The Kent Free Library (Ohio) evolved from the Great Atlantic and Western Railroad Reading Room of 1875, into a municipal Carnegie library, and then grew to be a medium-sized public school district library, in the city of Kent, Ohio. Its original building has been enlarged through three separate expansion campaigns, in order to have space to house…

Describes the Hosseinieh Ershad Public Library, a model library established in Iran after the Islamic Revolution that contains a predominant religious collection. Reviews the library's historical background, current cataloging system, collections and their circulation, services to blind patrons and children, funding and staff. Photographs of the…

Description of the rapid growth and development of Texas A&M's Sterling C. Evans Library during the past decade focuses on collection growth to over 1.4 million volumes, staffing increases, automated programs and services including over 100 microcomputers for computer-assisted instruction housed in Learning Resources Department, and online…

With the results of the first national survey of children's library services in the United States to be finalized in 1991, a historical perspective on library service is warranted to add comparative value to the new findings. The Youngstown (Ohio) Public Library, which began with a small collection in 1880, traces its history of children's…

Questions the soundness of the creation of the British Library and whether it has met its originators' expectations. Reviews its historical development, facility and staffing problems, the Lending Division, the Bibliographical Services Division, and the Research and Development Department. Seven references are listed. (RBF)

Traces the development of the British Library since its founding in 1973 and discusses problems and achievements in the library as a whole and in the Reference Division, the Lending Division, the Bibliographic Services Division, and the Research and Development Department. Listed are 73 references. (RBF)

This paper examines the efforts made by the American Library Association (ALA) and the Mexican Border Traveling Library Service (MBTLS) to ensure that remote World War I outposts, such as the Gerstner Field aviation and military training camp in Louisiana, would have adequate library service. A history of the MBTLS' early organizational success,…

This document provides a history of the National College of Education libraries from 1920 through 1978. The research process consisted of five major activities: (1) locating and collecting information from written sources; (2) conducting oral history interviews; (3) extracting information from audio tapes; (4) organizing the information from all…

The basic concept that sound waves could be traced or recorded on a solid object was developed separately by Leon Scott, Charles Cros, and Thomas Alva Edison between 1857 and 1877 and, by 1890, the foundation of the present-day commercial record industry was established. Although cylinders were the first sound recordings to be sold commercially,…

Discusses the history of the public lending right in terms of the debate between authors and librarians, factors which have influenced growth of author compensation for library lending, and its development (or status) in Scandinavia, The Netherlands, West Germany, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Thirty-five references are listed. (CHC)

A founder trustee of OCLC recounts the steps toward automation of library catalogs encountered during his career, from the use of punched cards in a circulation system to the implementation of online union catalogs. (CLB)

Reviews the process through which the University of Guelph Library moved from offline to online catalog access; discusses the impact of information technology on the role of the academic library as an information resource center for an electronic educational network; and discusses the goals of this library, given that role. (CLB)