Some Presses You Will Be Glad To Know About - A Guide Book to University Presses - University of California Press - Duke University Press - Dartmouth College Publications - Stanford University Press
(Soft cover publication (61 pages) titled SOME PRESSES YOU...)
Soft cover publication (61 pages) titled SOME PRESSES YOU WILL BE GLAD TO KNOW ABOUT with Introduction by Harry Miller Lydenberg. Published by University Books, Inc. in 1937. Biographical information on University of California Press, Dartmouth College Publications, Duke University Press, Louisiana State University Press, University of Michigan Press, University of Minnesota Press, University of Oklahoma Press, Stanford University Press, plus several museum and library presses. See my photographs (4) of this publication on main listing page. Bookseller since 1995 (LL-2-middle-up-R-flat) rareviewbooks
Bulletin of the New York Public Library, July 1916, Vol. 20: A History of the New York Public Library (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Bulletin of the New York Public Library, Jul...)
Excerpt from Bulletin of the New York Public Library, July 1916, Vol. 20: A History of the New York Public Library
First Of these efforts in point of time was the Astor Library, in inception and formation the work Of John Jacob Astor and Joseph Green Cogswell a New York merchant and a New England school teacher.
Of the life of Astor before the foundation of the library there is no need to speak here; his early struggles, his wonderful success, the impress of the man on the city and nation are known to all. Less familiar sides of his nature are revealed as the project of the library unfolds itself.
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John Shaw Billings: Creator of the National Medical Library and Its Catalogue, First Director of the New York Public Library
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
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Harry Miller Lydenberg was an American librarian and author. He served as a director for the New York Public Library from 1934 to 1941.
Background
Harry Miller Lydenberg was born on November 18, 1874 in Dayton, Ohio, United States, the son of Wesley Braxton Lydenberg and Marianna Miller. His father, a Civil War veteran, died in 1879, leaving his family in genteel poverty. Lydenberg learned to work hard and live sparingly, habits that remained with him throughout his life. The boyhood jobs he took to help his mother served as apprenticeships for his lifework. His newspaper route drew him into the press room and gave him an early familiarity with printing.
Education
Lydenberg attended Harvard University from 1893 to 1896 on a Bowditch Scholarship. He graduated with the class of 1897 and received the Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude.
Career
Lydenberg strated to work as a page in the Dayton Public Library while at his teens. In 1890s he worked in the library at Harvard University. In July 1896, he began work as a cataloger at the Lenox Library in New York City, a privately endowed reference collection of rarities and Americana that in 1895 had merged with the Tilden Trust and the Astor Library, an endowed general reference library, to form the New York Public Library.
Lydenberg was soon given charge of manuscript collections and in 1899 was made assistant to the director. In 1908 he was appointed reference librarian, or chief of the research collections; in 1928 he was named assistant director, and in 1934 director, a position he held until his retirement in 1941.
As assistant director and director Lydenberg had librarywide responsibilities, including the extensive branch library system. His passion, though, was for the research collections. His consistent, careful attention to acquisitions resulted in a comprehensive, immensely varied, but balanced collection that under his guidance grew to nearly three million items and embraced many unusual and rare materials and subjects. This quantitative achievement constituted, in a library that acquired comparatively few duplicate copies of works, a dazzling qualitative accomplishment considered unequaled in its time. In amassing such resources--among other things he made a strenuous trip through Europe, including Russia, in the fall and winter of 1923-1924-Lydenberg believed that he was creating a cumulative record of human endeavor; the universality of his collecting was an expression of his sense of responsibility to posterity and of his respect for, and understanding of, scholarship and research. This approach, together with a commitment to serve a varied, cosmopolitan public, helped to make the New York Public Library under Lydenberg almost like a scholarly academy. Staff members were encouraged to pursue their own scholarly interests. Much of their work was published in the New York Public Library Bulletin.
Lydenberg was interested in the production and preservation, as well as the collection and bibliographical description, of books. He cultivated warm relations between the New York Public Library and book publishers; fostered high editorial, technical, and aesthetic standards for the publishing and printing programs of the library; and stood in the forefront of efforts to preserve deteriorating library materials. With the chief of the library printing office, he devised a laboratory to experiment with preserving books and paper; and in the 1930's, at his initiative, the National Bureau of Standards undertook research on the effects of the environment on books and other records. Lydenberg was also instrumental in convincing newspaper publishers to issue rag editions for libraries and to microfilm their files. He experimented with microfilm and was one of the first American librarians to have installed (in 1912) a Photostat machine so that readers could make copies of materials.
Lydenberg knew virtually everyone in the library and bibliographical world and was involved in almost every significant effort in the United States to improve or expand access to resources for scholars, including cooperative bibliographical enterprises, national planning for libraries, and planning for the acquisition and preservation of research resources. He taught library history at the Columbia University School of Library Service from 1929 to 1933 and was active in civic affairs in Scarsdale, New Year, where he lived. Upon his retirement Lydenberg became director-librarian of the Biblioteca Benjamin Franklin in Mexico City, which was sponsored by the American government and the American Library Association. It was a forerunner of U. S. Information Service libraries abroad.
In 1943, Lydenberg returned home to direct the Board on International Relations of the American Library Association, in Washington. In 1946 he spent six months in Western Europe as a member of the Library of Congress Purchasing Mission, assessing the publishing and library situations and acquiring publications for American research libraries. At the end of October 1946, Lydenberg retired from active library work.
Throughout his career Lydenberg engaged in historical or bibliographical research. His publications include History of the New York Public Library (1923); John Shaw Billings (1924); a standard manual, written with John Archer, The Care and Repair of Books (1931); and translations from the French of two books by André Blum: On the Origin of Paper (1934) and The Origins of Printing and Engraving (1940).
Achievements
Lydenberg's major achievement was his work with governments, international organizations, and scholarly associations to develop programs to aid foreign libraries and ease the international flow of publications and scholarship. This work laid the basis for the library and bibliographical programs later sponsored by the United Nations.
He was noted for building the research collection that became a world-renowned intellectual and cultural resource, second only to the Library of Congress among American libraries. He also developed the New York Public Library Bulletin into a great bibliographical resource.
Lydenberg was secretary-treasurer of the American Council of Learned Societies (1937 - 1941) and president of the American Library Association (1932 - 1933) and the Bibliographical Society of America (1929 - 1931).
Personality
Lydenberg was always modest and unpretentious. His strength of character, keen intellect, and prodigious energy were legendary among his colleagues, as were his foresight and ability to get things done. One of the great bookmen of his day, he was an exemplar of the scholarly librarian of humanistic persuasion.
Connections
On January 23, 1912, Lydenberg married Madeliene Rogers Day, who had been chief of periodicals at the New York Public Library; they had two children.
