The United States-based Library History Round Table (LHRT) encourages research and publication on library history and promotes awareness and discussion of historical issues in librarianship. It "exists to facilitate communication among scholars and students of library history, to support research in library history, and to be active in issues, such as preservation, that concern library historians."LHRT Library History Round Table. It is part of the American Library Association.
Louis Shores and Wayne Shirley were instrumental in founding the Library History Round Table in 1947.Marshall, John David. 2000. “The Library History Round Table’s First Twenty-Five Years: Reminiscences and Remarks.” Libraries & Culture 35 (1): 41.
In 1998, in celebration of LHRT’s fiftieth anniversary, Andrew B. Wertheimer and John David Marshall compiled a chronology of the round table’s activities covering 1947 to 1997.Wertheimer, A. B. and J. D. Marshall., 2000. "50 Years of Promoting Library History: A Chronology of the ALA (American) Library History Round Table, 1947-1997." Libraries and Culture 35 (1): 215-239. In 2023, in celebration of LHRT’s seventy-fifth anniversary, Bernadette A. Lear compiled a chronology from 1998-2023.Lear, Bernadette A. "LHRT Leadership, Programs, and Awards, 1998–2023." Libraries: Culture, History, and Society. 7, No. 2, 2023: 181–215.
The American Library Association archives were established with input and support by the Library History Round Table as recounted by archivist Maynard J. Brichford. Brichford, Maynard. “Current Status of the American Library Association Archives: A Preliminary Report.” The Journal of Library History (1974) 12.1 (1977): 64–69.
Publications The Library History Round Table's official peer-reviewed journal is Libraries: Culture, History, and Society.LHRT Journal Libraries: Culture, History, and Society American Library Association. Library History Round Table.
LHRT News and Notes is the blog of the Library History Round Table.LHRT News and Notes American Library Association. Library History Round Table.
Library History Seminars The Library History Seminars were established in 1961 by the Library History Round Table.Shiflett, Lee. Louis Shores: Defining Educational Librarianship (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996: 231-234. The Library History Seminars are held approximately every five years and have been published in various outlets: separate proceedings, An American Library History Reader, in the Journal of Library History, and in the journal, Libraries & Culture.Goedeken, E. A. (2000). The library historian’s field of dreams: a profile of the first nine Seminars. Libraries & Culture, 35(1), 161–172.
+ Library History Seminars No. Title Date Location I In Pursuit of Library History:Seminar 1, Proceedings November 2–4, 1961 Florida State University, Tallahassee II Approaches to Library History 1965 Florida State University, Tallahassee III Library History Seminar No. 3 February 8–10, 1968 Florida State University, Tallahassee IV Library History Seminar, 1971 1971 Florida State University, Tallahassee V Milestones to the Present. 1976 Philadelphia VI Libraries & Culture March 19–22, 1980 Austin, Texas VII Libraries, Books, & Culture March 6–8, 1985 Chapel Hill, North Carolina VIII Reading & Libraries May 9–11, 1990 Indiana University, Bloomington IX Libraries & Philanthropy March 30–April 1, 1995 University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa X National Libraries of the World: Interpreting the Past, Shaping the Future. October 23–26, 2000 Library of Congress XI Libraries in Times of War, Revolution and Social Change. October 27–30, 2005 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign XII Libraries in the History of Print Culture. September 10–12, 2010 Madison, Wisconsin XIII Libraries: Traditions and Innovations July 31–August 2, 2015 Simmons College, Boston XIV Libraries Without Borders June 10–12, 2021 Virtual
The Library History Seminar XV will be held December 3-5, 2026.The topic will be “A History of Modern Libraries, Warts and All: Development, Organization, and Transformation.”
Edward G. Holley Lecture The Edward G. Holley Memorial Lecture, established in memory of Holley is held at the American Library Association Conference.The original intent of the Holley Lecture LHRT Newsletter 11. Spring, 2009. The endowment fundraising for the lecture began with contribution of royalties by Wayne Wiegand from his book, Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey.Wiegand, Wayne A. 1996. Irrepressible Reformer : A Biography of Melvil Dewey. Chicago: American Library Association.
The inaugural lecture was given in 2006 by John Y. Cole, Director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress and Jane Aikin, Senior Academic Adviser at the National Endowment for the Humanities.Library History Round Table Newsletter Series 7, no. 4 (Spring 2006).
