groups of Readers

The production of library history has always appealed to a certain literary elite and to antiquarians in the library profession. The result has been a relatively narrow scope of types of history: biographical and institutional as well as histories that...