Thursday, July 23, 2026

A Talk About Leadership: Keith Doms in 1986

I returned to library work on July 1st, and one of my goals for the month has been to reconnect with each of the Directors, Department Heads, Supervisors, and Coordinators that I intersect with as part of my multi-hatted role at Penn State. I can't remember a time when I've met with all of them in the same month, and back-to-back discussions about each person's priorities and goals encouraged me to think about different styles of leadership. All of the people I work with have different backgrounds and personalities, and while I don't agree with all their decisions, I can say that they each bring different strengths that I've learned from. Whether they are analytical or creative, bean-counting or easy-going, commanding or supportive, my 30 years in libraries have presented me with situations where some of those types can be helpful. 

Because of all the meetings I've been having, I was primed to appreciate an article I recently found in the February 1987 issue of the Pennsylvania Library Association's Bulletin, "An Interview with Keith Doms: a Lifetime of Public Library Service." It's illustrated with a photo of Doms at the 1986 annual conference, lecturing about the qualities of the "perfect" library director. His poster lists the most-desired qualities from A (accountability) to Z (zealous). 

Keith Doms explaining the qualities of a "perfect" library director
at PaLA's annual conference, November 9, 1986.
From the PaLA Bulletin, January/February 1987. 

If any Pennsylvania librarian could speak from experience about leading other people, it'd be hard to pick someone with more authority. A quick search of the literature uncovers a stellar career during a dynamic era in library history. Shortly after World War II, Doms worked for the District of Columbia Public Library and he enjoyed it so much that he went to library school. He graduated with a BLS from the University of Wisconsin (1947), headed 2 smaller libraries, then moved back east to work under Ralph Munn, a PaLA and ALA leader who was nationally known as an administrator, author, and educator. Doms became Assistant Director of the Carnegie Library of  Pittsburgh (1956), and when Munn retired, he became CLP's Director (1964). During Doms's tenure, the library system added 3 new branches and developed a mobile outreach service to reach low-income neighborhoods. Aligning with CLP's designation as a state-funded library center, Doms developed a sci-tech information service in collaboration with Penn State (PennTap), supported enhanced services to blind customers, and developed plans for a regional film center. He also spearheaded a consortium called the Pittsburgh Regional Library Center, which ultimately merged into PALINET (now Lyrasis). Doms filled high-level voluntary positions as well: while in western PA, he became involved in PaLA and rose to become its President (1960/1961). He also served on the Governor's Advisory Council on Library Development, was President of Allegheny County United Mental Health Services, and served on the boards of directors for WQED-WQEX (the local PBS TV and radio stations) and the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. 

Keith Doms, ca. 1960, when he was working at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
and serving as PaLA President. Photo by Fabian Bachrach.
Image courtesy of the State Library of Pennsylvania,
from the PaLA Archives Past Presidents Photograph Collection

At the end of the 1960s, when Emerson Greenway retired from the Free Library of Philadelphia, FLP's board searched nationwide for "the best librarian in America" and they picked Doms over more than 20 other candidates (quote from Current Biography, below). When Doms arrived in Philadelphia, FLP had 42 branches, more than 1,000 employees, and more than 2 million volumes. Like many urban libraries of the 1970s, FLP faced severe budget problems; yet, despite austere times, Doms found the resources to introduce cutting-edge information technologies to the city -- an achievement he was especially proud of. He also made national headlines for defending FLP and the library profession against censorship, particularly concerning Do It!: Scenarios of the Revolution by political activist Jerry Rubin. By this point in his career, Doms was active in the American Library Association as well, and he ultimately became its President (1971/1972). Lesser-known is the fact that he was also a consultant and author: I've found library development surveys that he performed in Altoona, Beaver County, Cameron County, Kittanning, and various communities in the Mon Valley, as well as a weeklong seminar he provided for librarians in Pakistan! According to an interview, he completed more than 60 library studies. He also co-edited a book on library planning. 

Plenty more can be said about Doms, and I intend to do so after I conduct research at CLP and FLP. But the A-Z list of qualities he recommended for the "perfect" director is thought-provoking enough on its own. Grouping similar traits together, intelligence is clearly important: bookish, gifted, judgment, knowledge, quotability, wise. Integrity in various forms is also apparent: accountability, honesty, responsibility, trustworthy, virtuous. The energy that so many people mentioned when they spoke of Doms is prominent in the list: enthusiastic, initiative, ubiquitous, zealous. Several words relate to people skills, too, including cooperative, democratic, loyalty, sensitive. Finally, a few pertain to organization skills: managerial, orchestrative, planner.

Intelligence.

Integrity.

Energy.

People skills.

Organization. 

Thinking back to the meetings I've been having with my supervisors, it is interesting to note that Doms's list is similar to Penn State's Values of Integrity, Respect, Responsibility, Discovery, Excellence, and Community. That said, I was challenged to find parallels to "Respect" within his advice. Maybe as a member of the "greatest generation," as a white male, and as an accomplished administrator, he was so used to receiving respect that he didn't enter his mind as something that needed to be said. But as I think of my own era, the diversity of today's library workplace, our ongoing challenge to ensure that everyone's voice is valued, and how most employees are called to show initiative and teamwork within the parameters of their jobs, I'd say that Respect is an important quality for a leader to model.

This isn't all it takes, of course. Doms himself rounded things out with fundraising, nimble, and yeoman-like. These points emphasize administrators' responsibility for capacity-building and for getting their hands dirty -- very apropos for cash-strapped libraries of any era. Given the culturally-contentious and financially difficult environments that Doms weathered, though, I was surprised he didn't emphasize practicality and courage more. In my experience, the most stressful positions I've had were ones where I was expected to make bricks without straw, and I survived them by setting priorities, making tough choices, and trimming some sails. But maybe Doms approached these situations with a different mindset than an "in the weeds" person like me would. 