Date Lecturer Title of Lecture2025George BoudreauBoudreau, George W. Independence: A Guide to Historic Philadelphia. First Westholme paperback 2016, Westholme Publishing, 2012."Complicating the Past: Historic Sites Interpretation and the Challenges of a More Accurate History." 2024Jorge Leal Jorge Nicolás. 2024. “Rock Archivo de LÁ.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 49 (1): 193–206. https://doi.org/10.1525/azt.2024.49.1.193. "Rock Archivo de LÁ, the Online Archive of Southern California’s Latinx Youth and Musical Cultures."2023Rebecca Romney Romney, Rebecca. 2025. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend. New York: Marysue Rucci Books."Cultural Memory, Community Work: Why Every Librarian Should Care About Rare Books."2022Kurt Hackemer Kurt Hackemer University of South Dakota."Animated Cartoon Shorts and American Perceptions of World War II." 2021Venkat Mani Mani, B. Venkat. 2017. Recording World Literature : Libraries, Print Culture, and Germany’s Pact with Books. First edition. New York: Fordham University Press. “Publics and Their Reading Publics: A Pact with Books.”2020Lisa TetraultTetrault, Lisa. 2014. The Myth of Seneca Falls : Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.“The Fight by Remembering: The Making of a Suffrage Archive.”2019Dawn Logsdon and Lucie Faulknor Marcotte, Alison Newsmakers: Dawn Logsdon and Lucie Faulknor:Filmmakers discuss new public library documentary, current threats to libraries. American Libraries“Through the Looking Glass: The Wonderland of Archival Footage.”2018Mary Niall Mitchell.Mary Niall Mitchell. “The Real Ida May: A Fugitive Tale in the Archives.” The Massachusetts Historical Review 15 (2013): 54–88. "Girls in a Frame: Enslaved People, Their Stories, and the Archives in a Digital Age."2017Kathy PeissPeiss, Kathy Lee. Information Hunters : When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe. Oxford University Press, 2020.“American Librarians and the Collecting Missions of World War II."2016John Cech John Cech Director of the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature & Culture at the University of Florida“History, Childhood, Memory, and Imagination."2015Ezra Greenspan Ezra Greenspan, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Chair in Humanities Brown University."Where do the Lives of Individuals, Books and Serials, Archives, and Libraries Intersect?"2014Thomas Augst Augst, Thomas, and Wayne A., Eds. Libraries as Agencies of Culture. Print Culture History in Modern America. The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001.“The Business of Lectures: An Itinerant History of Public Culture in Nineteenth-Century America.”2013Jacob Soll Soll, Jacob. The Information Master : Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Secret State Intelligence System. University of Michigan Press, 2009.“Library of Power, Library of Enlightenment: Libraries as Foundations of the Modern State 1400–1800.”2012Abigail Van SlyckVan Slyck, Abigail Ayres. Free to All : Carnegie Libraries & American Culture, 1890-1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. "Thinking Globally about Carnegie Libraries."2011Sarah WadsworthWadsworth, Sarah, and Wayne A. Wiegand. Right Here I See My Own Books : The Woman’s Building Library at the World’s Columbian Exposition. University of Massachusetts Press, 2012."Ghosts and Shadows: Reading Race in the Woman's Building Library of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.” 2010Ronald J. Zboray and Mary ZborayRonald J. Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray, “‘Saved by a Testament’: Books as Shields among Union and Confederate Soldiers,” in War Matters: Material Culture in the Civil War Era, ed. Joan Cashin (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018), 75-98. "The Bullet in the Book: Reading Cultures During the Civil War." 2009David Paul NordNord, David Paul, et al. The Enduring Book : Print Culture in Postwar America. Published in association with the American Antiquarian Society by the University of North Carolina Press, 2009."Five Studies of Readers of Journalism."2008Martine PoulainPoulain, Martine. History of French libraries. [IV], Les bibliothèques au XXe siècle (1914-1990), Paris, Promodis-Éd. of the Cercle de la librairie, 1992"Public Library History in the Late 20th Century: A Comparative Perspective (France, Britain, and the United States)."2007Akira Nemoto Establishment of the Japan Library School in Japan during the occupation period. Bulletin of the Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo.Vol. 41, p. 475-489“Library Policies of American Occupation.” 2006John Y. Cole and Jane AikinCole, John Young, et al. Encyclopedia of the Library of Congress: For Congress, the Nation & the World. Library of Congress; Bernan Press, 2004.“History as Collaboration.”
Database of Library History
The Library History Round Table publishes the "Bibliography of Library History" database.Bibliography of Library History American Library Association, Library History Round Table, April 24, 2024. The database contains over 7,000 entries for books, articles, and theses in library history and related fields published since 1990. Eric C. Novotny, founder of the database, was honored with the 2025 Innovation and Advocacy in Library History Award.Eric C. Novotny selected as the recipient of the LHRT Innovation and Advocacy in Library History Award. American Library Association, Library History Round Table, May 22, 2025).
Librarians We Have Lost- Sesquicentennial Memories -1976-2026
In 2024 the Library History Round Table launched a digital memorial, "Librarians We Have Lost- Sesquicentennial Memories -1976-2026," as a project for the 150th anniversary of the American Library Association. This was a crowd-sourced project to honor historical library workers coordinated by Brett Spencer, editor of LHRT News and Notes, and affirmed by the Council of the American Library Association. At the time of the sesquicentennial celebration in July, 2026 over 500 tributes had been submitted.
Awards
The Justin Winsor Prize is awarded for the year's best library history essay. The award was established in 1978 and named for the American Library Association's first president, Justin Winsor, a writer, historian, and the long-time librarian at Harvard University. Honorees have included Steven Knowlton, Jennifer Burek Pierce, Robert S. Martin, Wayne A. Wiegand and John V. Richardson Jr. The Donald G. Davis Article Award is presented biannually to recognize the best article written in English in the field of library history in the last two years. The first award in 2000 was to Louise Robbins for "Fighting McCarthyism Through Film: A Library Censorship Case Becomes a Storm Center."Robbins, Louise. "Fighting McCarthyism Through Film: A Library Censorship Case Becomes a Storm Center" Journal of Library and Information Science Education 39 (Fall 1998): 291-311.