What a Cumberland County Library Director Did 40 Years Ago

On Wednesday, as I was combing through meeting minutes of the Cumberland County Library System (CCLS) from the 1980s, I uncovered an intriguing document titled “What Do You Do All Day?,” which was written by Margaret Dewey, CCLS’s Director, for the benefit of the Board of Trustees. They had recently upgraded her position from a part-time “coordinator” role to full-time “director,” and perhaps she felt a need to validate the decision. Noting that her children sometimes asked the question, and “perhaps you [the board] do too,” she listed all the work she performed over a two-week period in February 1988. Amounting to 2 full pages, single-spaced, it is a fascinating window into the daily activities of a colleague who was operating at important junctures in CCLS’s and our profession’s history. 

"What Do You Do All Day,"
an account of CCLS Director
Margaret Dewey's activities, February 1988

Dewey was an interesting character in herself. According to newsclippings in CCLS’s scrapbooks, she was originally from Wisconsin and earned an MLS at the University of Minnesota. In the mid-1970s, she was a library consultant in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Then, for 5-6 years, she administered a library at an American school in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The articles vaguely mention other posts in California, Minnesota, and Missouri. Just before she started at CCLS, Dewey was working at Penn State Harrisburg’s Heindel Library—the predecessor of the much-enlarged campus library where I work today. I haven’t found any information about what motivated her to globe-trot as she did, but the fact that she traded a position at an established academic library for a leading role in a small-but-growing county system suggests that she may have been the type of person who liked to build new things. Or, perhaps, she valued community diversity and relationships which a public library may have offered more readily than a commuter college campus could. 

Margaret Dewey, CCLS Director, ca. 1987.
Image from unattributed, undated news article
 in CCLS Scrapbook, 1975-1988.

As a fellow practitioner, I can’t help but compare Dewey’s responsibilities to mine. Considering that she was an administrator who oversaw more than a half-dozen libraries, one thing that struck me is how hands-on she was. As I would expect of a leader of a library system, she attended many meetings. She also organized committees, gathered statistics, and took the reins when several member libraries seemed to be having the same difficulty. Yet Dewey also did things that, today, are usually assigned to rank-and-filers like me (or that I would reassign to an assistant). For instance, she placed a standing order for large-print books, and she inventoried her office’s clip-art collection. For the Plainfield “mini-library”—a lean outpost within a church building that had been started with a federal grant in the 1970s—Dewey ordered new materials, withdrew outdated titles, and followed up with patrons about overdue items. At first, I raised my eyebrows in disbelief—what system administrator does this stuff? But then I reminded myself that CCLS had only just secured a dedicated, countywide property tax levy a year earlier, and that this tax was being relitigated as Dewey was writing. In other words, she had nothing close to the $6 million in county funds (and $8 million overall budget) that her library system has today. Thus, she did some work that was more quotidian, even clerical, in nature. 

“What Do You Do” also provides some insights into public libraries’ transition from print-centered resources and services to an increasingly technological environment. Allusions to Access PA are a case in point. Consisting in part of an effort to develop a computerized catalog that enabled users to search  libraries across the state, it was originally provided on CD-ROM and delivered via hardware and networks that were just beginning to appear in Pennsylvania’s public libraries. Another case in point is the Technology Committee, one of the working groups that Dewey was convening. During the 1980s, CCLS had completed a project that converted member libraries’ card catalogs to microfiche, and it had also developed an innovative “Dial-a-Story" service that enabled county children to listen to recorded storytellers over the telephone. But a computerized check-out system for all CCLS libraries was in the future. Given how rapidly computers were evolving and how expensive they were, Dewey relied on the hive mind to help her investigate options as new possibilities emerged. Finally, Dewey's mention of inventorying her office’s clip art collection is a quaint reminder of how she had long functioned in an analog world where images weren’t findable, copyable, and editable with just a few keystrokes as they are today.