Setting that particular difference aside, there are a few other qualities I would recommend when I think back to the best supervisors I've ever had. The leaders I remember most fondly are the ones who taught me things, whether about libraries or about life. So, while I agree with the importance of enthusiasm, management skills, and trustworthiness, I'd swap one of them out and place "educator," "mentor," or "teacher" on the list. The teams I worked on were especially successful when we were led by managers who were good at matching people's talents to the tasks that helped them shine -- especially when the institution could afford little investment or time for folks to get up to speed. When good librarians fail, it's often because they're miscast. I've also appreciated bosses who were kind and had a sense of humor -- you need that to put up with me! 

I'm not interested in combing the management literature to see how Doms's ABCs align with the best practices of his time or ours. But thinking about what he wrote and comparing it to my personal experiences, I feel he conveyed some timeless ideas. His advice is an inspiring reminder of the best self I'd like to bring to work each day. As I move forward with my research, I'm excited to learn more about Keith Doms and other Pennsylvania library leaders.

For more about Keith Doms:

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Thursday, July 16, 2026

"Death Does Not Stop the Spirit": Librarians Seeking Ten Nights in a Bar-Room

In February 1952, librarians throughout Pennsylvania were on a treasure hunt. They were scouring card catalogs, donation bins, and book dealers' price lists for an out-of-print title that most had discarded decades earlier. At stake was a trust fund of $25,000 -- more than $300,000 in 2026 dollars. 

The book was Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (1854), by Timothy Shay Arthur, and the person who needed it was Janet Bender, a librarian at Stroudsburg High School in the heart of the Pocono Mountains in  northeastern Pennsylvania.

Title page of an 1854 Philadelphia edition of Ten Nights in a Bar-Room.
Image courtesy of the University of California Libraries and the Internet Archive.

I had encountered one or two allusions to Ten Nights, Shay, and/or Bender over the past few months as I was combing through library board minutes and librarian's reports for my current research project. I can't say whether it was in Easton, Emporium, Norristown, Scranton, or somewhere else, because I didn't take  notes -- the mentions were vague and seemed to fall out of scope for my work. But this week, as I was searching Newspapers.com for articles about Scranton's libraries, I found a piece in the February 19, 1952 edition of the Times which shed more light. It described how William Bryan was looking in "every nook and cranny" of the Albright Memorial Library to help a colleague in need. After I harvested and searched keywords from that article, I put together an interesting tale that touches upon quirky donors, rare books librarianship, communication networks of the 1950s, and altruism within the cultural and educational professions.

According to a February 20, 1952 article in The Pocono Record, Samuel M. Schoonover (1863-1943) was "one of the strongest and most vocal of all Monroe County prohibitionists." He taught school for a number of years, then moved to Stroudsburg when he retired in the 1920s. Another article in the May 1, 1960 edition of the Allentown Morning Call provides more details about his unusual personality. John Biggs, whose mother had rented a furnished room to Schoonover, remembered him as someone who was a lifelong bachelor, said little, read most of the time, and shined his own shoes, though he also had a soft-spot for a Biggs toddler for whom he often bought ice cream sodas. Funny enough, while reporters were able to dig up these odd details, nobody could definitively say why alcoholism was an issue so close to Schoonover's heart. 

At any rate, Schoonover's will provided funds to cover his own burial and reinterment of some of his relatives. He also specified the establishment of a trust fund to benefit Stroudsburg schools, particularly in terms of reference materials, science equipment, and other items that a small-town budget didn't normally cover. He directed that the endowment and its earnings be re-invested until the total reached $25,000. After Schoonover died in 1943, it took nearly a decade for the fund to reach that threshold. On Valentine's Day, 1952, the Stroudsburg School Board received a check from the First Stroudsburg National Bank, which served as the trustee of Schoonover's estate. Amounting to more than $2,400 or $3,400, depending on which news article you believe, that meant something between $30,000 and $43,000 in 2026 dollars.

But that wasn't the end of the story. Schoonover and his bequest got its 15 minutes of fame largely because of an usual codicil that he added to his will in 1937. He specified that the first book to be purchased with the proceeds of the endowment should be Ten Nights,10 copies of which were to be held in the library permanently for students to use. Librarian Janet Bender found one beat-up copy in her school; both she the school board were very willing to purchase more. But Shay's classic had been out-of-print for decades, as far as she could tell.

Unless you're familiar with American literary, theater, or cinematic history, Shay's book may not ring a bell. But in its time, it was well-known. A fictional and propagandistic depiction of the negative effects of alcohol misuse on families and communities, it was adapted for the stage by William W. Pratt and performed throughout the country, especially in areas with strong temperance movements. According to theater scholar Thomas Hischak, it was the "most famous temperance play of the nineteenth century" and in rural America it was "one of the most popular plays" on any topic (298). Several film versions appeared during the 1910s-1930s, and as national sentiments about drinking changed, a musical comedy version by Fred Carmichael also came to fruition. 

There was something about the oddity and urgency of the Schoonover/Ten Nights story that made it "viral" to the extent that news of the early 1950s could be. Word from was picked up by the Associated Press and United Press International, and it shot across the world. It seems that many newspapers republished it as entertaining filler for their back pages. Brief versions ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the York Dispatch, and various other Pennsylvania papers and well as the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the San Francisco Examiner, and other big-city publications. Some editors amped up the drama or got playful with the headline -- for instance, see "Kiddies to Read '10 Nights in Bar'" (Times-Picayune) or "The Lady's Shy 9 Nights in Barroom" (Sun). Eventually, Stroudsburg even got blurbs in Life and Time, two of the most popular magazines of that era!

