Awards
- Commended for Choice: Outstanding Academic Title 2016
- Winner of New York City Book Awards, Hornblower Award for a First Book 2017
- Winner of The Herbert H. Lehman Distinguished Book Prize 2016
Overview
On May 11, 1911, the New York Public Library opened its ""marble palace for book lovers"" on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. This was the city's first public library in the modern sense, a tax-supported, circulating collection free to every citizen. Since before the Revolution, however, New York's reading publics had access to a range of ""public libraries"" as the term was understood by contemporaries. In its most basic sense a public library in the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries simply meant a shared collection of books that was available to the general public and promoted the public good. From the founding in 1754 of the New York Society Library up to 1911, public libraries took a variety of forms. Some of them were free, charitable institutions, while others required a membership or an annual subscription. Some, such as the Biblical Library of the American Bible Society, were highly specialized; others, like the Astor Library, developed extensive, inclusive collections. What all the public libraries of this period had in common, at least ostensibly, was the conviction that good books helped ensure a productive, virtuous, orderly republic-that good reading promoted the public good. Tom Glynn's vivid, deeply researched history of New York City's public libraries over the course of more than a century and a half illuminates how the public and private functions of reading changed over time and how shared collections of books could serve both public and private ends. Reading Publics examines how books and reading helped construct social identities and how print functioned within and across groups, including but not limited to socioeconomic classes. The author offers an accessible while scholarly exploration of how republican and liberal values, shifting understandings of ""public"" and ""private,"" and the debate over fiction influenced the development and character of New York City's public libraries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Reading Publics is an important contribution to the social and cultural history of New York City that firmly places the city's early public libraries within the history of reading and print culture in the United States.
Full Product Details
Author: Tom Glynn
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Imprint: Fordham University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 3.00cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.590kg
ISBN: 9780823276813
ISBN 10: 0823276813
Pages: 460
Publication Date: 03 April 2017
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.
Reviews
A wonderful book. Thoroughly enjoyable. -Christine Pawley, University of Wisconsin-Madison
A deeply researched, well-written, and solid contribution to library history literature that will not only interest members of the library profession, but also scholars and students of intellectual, cultural, social, urban, and print culture history whose own research has been heavily influenced by the rich collections Glynn discusses. -Wayne Wiegand, Professor of Library and Information Studies Emeritus, Florida State University. With humor and sensitivity as well as exemplary scholarship Tom Glynn vividly recounts the story of libraries open to the public prior to the creation of the New York Public Library, and of their readers. Throughout he explores major themes of republican values for reading and information, liberalism, shifting understandings of public and private, and the debate over fiction. By concentrating on New York, Glynn provides a nuanced interpretation of the development of public libraries in a city that holds a unique position in the national imagination, and in so doing makes a significant contribution to the histories of readers and reading, of libraries, and of American culture. --Christine Pawley, University of Wisconsin-Madison . . . Tom Glynn recalls how the libraries were transformed into a uniquely accessible resource through a public-private partnership made possible by Gilded Age philanthropy. --Sam Roberts, The New York Times For anyone studying the history of public libraries this will be an essential work of reference, but it is also full of interest for anyone wishing to know more of the social and cultural history of New York generally --Ian McGowan, Alexandria: The Journal of National and International Library and Information Issues
. . . Tom Glynn recalls how the libraries were transformed into a uniquely accessible resource through a public-private partnership made possible by Gilded Age philanthropy. * -Sam Roberts, The New York Times * A wonderful book. Thoroughly enjoyable. -- -Christine Pawley * University of Wisconsin-Madison * For anyone studying the history of public libraries this will be an essential work of reference, but it is also full of interest for anyone wishing to know more of the social and cultural history of New York generally . -- -Ian McGowan * Alexandria: The Journal of National and International Library and Information Issues * Historians of cultural institutions generally and of libraries and readers in particular will find much to chew on in this thought-provoking work. * -Journal of American History * A deeply researched, well-written, and solid contribution to library history literature that will interest not only members of the library profession but also scholars and students of intellectual, cultural, social, urban, and print culture history whose own research has been heavily influenced by the rich collections Glynn discusses. -- -Wayne Wiegand * Professor of Library and Information Studies Emeritus, Florida State University. *
Author Information
Tom Glynn is a librarian at Rutgers University, where he is the selector and liaison for British and American history, the history of science, American studies, and political science.
