Tag Archives: Library of Congress

Indiana Affiliate Center for the Book celebrates National Library Week with Library of Congress card catalog kiosk at Indiana Young Readers Center at the State Library

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The Indiana Affiliate Center for the Book has received one of 56 card catalogs brought out of retirement by the Library of Congress and distributed through its Center for the Book affiliate network. All 50 states and six territories have received a catalog. The card catalog has been transformed into a Library of Congress information kiosk to help remind library patrons – especially during National Library Week – that the Library of Congress is a library for all.

Photo of card catalog.

The kiosk in the Indiana Young Readers Center is one of 56 distributed throughout the U.S. and its territories.

Every card catalog kiosk features signage indicating the card catalog was once in active use at the Library of Congress and explaining its history and original purpose. The front of each drawer includes the name of a Library of Congress service or program. Inside each of the 15 drawers is a card containing a brief description of the featured initiative, along with a QR code leading to the page on the library’s website that contains more information.

The 15 Library of Congress services and programs highlighted are:

“We’ve had many people stop by and look through the drawers and share that there are many things that they didn’t realize the Library of Congress did or offered,” said Tammie Buchanan, Indiana Young Readers Center librarian and director of the Indiana Center for the Book. “The kids have enjoyed using a parent’s phone to scan the QR codes and then they discuss what they find. It’s great way to celebrate National Library Week!”

About card catalogs
Card catalogs were a familiar sight to library users beginning in the middle of the 19th century and lasting for decades. Every drawer contained hundreds of individual cards that featured information about each item in a library’s collection. Arranged by title, author and subject, the cards helped people find materials and helped libraries to keep track of their collections. In the 1970s, the digitization of library catalogs began, and soon the physical card catalogs cases were retired. The Library of Congress catalog – once held in card catalog cases – is now available online.

About National Library Week
National Library Week was established in 1958 by the American Library Association to encourage, support and promote library use while acknowledging the essential contributions of libraries and staff in strengthening communities. National Library Week runs April 19-25. This year’s theme is “Find Your Joy.”

About the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the U.S. – and extensive materials from around the world – both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Researchers can explore collections and reference services, plan a visit, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information and register creative works of authorship.

About the Library of Congress Center for the Book
The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress is a community of 56 Affiliated Centers, promoting reading, libraries and literacy through the Library of Congress and its Affiliated Centers across the country. These Centers also elevate and advocate for their state’s unique literary heritage – developed by writers whose works reflect distinctively American places. Their stories, novels, essays, poems and other written works, rooted in the nation’s extraordinary diversity of people and geography, are often featured in the programs supported by the Affiliated Centers for the Book.

There is an Affiliate Center for the Book in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and Northern Marianas.

These Centers engage, inspire, and inform diverse audiences through author talks, web-based programs, podcasts, videos, writing challenges for young people, book festivals and other events designed to advance appreciation of the written word. They also play a role in the annual Library of Congress National Book Festival by naming a book to the Great Reads from Great Places program, and they send representatives to the festival to promote their state’s literary heritage to thousands of festivalgoers. In addition, they help to promote the activities and initiatives of the Library of Congress, the Center for Learning, Literacy and Engagement, as well as those of the other Affiliated Centers for the Book.

“We are very grateful for the Library’s Affiliate Centers for the Book,” said Lee Ann Potter, director of Professional Learning and Outreach Initiatives at the Library of Congress. “Not only does this community of 56 organizations regularly help the Library of Congress promote reading, libraries and literacy across the country, but all of them played an important role in finding fabulous homes for the card catalog kiosks in their states or territories. The responses we are getting from the Affiliate Center directors have been inspiring.”

About the Indiana Affiliate Center for the Book
The Center for the Book promotes interest in reading, writing, literacy, libraries and Indiana’s literary heritage by sponsoring events and serving as an information resource at the state and local level. The Center supports both the professional endeavors and the popular pursuits of Indiana residents toward reading and writing.