All over the country, people hoped to cash-in by selling their copies of Ten Nights to the Stroudsburg school system. The asking prices ranged from a South Carolina woman who simply wanted enough money to buy a new pair of shoes, all the way up to $2,000 from someone who probably figured that was a relatively small amount to pay for a "rare" book that would unlock a trust fund worth 10 times as much. In fact, so many hopefuls called collect -- asking the school to pay the cost of long-distance telephone calls and telegrams -- that the school board decided to refuse all future calls and wires. 

It doesn't seem that Scranton's Albright Memorial Library had an edition of Ten Nights to give away, but fortunately, other institutions and individuals did. Amazingly, within just 5 days of the story breaking, Bender had all the copies she needed -- and then some. One of the first came from a Rochester, New York, gas station operator named Alphonse Papilia who mailed it to Stroudsburg free of charge. More came from residents in the Pocono region. Judging from newspaper accounts, the Little Theatre Group of Wilkes-Barre put Stroudsburg over the top. The group still held 7 copies which it had acquired in the 1930s in preparation for a show; it sent 3 of them to Bender. Unfortunately, though, a lot of people further away didn't get the message that her library was all set. By the end of the month, the school system had received more than 1,200 letters and more than 70 copies of Ten Nights. They kept the required number on-shelf and stored dozens of spares to in case they had to replenish the library's stock. 

Stroud Union School Superintendent Earl F. Groner
and Stroudsburg High School's public-facing copies of Ten Nights.
From the Allentown Morning Call, May 1, 1960. 

Low-cost donations of Ten Nights enabled Stroudsburg to devote more of the endowment's dividends toward items that probably had more immediate usefulness for teachers and students. One early purchase was a set of Great Books of the Western World, a series produced by Encyclopedia Britannica and the University of Chicago Press. Newly published in 1952, it consisted of 54 volumes including more than 400 works from Homer to Samuel Becket. It was an efficient way for a small high school to acquire the foundations for a solid library. One of Great Books's special features were its "Syntopicon" essays which traced the history of ideas such as "Beauty," "Democracy," and "Wealth" through the primary texts that the other volumes republished. 

Judging from quick newspaper and Google searches, it seems like Schoonover and his abiding interest in Ten Nights rapidly faded into obscurity, but the story revived a couple of times in the 70 years that followed. In addition to the 1960 article in the Morning Call (mentioned above), Bruce Frassinelli, an instructor at Lehigh Carbon Community College, wrote an update for the same paper in 2010. At that point, the Schoonover endowment was worth more than $43,000 and there was still at least one copy of Ten Nights on the library's shelves. It seemed, however, that higher-level school officials weren't knowledgeable of the story. This week, when I checked the high school library's catalog, I didn't find any copies at all. But that doesn't mean there aren't some still lying around. 

As I read through the old newspaper articles, I was grateful at how much rare books librarianship has evolved since the early 1950s. When I was a graduate student in the 1990s, I had a part-time job at Rutgers's Special Collections and University Archives, where one of my responsibilities was to thumb through rare book dealers' catalogs and flag New Jersey items for my supervisor to consider. From what I understand, some exceptional and pricey materials are still acquired that way. However, an educator who simply wants to introduce today's youngsters to Ten Nights can tap Google Books, Hathi Trust, Internet Archive/Open Library, Project Gutenberg, and other online repositories. A practitioner who is looking for inexpensive print copies, as Bender was seeking for her school's library, might start with viaLibri, an aggregator that searches Amazon, eBay, and dozens of dealers' web sites. There are also professional listservs such as exlibris and sharp-l where colleagues can pose questions about rare materials and book history. This said, the limited communication system of the 1950s -- newspapers and the U.S. Postal Service -- were enough to provide Bender what she needed in a surprisingly short amount of time. 

What impresses me most is the willingness of people across America to help a small-town Pennsylvania school that they had likely never heard of. In relation to this fascinating story, news reporter Leonard Randolph commented that "death does not stop the spirit." Although he was speaking of Schoonover's efforts to instill prohibitionist sentiments in Stroudsburg's youth, similar can be said of the altruistic spirit of Scranton librarian William Bryan, Rochester gas station owner Alphonse Papilia, the thespians of the Little Theatre Group in Wilkes-Barre, and others who took a few minutes out of their day to respond. At the root, there is a love of literature, a love of children, and a love for treasure-seeking which continue to make this a compelling story. 

For more about Samuel Schoonover, Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, and the race to find copies:

