Although she was a librarian greater than 100 years in the past, Mary Lemist Titcomb impressed NIST librarian Kathryn Miller’s profession. Each girls have a ardour for getting books and information out to the general public.
Credit score:
R. Wilson/NIST
The joys of discovering a brand new guide — what might be higher? As a child, nothing was extra thrilling than strolling right into a library and discovering my subsequent journey.
Effectively, that was till I found that libraries might deliver books to me. In a van! To my neighborhood! Now, that was thrilling.
Quick ahead a couple of many years, and I discovered myself in graduate faculty finding out library science.
In a lesson about offering entry and outreach to communities, we realized in regards to the librarian who got here up with the concept of bringing books to the general public by way of horse and buggy — Mary Lemist Titcomb. In 1905, it was known as a guide wagon.
At the moment, they’re extra generally often called bookmobiles. I used to be introduced again to the primary time I noticed a van stuffed with books at a neighborhood occasion, with librarians ready to assist me study and uncover. All of it made sense now. For this reason I’m finding out library science!
Titcomb very a lot impressed me in my profession journey as a librarian. She jogged my memory that library science is greater than arranging and cataloging books and paperwork in dusty basements (although there’s a number of that!). It’s making use of that science to the communities you wish to serve.
This epiphany finally led me to NIST. As a librarian at NIST, my major function is to assist our researchers get their work out to the general public in probably the most accessible method potential. In contrast to Titcomb’s, my job doesn’t contain a horse and buggy (I’ll persist with my guide carts and Subaru, thanks!). However we each share a ardour for getting data and information to individuals who want it.
I like the concept of bringing data to individuals the place they’re, and that has been the thread all through my profession to this point and the way I strategy being a librarian.
Bringing Books to the Folks
Credit score:
Maryland State Archives
Mary Lemist Titcomb determined she wished to be a librarian at a time when no formal coaching faculties existed, and the occupation might solely be realized via unpaid apprenticeships. The sphere was additionally very male-dominated on the time, although most librarians at this time are girls.
Titcomb was finally employed as a cataloger and labored her method as much as chief librarian of the Rutland Public Library in Vermont. Throughout her first decade as knowledgeable librarian, she utilized to be a librarian on the 1893 Chicago World’s Truthful.
She acquired a rejection letter from Melvil Dewey, the president of the American Library Affiliation, which acknowledged that he solely wished “girls who’ve been very outstanding within the nationwide affiliation and its work and who’re very accustomed to normal library pursuits all through the nation … nonetheless admirable Miss Titcomb’s work might have been with you [the Vermont library], she has not made herself identified exterior.”
You may acknowledge Dewey’s identify when you’ve ever needed to discover a guide at a library. He’s the namesake of the numerical classification of library books, often called the Dewey Decimal Classification. You might also acknowledge that the expectation for ladies to be “rock stars” in a occupation dominated by males hasn’t modified a lot for the reason that late nineteenth century.
Titcomb wished to rise to Dewey’s problem. She discovered an opportunity in 1902 when she was employed at a tiny county library in Hagerstown, Maryland — my residence state and never removed from our campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Titcomb’s fast focus was on making the library extra helpful to the group. On the time, Washington County had a mostly agricultural population unfold out over a big space (50,000 individuals over 500 sq. miles). That is how the bookmobile was born, as a result of as Titcomb writes:
“The guide goes to the person. We don’t watch for the person to return to the guide. Our British critics would name this a concrete instance of the frantic dashing about of the American librarian, however everyone knows that we’d wait lengthy earlier than a busy farmer would experience 5, ten, or fifteen miles for a coveted quantity.”
Whereas I wish to replace her use of “man” to “individuals,” this sentiment of bringing data to the individuals is strictly how I strategy my very own work as a librarian. It’s a no brainer for each me and Mary.
Titcomb labored out a schedule, deliberate the routes and designed the wagon. Titcomb requested the library’s janitor, Joshua Thomas, who was accustomed to the realm and the group, to be the motive force and lead horses Black Magnificence and Dandy twice per week. In April 1905, the wagon set out and made stops at each residence alongside the path to introduce the “experiment” and meet the households.
Credit score:
Courtesy of the Washington County Free Library/Western Maryland Regional Library
Within the first six months, the wagon lent over 1,000 books to the residents of Washington County. It continued delivering books for 5 years till the wagon and its books had been destroyed whereas crossing practice tracks. (Fortunately, Thomas and the horses were fine.)
This system was so profitable that the library’s board of trustees funded a new wagon.