Indiana’s card catalog kiosk
The Indiana card catalog information kiosk can be found at the Indiana State Library in the Young Readers Center. The State Library is at 315 W. Ohio St. in downtown Indianapolis. The library is open from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and on some select Saturdays. Email or call 317-232-3700 for more information about the kiosk. Click on the links for more information about the Indiana State Library, the Indiana Young Readers Center and the Indiana Affiliate Center for the Book.

This blog post weas submitted by the Library of Congress and edited by the Indiana State Library.

Indiana announces 2022 Great Reads from Great Places selections

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The Indiana Center for the Book and Indiana Humanities have announced two book selections for the annual Great Reads from Great Places program of the United States Library of Congress.

In 2022, the Indiana Great Reads selections will be “Zorrie” by Laird Hunt and “You Should See Me in a Crown” by Leah Johnson.

Every year, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands is distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book during the National Book Festival. Each book is selected by a local Center for the Book. In 2022, the Library of Congress suggested states pick two books: one for young readers and one for adults. Books may be written by authors from the state, take place in the state, or celebrate the state’s culture and heritage.

Hunt’s “Zorrie,” a 2021 finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction, tells the story of one Hoosier woman’s “life convulsed and transformed by the events of the 20th century.” Taking place in Clinton County, the novel is a poignant study in rural Midwestern life and an exploration of the passage of time through individuals and communities. A professor at Brown University, Hunt is an Indiana native, having grown up in Michigantown and graduated from Indiana University Bloomington.

Johnson’s “You Should See Me in a Crown,” a 2020 release named by TIME magazine as one of the best 100 young adult books of all time, tells the story of a queer Indiana teenager’s senior year of high school and her pursuits to get into an elite college by winning the school’s prom queen contest as well as capture the attention of the new girl in school. Johnson grew up in Indianapolis and is a graduate of Ben Davis High School and Indiana University Bloomington.

“Picking books to represent Indiana at the National Book Festival is such a joy,” said Suzanne Walker of the Indiana State Library. “This year’s selections are so strong, and I’m delighted to shine a national light on these two worthy authors.”

The 2022 Great Reads from Great Places in books will be highlighted at the 2022 National Book Festival, which will be in person for the first time in several years and will take place on Saturday, Sept. 3, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C. This year’s theme is “Books Bring Us Together.”

This post was submitted by Suzanne Walker, director of the Indiana Center for the Book, and Marisol Gouveia, director of engagement at Indiana Humanities.

Historical children’s books – Elsie Dinsmore

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Learning to read? Reading to learn? Same today as it’s ever been; though, Mother Goose may honk at being put aside for a guy named Captain Underpants. No matter what you make of that, children reading is a good thing. With colorful illustrations and simple and poignant messages, kid’s books make an impression on us that we remember long after we’ve outgrown them.

The Library of Congress has curated a digital collection of classic children’s books. These are all in the public domain and completely downloadable. They are fun to browse or read in depth. The collection is available online here. 

I was excited to see that one of the books in the collection is by Indiana author, Martha Finley. Finley grew up in South Bend, Indiana and resided there until her 20s. She lived much of her adult life in Maryland, where she died on Jan. 30, 1909 at the age of 80. The Library of Congress selected the first edition of the first book in the Elsie Dinsmore character series. According to their notes, the copy in the Library of Congress came to them in a 1939 donation from auctioneer Arthur Swann. “Superb copy, and extremely rare … first edition.”

The Indiana State Library has a few editions of Elsie Dinsmore, but not a first edition. The character first appeared in 1867. The earliest edition we have is 1896. In one edition, the publisher has noted they used a new set of type for the 25th anniversary edition, as the original type settings had worn away from the repeated demand for re-printing.

