Part of my job with American Libraries is to help compile the list of annual ALA award-winners, published each September. If you've perused the list, you've seen that many of the 200 or so are named in honor of librarians from the Association's early years.
Not surprisingly, these librarians also appear in early years of the Bulletin. Throughout this year, I'd like to review some of them.
My first subject is John Cotton Dana. Today, a Library Administration and Management Association award for public relations bears his name. And certainly, the Bulletin does contain several examples of Dana's work in library promotion, such as coverage of his chairmanship of a committee to produce a library exhibit at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco.
But it's Dana's fiery final appearances in the Bulletin that initially attracted my attention. His obituary in the September 1929 issue noted that "He was like a gadfly to stodgy conservatism. He was always calling for a reassessment of old traditions and standards in library work."
In his last years, ALA activities were frequent targets. A lengthy letter read to Council at the Midwinter Meeting December 29–31, 1927, and published in the January 1928 issue, expressed his opposition to a number of ALA activities:
Council did formally consider Dana's concerns, appointing the "Special Committee to Consider Communication of Mr. John Cotton Dana," which made its report at Annual in 1928 and generally defended the value of the projects that Dana had attacked. A couple of proposals related to Dana's concerns (one to publish full financial statements in the Bulletin; the other to require a report of the estimated cost and detailed description of any policy proposal brought before Council) were introduced, but Council voted both down.
Dana wrote a couple more letters to the Bulletin, which were covered but not published. I get a sense that by that time, receiving a communication from Mr. Dana was not an occasion for celebration at ALA headquarters.
For example, a January 1929 treatment: "Mr. Dana criticized in his usual vigorous manner three activities of the Association.... We are unable to publish the whole letter, and, as it does not lend itself to abstracting, we shall be glad to send a mimeographed copy of it to any member of the Association who cares to write to Headquarters for it." (Emphasis added.)
Earlier Years
Dana was an active member of the association and made numerous appearances in the Bulletin's pages. I don't want to give the impression that all of his work was controversial or confrontational. But he did have his rabble-rousing moments in his earlier years. For example, at the Midwinter meeting January 1-2, 1914, he argued via a letter to Council that "It is a great mistake for a quasi-literary institution of 2,500 members, like our association, to devote a good slice of its income to the preparation and issuance of [Booklist] that would probably be welcomed by the reading public of this country, and then, in effect, to conceal it from that public"; that papers presented at Annual should be directed more towards the public, and that the association should "extract it from the Almighty Library Aggregation of piffle and technique which we must annually produce... and let our friends see it and even dare them to read it"; that Headquarters should move from Chicago to New York City; and that conferences should be held in major cities rather than on "distant prairies and mountain fastnesses."
All of this came after excoriating attendees for feeling the need to meet in person rather than communicating by print. (His exact words: "No, you must feel your own reading limitations; that you are unable to get out of print what the writer of print wishes to convey; that you are all grievously ear-minded, and have never so devoted yourselves to acquiring skill in that use of print, to the promotion of which you devote your lives, that you can understand it clearly when you see it.")
The letter went over poorly.
Councilor F.P. Hill said "The only objection I have to Mr. Dana's letter is that he does not make any plans for building up the structure which he is always so ready to tear down." Henry Legler, chair of the publishing board, reported that he had often heard from Dana about Booklist: "Often before he has wanted to have the Booklist changed; to have the matter changed; the form changed and the character changed, in fact everything about the Booklist changed except perhaps the quality of the paper. In other words that Mr. Dana did not want an A. L. A. Booklist published; what he wants is a library journal for the public."
—Greg Landgraf, Editorial Assistant, American Libraries
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Stevie Kuenn [Visitor] DATE: 05/03/2007 10:52:09 am URL: http://www.ala.org/yalsa LAMA is about to publish a history of the John Cotton Dana Award by Peter Deekle and Amy Shaw that I've worked on; he sure was fiery. But despite his fights with the councillors, he was popular with membership and was even president of ALA from 1895 to 1896. He was quite the character. ----- --------If this error persits, please report it to the administrator.
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