However this wagon had a distinct form of horsepower — a motor. Now, with a bookmobile, they might attain everybody in the neighborhood and carry a greater variety of books. Different libraries inside the USA began their very own bookmobile applications, with many (together with the Washington County Free Library) nonetheless working at this time.
All of this work Titcomb had completed in her small library began to catch individuals’s consideration exterior the fast group. Even Dewey himself sent her a postcard saying: “I congratulate you on the sumptuous work you might be doing and congratulate Maryland far more in having secured you for it.”
I assume Titcomb had proved herself to Dewey, as she was elected to function the second vice president of the American Library Association in 1914. She began one of many first official librarian training programs in 1924.
Her expertise creating the primary guide wagon was utilized in writing the 1929 American Library Affiliation specifications for book automobiles. The specs included every part a library would want to start out its personal bookmobile program — right down to the paint and lettering. We love a normal right here at NIST, particularly one which entails getting books out to individuals!
The science of bringing data to individuals has modified lots since Mary Titcomb delivered books to everybody round Hagerstown, Maryland, by horse and buggy. However the dedication to creating data accessible to all stays the identical, and Mary’s story helped encourage me to make library science my profession.
Winding Highway to Library Science
My path to library science was most likely as difficult and winding as one of many routes Titcomb deliberate for her first guide wagon.
I discovered myself at a loss as to what to do after getting my undergraduate diploma in English and theater. So, I joined AmeriCorps and was positioned in Maine at a youngsters’s museum and theater. Certainly one of my tasks throughout my time period was digitizing and organizing previous pictures for this theater that had been round for the reason that Nineteen Twenties.
All of those great artifacts had been locked in a plastic tub for many years. Now, I used to be in a position to put them on-line and analysis and set up them, so that they’d be simpler to search out. I keep in mind questioning if I might do that professionally. I did some analysis and located a grasp’s diploma program in library and archival science again in my hometown.
I took one other winding path making an attempt to resolve what sort of librarian I wished to be, which led me to an internship at NIST. My favourite half about my work at NIST was that every part was within the public domain. I didn’t have to fret about copyright or licenses. The primary objective was to get the data out to the general public in a usable format.
I used to be excited to get a full-time librarian place right here because the publishing providers librarian. Now, I deal with serving to our researchers publish their work and make it accessible to the general public. Discover a sample right here?
We produce so many publications at NIST that present the outcomes of our analysis, corresponding to cybersecurity finest practices or guides to assist communities put together for catastrophe. The analysis gained’t profit individuals if we don’t make it out there, accessible and discoverable. If analysis lives on a static webpage and nobody appears at it, it gained’t assist anyone.
That’s why, on the NIST Research Library and Museum, our objective is to verify NIST researchers’ work is accessible to the general public and within the acceptable publications the place individuals can discover it — particularly different researchers who might construct on our work.
It’s additionally necessary to us as a authorities library as a result of all of our analysis is publicly funded, and we make all of it out there to the general public after a sure embargo.
So many great library scientists at NIST work in diversified areas corresponding to archival science, information science and extra. All this work is finished to reinforce and help NIST’s total work in measurement science, requirements and expertise.
Most individuals don’t consider librarians as scientists. However library science is, the truth is, a science! It has additionally come a great distance since Dewey and different males made selections in regards to the occupation. Not solely has library science moved from simply classifying books to classifying all data assets, however girls usually tend to be seen in management positions. Carla D. Hayden, the current librarian of Congress, is an ideal instance of a librarian who has helped the occupation develop and made such an impression on how library science is considered within the twenty first century.
The utilized science of knowledge — curation, group, entry, preservation and regulation — is all a science that helps the analysis we do right here at NIST.
Info Accessibility Is Complicated, However It’s the Purpose
Like Mary Titcomb, I’m all the time interested by the way to make data extra accessible.
For NIST publications, meaning shifting past PDF paperwork to accessible, web-based codecs. PDF paperwork might be difficult to make accessible for individuals with disabilities. We’ve moved our information into web-based formats for our publications to proceed to make all of our work extra usable for everybody.
I’ve already labored on steerage for utilizing inclusive language in our publications. However to be completely inclusive, our publications should be digitally accessible — as accessible as our data. Not solely will this profit customers who depend on assistive applied sciences for digital data, however it’ll additionally enable our researchers to jot down, entry and reuse publications extra systematically.
I’ll proceed working towards making NIST’s analysis extra open and accessible — with Mary Titcomb as my inspiration — throughout Ladies’s Historical past Month and all 12 months lengthy.
Guide cited: Glenn, Sharlee Mullins (2018). Library on Wheels: Mary Lemist Titcomb and America’s First Bookmobile. New York: Abrams Books for Younger Readers. ISBN 9781683352921. OCLC 1030992512.