  • "Bryan Joins 'Ten Nights' Hunt to Help School Get $25,000," The Times (Scranton, PA), February 19, 1952, 12. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/534027157/. 
  • Frassinelli, Bruce, "Anti-Alcohol Message Behind Bequest to Stroudsburg School," The Morning Call (Allentown, PA), November 19, 2010, A23. ProQuest Newsstream, https://www.proquest.com/docview/807467581. 
  • Hischak, Thomas S., 100 Greatest American Plays (New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2017). 
  • "Income from 'Ten Nights' Bequest Makes Possible Valuable Addition to Library," The Pocono Record (Stroudsburg, PA), October 17, 1952, 1, 3. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/82788922/. 
  • Kortz, Wealthy, "Mystery Covers Recluse Monroe Benefactor," The Morning Call (Allentown, PA), May 1, 1960, A1, A5. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/275301747/. 
  • "Library Receives 71 Copies of 'Ten Nights' Together With More Than 1200 Letters," The Pocono Record (Stroudsburg, PA), February 26, 1952, 11. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/60797638/. 
  • "Miss Bender's Ten Nights," Time, March 3, 1952, 52. 
  • "Nationwide Search Under Way for Copies of 'Ten Nights in a Barroom," The Pocono Record (Stroudsburg, PA), February 19, 1952, 19. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/60796203/. 
  • Randolph, Leonard, "Man Who Gave Town 'Ten Nights in a Barroom'," The Globe (Boston, MA), March 2, 1952, A5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers, https://www.proquest.com/docview/821429248. 
  • Randolph, Leonard, "Stroudsburg High Qualifies for Bequest as Offers of Book Deluge School Library," The Pocono Record (Stroudsburg, PA), February 20, 1952, 13, 17. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/60796383/. 
  • "Stroudsburg Assured 10 '10 Nights' Copies," The Times-Tribune (Scranton, PA), February 20, 1952, 15. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/534027703/. 
  • "Ten Volumes for a School Library," Life, March 17, 1952, 63-64. 
  • "Unusual Request Accompanies Gift of $3,422 to Library from S. M. Schoonover Estate," The Pocono Record (Stroudsburg, PA), February 15, 1952, 17. Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/image/60795503/.

  

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Wednesday, July 8, 2026

ALTBLA: Development of Altoona's First Community Website

Imagine typing the name of your town into Google and finding virtually no information about it. 

No Wikipedia entry. 

No news stories. 

No maps. 

No weather information. 

No "things to do" advice. 

No photographs.

No YouTube videos. 

Not even links to local government, schools, businesses, or other organizations. 

Such was the situation in many mid-sized and small American communities in the mid 1990s, when the Internet was new and most people were just starting to use it.

Here's a story about that early, uncharted territory, and someone named Matthew Kane, head of the Altoona Area Public Library, who decided to do something with it.

In 1994, AAPL received a Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) grant that paid for upgrades to its computer system and enabled staff to access the Internet. The following year, AAPL installed a Internet access station for the public. Along the way, Kane discovered that precious little information about Altoona was available on the web. As he later put it, all he found was "candy wrapper collections" (perhaps related to Boyer Company's Mallo Cup), places to play "paint ball" (a popular recreational sport at the time), and "not too much else." For a city of more than 50,000 residents, this lack of online presence was both a significant problem and a golden opportunity. 

So, in Summer 1995, Kane teamed up with Craig Kumar of Altoona Area School District's Center for Advanced Technologies, Peter Nigh of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission, and Jay Strawmire of the Altoona/Blair Chamber of Commerce to approach other movers and shakers. Wanting to "make Altoona and Blair County a leader on the Internet," they invited everyone to a meeting to discuss developing a website that would present their community in an "organized, positive way" in the World Wide Web that was emerging.

In some ways, a librarian taking a leadership role in developing a community website was just the latest iteration of a role that libraries had played for decades. Reference departments, which typically embraced information-provision as part of their missions, often subscribed to printed telephone/address directories; maintained vertical files, rolodexes, and other compilations of local data; and willingly provided referrals for those who asked. By convening Altoona colleagues from the cultural, educational, business, government, and health sectors, Kane was simply creating a directory in an exciting new format -- albeit one that was more colorful, expandible, updatable, and interactive than anything he'd probably known before. 

It might seem that the dream-team Kane assembled were overthinking things by involving so many people just to produce a website. But this particular historical moment required that. Today, many of us author digital material without much consultation or fanfare; off-the-shelf software makes it easy to create something attractive and functional in no time flat. However, in the mid-1990s, such tools didn't exist. Web authorship involved significant coding skills that most people didn't have. So the involvement of Kumar and CAT was essential to the project's success. By getting Nigh of SPHPC and Strawmire of the Chamber on-board, Kane was involving two of the most civically-active sectors in his region -- its history professionals and business community. Working for a cash-strapped institution, Kane probably hoped that the other entities could help pay for CAT's labors, or, they could collectively achieve some economies of scale. He and his colleagues also believed that their site might be the first and only impression outsiders might get of their city/county, so they all wanted that impression to be a favorable one. 

At any rate, nearly 30 representatives from all types of organizations came to an initial meeting on June 16, 1995 --including people from state senator Robert C. Jubelirer's office, Altoona's City Hall and its Planning Department, the Blair County Commissioners' office, various cultural, educational, and human services agencies, the Altoona Mirror newspaper, and WTAJ-TV. They participated in "sharing sessions" about how they were putting local information on the Internet, and they explored potential partnerships and funding streams. Unfortunately the minutes from this particular meeting don't detail which organizations already had their own websites, but judging from information shared at subsequent gatherings, we can conclude that few if any did. 

As a result of the June meeting, a "Blair County Internet Partnership Committee" formed and it included: 

  • Matthew Kane (chair), Altoona Area Public Library
  • Catherine Augustine, Center for Advanced Technologies
  • Julia Bennett, Blair County Library System
  • Cheryl Ebersole, Allegheny Mountains Convention and Visitors Bureau
  • Steve Gildea, Mercy Regional Health Systems
  • Donna Gority, County of Blair
  • Marty Marasco, Altoona Enterprises
  • Frank Meloy, Altoona Area School District
  • Peter Nigh, Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission
  • Toby Sky Rispoli, Penn State Altoona
  • Ronald Roefar, Appalachia Intermediate Unit 08
  • JoEllen Steinbrunner (originally), later Jean Johnstone and Patrick Miller, Blair County Mental Health/Drugs and Alcohol
  • Jay Strawmine, Altoona-Blair County Chamber of Commerce
  • Deborah Weakland, Altoona Area Public Library
  • Jian Wu, City of Altoona

In subsequent meetings, they reviewed online content from other localities. especially Pittsburgh and York County. They decided that the Altoona-Blair site should have a landing page with links to second-level pages that were categorized as "Business," "Government," "History," "Services," "Education," "Health," "Travel," and "Libraries." Two-person teams were appointed to provide Kane with outlines for second-level material -- including any organizations that should be listed, and further content to be written. CAT would develop the first and second-level pages free of charge and add links to organizations' sites as they emerged. Entities that wanted CAT's assistance for developing their own sites would pay for it through their own budgets. 