In more than 20 years of researching Pennsylvania library history, I’ve uncovered only a handful of librarians’ diaries or daily calendars, so the question of “What [Did] [They] Do All Day” is hard for me  to answer. Although Margaret Dewey’s account only records two weeks in February 1988, she did us all a favor in educating us about what library work involved in rural systems at the cusp of the electronic age.

On the Road Again

On Monday morning, I felt a new bounce in my step as I made my way across my backyard toward my car. Some of my enthusiasm derived from noticing that nearly all the winter’s snow has melted. Daytime temperatures are now in the 40s, and, within a few weeks, I expect crocuses, tulips, and daffodils to start poking through my garden. But I am entering a new and refreshing phase of my research, as well.  

I have been on sabbatical since November, and for the first 4 months, I focused on gathering secondary literature—prior studies, government reports, legislation, and other background information that help place local cases and archival resources into context. I didn’t receive any research funding, and I don’t have an assistant, so I’ve been doing a lot of the legwork on my own. It’s been a slog because no libraries within 50 miles of me seem to subscribe to Library Literature & Information Science Retrospective or another LIS database that reaches further back than the 1980s. On top of that, many of the items I need from the 1950s-1980s are too recent to be in the public domain but are too early to be born-digital—meaning they can’t be accessed online. So, I have been employing the same research techniques that I learned many moons ago as an undergraduate. For weeks on end, I utilized old print editions of Library Literature and hand-searched bound volumes of regional and governmental titles that LL doesn’t cover. Added to the cold and darkness of winter, the intellectual spadework was challenging my spirits.  

While those efforts are ongoing, March is providing me with something new to look forward to. Besides generating a bibliography of secondary sources, another important goal of my project is to learn how trends in federal and state funding, interlibrary cooperation, information technology, and increased attention toward underserved populations played out in different Pennsylvania communities. The second half of my sabbatical is largely focused on site visits to county libraries and district library centers that were significantly impacted by the 1961 Library Code and subsequent events. So, this Monday, I made my first “road trip”—to the Cumberland County Library System’s (CCLS) headquarters in Mechanicsburg. In two weeks, I will be heading to the Montgomery County-Norristown Library as well. I’m eager about both sites, because neither have been part of my previous projects.  

Cumberland County Library System's Archive. 
Photo by the author.

Although Cumberland County is just on the other side of the Susquehanna River—an easy drive from my home near Harrisburg—I belted and hummed buoyantly with songs on my car radio. When I arrived at CCLS Headquarters, all the staff who were on-site greeted me warmly and my heart swelled. I know that places like this are where I do my best work, and that this “best work” makes me happiest. For the next couple of weeks, I am faced with binders full of meeting minutes, strategic plans, and newsclippings that might not look interesting to most people. But I know there are great stories in there, I can’t wait to find them.  

 A Twenty-First-Century Historian’s “Day-Away” Kit 

On November 1st, I officially started my 8-month sabbatical. Unlike my first research leave in 2013/2014, when I literally hit the road on day one, this time my “start” has been more nebulous. Because of short staffing within my library system, I stayed on campus for most of the fall to help ensure that “kids get taught and books get bought.” From late August through the end of October, I sprinted to deliver a semester’s worth of library orientations and purchase a year’s worth of new books within just 10 weeks. That work completed, I am now spending the first week or two of my leave on end-of-year reporting, revising/resubmitting an article manuscript that was rejected earlier, and tying up other loose ends. Ideally, I would have had everything related to my sabbatical in place by now, but, as a Kurt Vonnegut character would say of other farcical or tragic situations, “so it goes.”  

Despite being unable to launch my research on the exact date I had hoped, each day I’ve done something constructive. Today, for example, I took a look at my “day-away kit” —a cheerful paisley LeSportsac bag that I use to carry research supplies to nearby sites. I hadn’t touched it in at least 5 years—not since COVID-19 closed libraries around the world and many historians, myself included, turned toward digitized primary sources on DPLA, HathiTrust, and Newspapers.com. As it happened, I had already cleaned my bag out thoroughly, though some remaining unopened packs of ruled index cards and a fistful of pencils, pens, and highlighters made me smile wistfully.  

