Reconstituting the Public Library Users of the Past: An Exploration of Nominal Record Linkage Methodology

Research designed to reconstruct the public library users of the past can help library and information science (LIS) educators and practitioners understand the historical interactions of libraries and communities in specific times and places. One method for gathering data on individual library users is nominal record linkage, in which name fields of records from one primary source are compared to those from a second source to discover disparate records relating to the same person but providing unique information. The method is applied in a pilot study comparing entries from an early-twentieth-century register of public library users with listings in a city directory from the same time period. The study concludes that nominal record linkage can yield new information as well as new questions about the historical uses of public libraries.