As of August 1995, some organizations were still in exploratory stages while others were actively collaborating with 3rd parties. For example, SPHPC had reached out to Bell Atlantic about developing a local server, while Altoona City Hall had posted documents to the site of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Pittsburgh office. Of everyone at the meeting, Mercy Hospital seemed to be the furthest along: not only did it have its own site, but it had also created an online training course for nurses. Among the educational organizations, Penn State Altoona was the first in the area to offer "in-depth homepages." However, AAPL and most of the others hadn't mounted their own sites yet.

After committee members turned in their outlines to Kane, website development seems to have taken several months. Over that time, some began referring to the project as "ALTBLA" -- likely because of  abbreviations for "Altoona" and "Blair" within the site's URL, though it could also be said that the site provided an "alternative" to the "blather" that the Internet otherwise provided about their area. Either way, the long-awaited unveiling of the ALTBLA homepage on Friday, March 1, 1996, was a red-letter date, hosted in AAPL's theater with State Senator Robert C. Jubelirer as a keynote speaker. Ironically, though, it's difficult to get a sense of what the thing actually looked like. According to a "script" for the event, which still exists in AAPL's Administrative Office files, Kane explained that the design was intended to "reflect the evolution of the area from a primarily railroad region to a region that is embracing computer technology." Referencing Bill Gates's book The Road Ahead, which was a bestseller at the time, Kane described the Internet as a "townsquare" [sic] where people meet, converse, exchange information -- "generally an environment for sharing and learning from one another." 

Fortunately, Kane then provided a walk-through of the site, and this provides us a sense of how it functioned. In those early days when few organizations had their own servers or the impetus to register domain names, the Altoona-Blair site had an impossibly complicated URL that reflected its hosting by CAT within the Altoona Area School District:

http://cat99.altoona.k12.pa.us/altoonablair/ALTBLA.htm 

After sharing this mouthful, Kane described the links on each of the second-level pages. As he did so, he sometimes invited relevant guests to speak about how they were using the Internet to enhance their work. For example, when describing the "Education" page, Kane paused for a word from Dr. Allen Meadors, CEO of Penn State Altoona, who mentioned that professors and students were developing individual pages and gaining wider audiences for their writings. It seems that Kane even gave a shoutout or shared the stage with New Pig. a company that manufactured industrial cleanup supplies! The overall message of the program was that the Internet, and ALTBLA, could benefit a wide variety of constituents near and far. 

Through the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, I found a snapshot from July 1997 of the ALTBLA landing page. Sadly, most of the graphics that embellished it are missing, and many of the links led to 404 messages. However, the "Library" link still worked. It provided a photo, brief information, and a catalog link for both AAPL and Penn State Altoona's Eiche Library. There was also a link to a list of other libraries in Blair County. While the Eiche Library had its own web page, AAPL and all the other public libraries did not. Those who wanted to access AAPL's catalog and other online resources had to dial-in using Telnet, a text-based protocol. 

[Telnet -- OMG, the memories!] 

At the time, Kane and his colleagues may have thought that they had made a long-lasting contribution toward finding Altoona and Blair County resources online. But as it turned out, the Internet evolved faster than most people could have imagined. Within less than a year, rudimentary directories such as Yahoo were replaced with increasingly powerful search engines from Mosaic to Ask Jeeves to Google.  Gradually, all the organizations mentioned in this story developed websites of their own. For instance, no later than May 2000, AAPL's first website emerged -- and it even had clickable buttons shaped like card catalog drawers running down its left side. So, the need for ALTBLA and its content quickly subsided. 

Overall, this story may seem like a "nothingburger," but to me, it demonstrates some important points about the early history of our online world. While many chroniclers point to 1989 as the year Tim Berners-Lee "invented" the Internet, most everyday people, at least in smaller cities like Altoona and rural counties like Blair, did not gain hands-on experience using it until the mid-1990s. Some did not become involved in web authorship until years after that. Given the yearlong effort to produce ALTBLA, it also seems that the cost of equipment and the lack of technical expertise prevented many from getting online as quickly as they wanted to. Thirdly -- as demonstrated by the several meetings Altoona and Blair County leaders attended to discuss the presentation of their region in the digital environment -- there was a moment in history when people thought very deeply about what the Internet should do for *community* life (not just corporate bottom lines). Finally, as illustrated by ALTBLA's high-profile unveiling, the occasion of claiming one's space in this new environment was momentous and exhilarating. Comparing this moment to the current build-up surrounding AI -- which is being pushed hard, top-down, by tech bros and corporate leaders, while encountering significant resistance among the general public -- is it possible that we have we lost a sense of the costs, effort, learning-curve, thoughtfulness, and wonder that using new technologies have always entailed? It would be interesting to hear Matthew Kane's and other community leaders' perspectives on that.

For more information:

  • Altoona Area Public Library, Administrative Office files, folder "Internet Partnership." 
  • Altoona Area Public Library, Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes, June 28, 1995.
  • Kane, Matthew, "Homepage Gives People Worldwide Information Online," The Mirror (Altoona, PA), March 18, 1996. 

