Wisconsin Library Heritage Center
The Wisconsin Library Heritage Center is a program of the Wisconsin Library Association Foundation promoting understanding and appreciation of the history of libraries and librarianship in Wisconsin.
Today is National Bookmobile Day and the focus of this blog post is bookmobiles in Wisconsin library history. Although there were some earlier uses of motor vehicles to deliver library service, bookmobile service as we know it today was first demonstrated in Wisconsin in 1940 using federal funding from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Read More
Today is the first day of National Library Week with a national theme of “Libraries Transform”. Wisconsin has a long history of participating in National Library Week which began in 1958 as a joint project of the American Book Publishers Council and the American Library Association. Read More
When the American Library Association met in Waukesha in 1901 from July 3-10, Monday, July 8th, was designated as “Madison day” and more than 300 attendees boarded a train for the Wisconsin Capital where they were met by carriages that took them on a tour of the city. Read More
The American Library Association held its second conference in Wisconsin in Waukesha, WI in July of 1901 (the first was held in Milwaukee in 1886). As reported in the magazine Public Libraries: “The twenty-third annual meeting of the A. Read More
Just a little more than a year after the Wisconsin Library Association was founded and held its first conference one of the most bizarre events in American library occurred. In The Wisconsin Library Association (WLA 1966) Benton Wilcox writes:
“Disaster struck the infant Association in the spring of 1892 through the loss of its president,
On this date 119 years ago the Wisconsin Library Association (WLA) held its first conference in Madison. According to Benton H. Wilcox’s history of WLA, only 26 people were in attendance. Of these 15 were librarians. The call for the conference was worded as follows: “All citizens who are interested in library work are cordially invited.
Membership libraries, sometimes referred to as social libraries, were the predecessors of free public libraries. There were dozens of these libraries in Wisconsin before and after the passage of the 1872 public library law. Membership libraries originated in New England,
On February 3, 2004 on Library Legislative Day the Wisconsin Library Association kicked off an election year campaign, “I Love Libraries and I Vote”. The campaign was designed to encourage library users to vote and to remind those running for public office that many voters cared deeply about libraries of all kinds. Read More
The Wisconsin Historical Society was founded in 1847 and it quickly began to establish one of Wisconsin’s earliest library collections. Led by the vision of Lyman Copeland Draper and succeeding secretaries of the Society, that collection developed into one of the country’s largest and most important North American historical collections. Read More
The following individuals were either instrumental in supporting the idea of a state library association for Wisconsin and/or attended the organizational meeting for the Wisconsin Library Association on February 11, 1891 in the Office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Read More