Wednesday, April 6, 2011

When was the first school library?

Have you ever wondered when the first school library was opened?  American Libraries does not have a specific date, but assumes school libraries started with the Bible, chapbook and Bay Psalm Book on the corner of the teacher's [his !] desk.  


"... in 1740 Benjamin Franklin recommended school libraries as a key element in the ideal academy, and the Penn Charter School in Philadelphia designating a specially designed room as the library in 1744."


And "... In 1900, the first professionally trained school librarian, Mary Kingsbury, was appointed to manage the Erasmus High School library in Brooklyn. The second was Mary E. Hall, appointed in 1903 by the Girls’ High School in Brooklyn.  Hall went on to collaborate on the Standard Library Organization and Equipment for Secondary Schools of Different Sizes (ALA, 1920) with C. C. Certain, producing the first standards for school libraries, and she later was the the first chairperson of the School Libraries Section, the precursor to today's American Association of School Librarians (AASL)."

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