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Thursday, July 2, 2026

Reference Commandments for the 1970s, 1990s, and Today

On July 1st I returned to library work and it also happens to be a holiday week. At times like these, when I want to ease-in or ease-out of work, I turn to my interlibrary loan account, skim new arrivals, and upload all the useful ones to my citation manager. It's tedious, but at least I can listen to documentaries or music while I do it. Today, I received a 1971 article by Nathan A Josel called "Ten Reference Commandments." It was published in RQ (the predecessor of RUSQ), which was a relatively new publication at the time. Back then, Josel was Head of the History and Travel Department of the Memphis (TN) Public Library and there are indications he'd worked at the Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore, MD) previously. Having worked at "the Pratt" myself, I can guarantee you that's a green flag that Josel was a well-trained reference librarian. 

Many librarians can rattle off S. R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science ...

[Say it along with me: Books are for use. Every person has his or her book. Every book has its reader. Save the time of the reader. A library is a growing organism. Very good!]


Winter 1971 cover of RQ,
where Josel's article appeared.
Image courtesy of
Allborg University Library (Denmark)
and JSTOR. 
Well, if one could say that Ranganathan's Five Laws reflect a theoretical, "spirit of" what we do, maybe one could say that Josel's Ten Commandments are the nitty-gritty regulations that govern everyday practice at a service desk:

      1. The patron is always wrong.
      2. When you know the answer is in a source, it is.
      3. Depend on no one's prior research for accuracy or completeness.
      4. Coincidence is no coincidence.
      5. If it was that hard to find, put it in the query file.
      6. Remember special indexes.
      7. Use tracings.
      8. Synonyms are the key.
      9. Keep a list of where you have looked.
      10. "No" is never an answer.
Apparently, this list was thought-provoking to at least one RQ reader, because the next issue included a letter to the editor from Lillian Tudiver, Chief of the Social Sciences Department of Brooklyn Public Library (see "Tudiver's Ten"). Tudiver largely agreed with Josel and felt that commandment 5, about putting tough questions in the query file, should be "triple starred." However, she took issue with the idea that "no is never an answer." Sometimes, she noted, questions simply aren't worth the amount of time it would take to find a definitive answer or source. Or, some referrals may not be appropriate given the context and needs of the user. As an explanation, Tudiver described the example of a young child who was researching American Indians for a school assignment, who asked a "minute point" [my-noot: meaning, pickiola] about a tribe. After trying colleagues and resources in various departments, she "wouldn't dream" of telling the kid to phone or write to scholarly libraries out-of-state. It's also worth noting that, in regards to Josel's commandments 1 and 3, Tudiver seldom trusted "research" done by customers, but she *did* tend to trust the work of her BPL colleagues. 

From there, it looks like Josel's list faded from view, at least if citation counts in JCR, Scopus, and Google Scholar are to be believed. A quick search of Google Book Search indicates that he popped up in the bibliographies of some late 20th-century librarianship encyclopedias and textbooks (mainly ones by Marcia J. Bates and William A. "Bill" Katz who knew *everything* about reference!). But interestingly, in 1995, Charles R. Anderson, then the editor of "The Exchange" column in RQ, reviewed Josel's advice and developed a revision for the coming 21st century. Anderson himself was an experienced professional at the King County (WA) Library System and he offered what I feel is a solid update for the mid-1990s:
Summer 1995 cover of RQ,
where Anderson's article appeared.
Image courtesy of
Allborg University Library
(Denmark) and JSTOR. 
    1. Never assume you understand every question asked.
    2. If the answer should be in a source, it was probably in the print version.
    3. Give every question your best shot; no one else has the time to be as passionate.
    4. Coincidence is no coincidence [no improvement offered]
    5. If it was that hard to find, put it in the online fugitive facts file.
    6. Create special indexes and share them online!
    7. Insist on excellent authority control and automatic cross-references in your online catalog system. 
    8. Learning to manipulate and use effectively the keyword and Boolean capabilities of your database.
    9. Keep a list of where you have looked [Anderson noted that this is "still valid," but questioned whether anyone else would use the list].
    10. "No" is never an answer. [Anderson believed "this one should be engraved in titanium for all time"].
Anderson's valuable list, though, doesn't seem to have generated much published commentary, either.

Josel (1971) was writing in an environment where college, corporate, and government librarians where starting to develop computerized search tools, but where most public libraries, especially small ones, couldn't afford and didn't have room for the technology. Anderson (1995) may have started his career in a similar world, but had likely participated in or witnessed automation projects, including the introduction of the Internet as a reference resource. As I reflected on their writings, I recognized that I might have come to the library profession during a golden age. I began using library reference books in the early/mid 1980s, became a more sophisticated user as a student library worker and paraprofessional in the early 1990s, and earned my MLS in the mid-late 1990s. During my childhood, many small public libraries had little if any automation, and by the time I finished grad school, Google had just emerged as an important search engine. In other words, I came of library age when printed dictionaries, encyclopedias, statistics, and technical manuals were abundant; the U.S. government was one of the largest publishers in the world; many professional and scholarly journals were produced by non-profits and universities that didn't charge sinful prices; and the Internet was beginning to provide access to information that was often deemed too local or "niche" to be picked up by commercial publishers. 