My "Day-Away" Bag

In April 2014—the last time I lugged my kit to a research site—my methods were much more “analog” than they are today. So much so, that packing required a substantial checklist of items for a typical day trip. Besides notecards and writing implements, I routinely carried rolls of quarters for parking meters and photocopiers, a Pennsylvania atlas, and printed driving directions. Certain creature comforts were necessary too, including bottled water, snacks, Advil, lipbalm, and menstrual care items, including a spare pair of underwear, and single-use packets of Biofreeze and Hot Hands to alleviate body aches and cramps. After about a month on the road, I added a pair of silicone-tipped kitchen tongs—helpful for plucking books from the highest library shelves and nabbing prints from copiers that were situated behind service desks. In addition, I packed a stapler (as perennial discussions on Reddit, librarian blogs, and other professional venues attest, every library-owned stapler has been broken for 50 years). I also added a small roll of toilet paper, because it seems that no matter when I use bathrooms in public buildings, the odds are only 50-50 that they’ll have something I can use to wipe my ass. I threw in a book of crossword puzzles to keep boredom at bay when unexpected waits occurred. Although I always brought my cell phone, too, at that point in my career I used it primarily for communication and entertainment. At the time, I didn’t consider a laptop essential research equipment, so I rarely brought one with me.  

A decade and a hysterectomy later, so many things on my checklist are irrelevant now. While it’s true that my current focus on mid-late 20th-century state policy will place me mostly in Harrisburg and require less travel, there are various once-essential items that I no longer need in any case. Sure, I am planning to bring my phone, laptop, and charger—in fact, I rely heavily on those now. But 1 pack (not 4 packs) of notecards and 1 or 2 pens (not a fistful) should be enough of a backup for digital notetaking. The spare change in my car should suffice for parking decks that don’t have a downloadable app. Even though it doesn’t seem that Pennsylvania’s rural wireless coverage has improved much in the past 10 years, I feel OK about relying on Google Maps for driving directions. Pain killers, food, beverages, and toilet paper are still essential, but the rest of the pharmacy can stay at home. Comparing my almost-50-year-old self to my 36-year-old self, tomorrow I will seek out hand-held and sheet magnifiers to add to my bag, put a spare pair of eyeglasses in my glove box, and buy an inflatable backrest/butt cushion in case any library’s seating is god-awful. 

Because, at my age, most seating is god-awful. 

On the technological side, I’ll need to do more thinking about equipment, and I don’t doubt that further ideas and needs will arise once I scope out the State Library and my other research sites. Public libraries are often situated in century-old buildings that don’t have convenient power outlets, sufficient scanners, and other necessities for digital researchers. To start myself off, I will carry charging cords in several lengths and a couple of USB drives. Instead of filling a 12-drawer office credenza with photocopies as I did in 2013/2014, this time I created a file structure on OneDrive, as well as a new project folder in Zotero (my citation management program). Next Monday, when I start looking for relevant scholarly research, my first step will be to cuddle up on my couch and use online databases (Library Literature, LISTA, ERIC, WorldCAT, etc.), rather than driving to a library. It’ll certainly be a different vibe from 20+ years ago, when I started my library history journey, Penn State didn’t have as good access to LIS journals, and background research involved printed indexes and a stack of paper-based interlibrary loan forms!   

There’s a significant part of me that’s grateful for computers, digitized materials, and other advances that make historical research much easier than it used to be. However, not having as much of a “day-away kit” makes the treasure-hunt feel like less of an adventure. Maybe I need to reconceive what “adventuring” is. Instead of driving to a site and grappling with all the logistical and physical challenges that a strange new place can entail, maybe there will be different issues—boredom? social isolation?—to cope with. Perhaps, instead of new libraries being my main adventure, my lunch breaks will involve walking some new rail-trails, trying new lunch spots, and uncovering underappreciated points of interest close to home. Instead of deriving joy from changes of scenery, maybe I will encounter different types of rewards, such as more time with loved ones, a more relaxed space, and unexpected means of personal growth.  

And away we go!