LIHG go to York Minster Library

Published by Nicola Smith | Filed under Library History

I’ve just got back from the LIHG (Library & Information History Group) spring meeting at York Minster Library where we heard two talks; one from the Minster Librarian, John Powell and one from Peter Freshwater on the history of the collections of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, both of which were very interesting. The Minster Library itself is fascinating and well worth a visit.

I’d not been to York for about 10 years and the visit also gave me the opportunity for a bit of bookshop browsing. If you’re thinking of visiting York I can recommend the Bar Convent as a very pleasant, central and inexpensive place to stay.

The LIHG have a new chair, Toni Weller and it’s Toni’s aim and that of the rest of us on the committee to raise awareness of library and information history and increase the membership of the LIHG. It’s with this in mind that several us are participating at the forthcoming SHARP (Society for the History of Readership and Publishing) Conference at Oxford Brooks University in June. I’m part of a panel with Toni and Lauren Christos from the FFlorida International University. The conference theme is Teaching and Text and my paper is Librarians and the intellectual ministry: public librarians as public educators, 1890-1925. Toni will be speaking on the use of etiquette books by the aspirant middle classes and Lauren on the role of travelling libraries in the American West. Other LIHG members will contributing papers on travel guides and the social life of Edinburgh printers.