Thus I have "lived" quite a few of the experiences that Josel and Tudiver likely had in mind as they were writing. For example, Josel's comments about "query files" gave me a smile, because when I worked at the Pratt in the early 2000s, the Business, Science, and Technology department had an index card file just inside the door between the staff office and the reference area. It contained generations of librarians' notes on how to handle "stumpers." If you got to write and insert a card of your own, you initialed and dated it, which was felt like you were leaving your mark on history! I also remembered how "tracings" -- recommended subject headings within library catalogs -- often unlocked doors to many other publications on the same topic. As a college librarian, I still teach database thesauri to faculty and advanced students, though keyword searching will usually suffice for lower-level undergraduates. 

Ruefully, Anderson's bit about fugitive answers being "in the print version" rings very true. While the ability to instantly update web content makes it more timely, past information that is useful to historians like me is often overwritten. Although I've become very skilled at using the Wayback Machine, it hasn't always captured the deep innards of websites, nor can it unlock a lot of information that has been behind paywalls. I also found myself nodding at the seemingly-lowered expectation of giving a question "your best shot" rather than going to the ends of the Earth and leaving fastidious breadcrumbs behind. I often tell stressed-out colleagues that it's OK to quit when you can "leave 'em better than you found 'em" because "80% for everyone is better than leaving some customers or necessary tasks unaddressed." 

When I started working at Penn State in 2004, I was the youngest librarian at my campus and now I'm one of the older ones. Just this month, we welcomed a new-to-us librarian to our team, and while he doesn't need my advice, it's got me thinking about Josel and Anderson and whether I would I say anything different to newer colleagues. Commentary about the "wrongness" of patrons, and whether librarians should ever say "no," struck a particular nerve with me. As chronicled by Don Borchert (2007), Warren Graham (2013), Kaetrena Davis-Kendrick (2017-present), Susan Orleans (2019), William Ottens (2020), Miranda Dube and Carrie Wade (2021), Amanda Oliver (2022), Amanda Jones (2024), and others, my generation of library employees have dealt with rising numbers of patrons who range from humorously weird, to blisteringly hostile, to dangerously criminal. And unfortunately, as Kendrick and Oliver have demonstrated, library supervisors too often turn a blind eye or even perpetuate low morale and abuse. 

Thinking about my more difficult experiences and how I've tried to help new colleagues survive or avoid the same, a lot of the wisdom I'd share would probably revolve around standing up for oneself. One of the most valuable mentors I ever had was in the 1990s at the New Brunswick (NJ) Free Public Library, where Barbara Ketterer -- a kind but no-nonsense senior librarian -- taught a certain 23-year-old how to carry herself self with squared shoulders and manage disruptive customers with the authority of an admiral. Bless Mrs. Ketterer, I know *she's* resting in peace because she wouldn't tolerate otherwise! Having dealt with some abrasive, clueless, and cravenly self-centered administrators at various institutions over my 30-year career, another thing I find myself saying a lot is "make the bosses take responsibility for their decisions." Sometimes, this involves pointing an irate customer to someone else's directory information, especially when they are behind closed doors most of the day. Other times, it's about radically accepting the limits that your institutional context places on you, even though you can envision, and you have the skills, do better for your customers. For example, if your institution refuses to give you anything but Corolla parts (i.e., cheap or middling resources), it shouldn't be on you to give customers a Lexus experience at your own personal expense. 

These days, I often find myself turning to social media and online networks like ALATT, Everything Library, and Library Employee Support Network when I'm facing a professional conundrum or I need a shot in the arm. These sites enable me to quickly tap the hive mind and the collective heart of thousands of colleagues. But professional journals like RQ provide a valuable archive -- a way to visit with my professional grandparents -- and some articles, like Josel's and Anderson's, seem to encourage deeper reflection. Although my efforts to gather the older material are often tedious, they are richly rewarding. 
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Wednesday, July 1, 2026

The Quiet Nature of His Service: Governor Dick Thornburgh and Pennsylvania Libraries

Many Pennsylvania librarians who are my-years old rightfully think of Tom Ridge as one of the most impactful advocates that we've ever had. During his 6 years as Governor of the Commonwealth, Ridge tripled the state's aid to public libraries, supported further development of Access PA and the POWER Library, and developed a new program, "Link to Learn," which included libraries in a statewide effort to improve educational technology infrastructure and Internet access. For these and other reasons, Ridge was deemed "Politician of the Year" by Library Journal in 2001. 

However, as I was skimming 1980s issues of the Pennsylvania Library Association's Bulletin this week, I discovered another Pennsylvania governor who quietly supported libraries a lot more than many of his predecessors had:

Governor Richard Lewis "Dick" Thornburgh.

Dick Thornburgh, ca. 1988 (official Department of Justice portrait).
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dick_Thornburgh.jpg. 

For various reasons, I wasn't expecting Thornburgh to be a library supporter. He was a Republican, and although he was a moderate, the national leader of his party at the time (U.S. President Ronald Reagan) advocated cuts to Library Services and Construction Act funding, which was the primary vehicle for funneling federal funds to public libraries. Also, when Thornburgh was elected in 1978, Pennsylvania's economy was grim. The demise of steel and other industries left the state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Then, just 2 months into his first term, an accident at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant presented Thornburgh with an unprecedented environmental, health, and political crisis. After demonstrating extraordinary leadership with TMI, Thornburgh, who was known as "Mr. Fixit," focused on balanced budgets, debt reduction, tax-cutting, and reducing the size of state government, including the line-item for the State Library's library operations. When I did cursory searches of Pennsylvania newspapers, I found a lot of material on these topics, but very little about Thornburgh and libraries.  