The character is a religiously devout young girl who was raised on a southern plantation with family, and now lives with her father, a well-traveled and more practical-minded military man. The two clash as the characters develop, with Elsie’s Christian faith playing a most crucial role. The character must have appealed to many readers, although modern readers should be weary of Finley’s portrayal of slave life and speaking dialect given to those characters. The popularity of Elsie Dinsmore led Martha Finley to write a total of 28 books in the series. The character was revised in an updated series called, “Life of Faith: Elsie Dinsmore,” in 1999.

This post was written by Indiana Collection Supervisor Monique Howell. 

The Tabard Inn Library

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Over the course of its long history, many book donations have come to the Indiana State Library and have been incorporated into the collection. These books often contain personal inscriptions, decorative bookplates or other ephemera from previous owners.  A first edition of the novel “The Cost,” authored by Hoosier David Graham Phillips and published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1904, bears the following handwritten note on the inside cover:

“This book traveled all over Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Holland, 1913.”

It also has a colorful bookplate for something called The Tabard Inn Library. The Tabard Inn Library was a membership library founded in 1902. For a fee, people could obtain a membership which would allow them to borrow books from designated book stations throughout the country, many of which were located in public places such as stores. Members could exchange an old book for a new one by depositing five cents into the book station. The books were encased in black cardboard bearing distinctive red bands on the spines, hence the company’s motto: “With all the RED TAPE on the BOX.”

A magazine advertisement for the Tabard Inn Library program from 1905.

It is tempting to imagine the original owner of this book selecting it from dozens of other titles at a Tabard Inn book station located in a hotel lobby prior to embarking on their European adventure.

For more information on the Tabard Inn Library venture, including pictures of the book stations, visit here.

The Library of Congress has an entire special collection of books that, like ISL’s copy, were once part of the Tabard Inn program.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

Armed Services Editions @ ISL

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Providing recreational and entertainment outlets for American servicemen overseas was a paramount concern during World War II. The United Services Organization (USO) is perhaps the most well-known and enduring of these endeavors, supplying troops with live shows and revues performed by major Hollywood celebrities. Less famous but equally as important was the work of The Council on Books in Wartime, an organization formed by booksellers, publishers, authors and libraries whose main focus was to supply reading materials to troops. Americans happily donated books to the cause in numerous community book drives, but most books in the 1940s were heavy large hardcovers and could not be transported easily by troops. To remedy this, the council took bestselling books and fashioned them into a paperback format dubbed Armed Services Editions, which were distributed free of charge to servicemen. These books were purposefully designed to be small and flexible enough to fit into cargo pockets. The program was incredibly successful and paved the way for the rise of paperbacks as a popular and inexpensive book format in the post-war era.

Despite being manufactured by cheap materials, many Armed Services Editions survived the war and are now highly collectible. The Library of Congress has all 1,322 titles that were produced. Here at the Indiana State Library, we have three in our collection that represent works by Indiana authors.

“Here is Your War” by Ernie Pyle. This photo shows the size difference between the original version of the book and the Armed Services Edition.

“Little Orvie” by Booth Tarkington.

“Our Hearts were Young and Gay” by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at (317) 232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

Indiana Young Readers Center Coming in 2016

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The Indiana State Library will be opening a Young Readers Center in 2016! The idea was inspired by the Young Readers Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The Indiana Young Readers Center will be a place for kids to learn about the talented authors and illustrators from Indiana and about our great state itself.

The first step in creating this space was building a collection. The Indiana Young Readers Center collection includes materials written or illustrated by Indiana authors and books about Indiana for kids and teens. A portion of this collection is already circulating and available to check out. The Center also houses special, non-circulating collections of autographed books by Indiana authors and illustrators and Indiana state book award winners for children and teens.

The Indiana Young Readers Collection includes books by Hoosier authors Jim Davis, John Green, Meg Cabot, Norman Bridwell, and many more!

The Indiana Young Readers Collection includes books by Hoosier authors Jim Davis, John Green, Meg Cabot, Norman Bridwell, and many more!

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