This essay attempts to study library history "from the outside in" by peering into private lives as lived rather than assessing particular institutional constructions. In order to follow the "production, flow, and consumption" of reading materials through "all parts of the social pattern," we place the institutional library in its closest extrinsic context, namely, the analogous everyday literary practices of ordinary people, and the cultural values implied in those practices. These practices encompassed a wide range of activities similar to those of institutions, from book collecting and cataloging, to dissemination through borrowing and lending, to conversing about and evaluating libraries and texts. Some book owners self-consciously acted as "librarians," that is, as custodians of their own circulating collections; others commented upon their relationship to the emerging public institution. And, as was the case with library-sponsoring associations, users of personal libraries wove social networks over their literary exchanges.
To understand the institutionalization of everyday literary practices, we draw upon testimony found in nearly 4,000 manuscript diaries and letters authored by a diverse set of New Englanders between the years 1830 and 1861. These informants often eloquently described their socio-literary experiences as home "librarians" and the role they and their collections played as agents of literary culture within their social networks. We begin with their productive practices of creating and organizing libraries: acquisitions, arrangement, and cataloging. From there we follow the flow of books to other people, especially out and back into the home through lending. Finally, we explore the common reception of home libraries as highly valued expressions of social relations.
BT - American Studies IS - 3 LA - English N2 -This essay attempts to study library history "from the outside in" by peering into private lives as lived rather than assessing particular institutional constructions. In order to follow the "production, flow, and consumption" of reading materials through "all parts of the social pattern," we place the institutional library in its closest extrinsic context, namely, the analogous everyday literary practices of ordinary people, and the cultural values implied in those practices. These practices encompassed a wide range of activities similar to those of institutions, from book collecting and cataloging, to dissemination through borrowing and lending, to conversing about and evaluating libraries and texts. Some book owners self-consciously acted as "librarians," that is, as custodians of their own circulating collections; others commented upon their relationship to the emerging public institution. And, as was the case with library-sponsoring associations, users of personal libraries wove social networks over their literary exchanges.
To understand the institutionalization of everyday literary practices, we draw upon testimony found in nearly 4,000 manuscript diaries and letters authored by a diverse set of New Englanders between the years 1830 and 1861. These informants often eloquently described their socio-literary experiences as home "librarians" and the role they and their collections played as agents of literary culture within their social networks. We begin with their productive practices of creating and organizing libraries: acquisitions, arrangement, and cataloging. From there we follow the flow of books to other people, especially out and back into the home through lending. Finally, we explore the common reception of home libraries as highly valued expressions of social relations.
PY - 2001 SP - 63 EP - 86 T2 - American Studies TI - Home Libraries and the Institutionalization of Everyday Practices Among Antebellum New Englanders VL - 42 ER -