Nevertheless, periodic blurbs in PaLA's Bulletin indicate that for 8 years, Thornburgh was a substantial *public* and *school* library proponent. In 1980, he appointed Elliot Shelkrot as State Librarian, filling a crucial position that had been vacant for two years. By all published accounts, this was a good choice, as Shelkrot was a Pennsylvania native who was Chief of Public Services at the Baltimore County (MD) Public Library -- a progressive system at the time. Thornburgh also supported legislation that modernized library funding mechanisms and operations. For example, in 1980, he supported Act 200, legislation that amended the Public Library Code by "lifting the cap" (eliminating statutory limits) on state funding -- thus making the law more responsive to inflation and enabling his administration (and future ones) to allocate more money to public libraries. For his contribution to this change, Pennsylvania Citizens for Better Libraries awarded him its "Citizen of the Year" prize in 1981. A strong relationship between Thornburgh and public libraries continued in subsequent years. Over time, Thornburgh signed Act 95 of 1982 (added library theft to the state criminal code); Act 96 of 1982 (defining county taxes for libraries); Act 105 of 1982 (enabled the State Library to support interlibrary cooperation and resource sharing); Act 90 of 1984 (eliminated the 3-mil limit on local funding for libraries and made library circulation records confidential); and Act 50 of 1985 (revised the equalization formula to distribute more funds to libraries in distressed communities).  

According to the Governor's Executive Budgets for 1981/1982-1990/1991, which provide the "actual" [final] figures for most of the years Thornburgh was in office, state aid to public libraries more than doubled during his terms:  

  • 1978/1979: $9.879 million
  • 1979/1980: [missing]
  • 1980/1981: $10.835 million (9.68% increase over 2 years)
  • 1981/1982: $14.097 million (30.11% increase)
  • 1982/1983: $15.312 million (8.62% increase)
  • 1983/1984: $17.361 million (13.38% increase)
  • 1984/1985: $18.411 million (6.05% increase)
  • 1985/1986: $19.953 million (8.38% increase)
  • 1986/1987: [missing]
  • 1987/1988: $20.475 million (2.62% increase over 2 years)
  • 1988/1989: $21.5 million (5.01% increase)

Thornburgh also played an important role in the beginning of Access PA, which still exists as a statewide catalog of materials in public and school libraries. In 1981, he directed the State Library to identify goals that would "help all libraries provide more efficient services to their communities." In turn, Shelkrot brought together a Library Planning Council of nearly 100 representatives from business, education, libraries, and other domains. Their recommendations fed into a plan, promoted by Thornburgh, that included (among other things) borrowers' cards that could be used in any public library throughout the state; reimbursement for libraries that loaned materials outside their service areas; assistance in automating library catalogs; and a statewide database of public and school library materials (see Access Pennsylvania: An Agenda for Knowledge and Information through Libraries). In subsequent years, Thornburgh requested millions of dollars in additional state money for Access PA, and while the legislature did not provide full appropriations each year, partial funding helped some of the plan to be realized or piloted. While not part of the Access PA initiative, it's worth noting that Thornburgh also supported budget increases for Pennsylvania's Library for the Blind and the Physically Handicapped (now LAMP) and he advocated for adult literacy programs -- 2 things that also benefit public library users.

I still have a lot to learn about Thornburgh, especially since I haven't used his personal papers and government records that could reveal more about his motivations and how his administration interacted with Elliot Shelkrot, the State Library, and the Pennsylvania Library Association. I would love to know why he had such an interest in developing public and school libraries, especially given the economic challenges he encountered when he came to office. A quick skim of his 2003 autobiography, Where the Evidence Leads, indicates that he loved to read from an early age (the newspaper, Hardy Boys mystery series, LIFE Magazine, and biographies/history were his favorites). Perhaps, as a person who called himself "painstakingly methodical," he also recognized himself and his values in the people and efforts he observed in libraries. In accepting his 1981 Citizen of the Year award from PCBL, he stated:

"We all know that important services are sometimes neglected, and that libraries, perhaps because of the quiet nature of their service, are particularly vulnerable in this regard. Because of this vulnerability, I believe it is incumbent upon all of us in a position to help to be particularly sensitive to this 'quiet service' and the cultural imperative that it survive even the hardest of economic times." (quoted from "Libraries Have a Friend: Governor Dick Thornburgh," PLA Bulletin, November 1981, 6).

Although I'm not yet in a position to speak to (or critically analyze) everything Dick Thornburgh did for Pennsylvania's libraries, I feel that offering some acknowledgement of his contributions is a matter of simple justice. He noticed and advocated for libraries' "quiet service," so we should recognize his. 

For more about Dick Thornburgh see:

  • "Budget Boost for Libraries is Proposed," PLA Bulletin, March 1985, 1. 
  • Burris, Keith C., "The Thornburgh Model." Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, PA), January 7, 2021, A11. 
  • Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Education, Bureau of the State Library, Access Pennsylvania: An Agenda for Knowledge and Information through Libraries (Harrisburg, PA: The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1984). 
  • Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Governor's Executive Budget (Harrisburg, PA: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1981/1982-1990/1991). Pennsylvania Office of the Budget, https://www.pa.gov/agencies/budget/publications-and-reports/commonwealth-budget.
  • Estrada, Louie, "Richard Thornburgh, Former Pennsylvania Governor and U.S. Attorney General, dies at 88." Post (Washington, D.C.), December 31, 2020. Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/dick-thornburgh-dead/2020/12/31/b876404c-4b9d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html.
  • Fuller, Peter, "The Politics of LSCA during the Reagan and Bush Administrations: An Analysis," The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 64, no. 3 (July 1994), 294-318. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4308946.
  • "General Budget Bill Signed by Thornburgh," PLA Bulletin, July 1983, 1.
  • "Libraries Have a Friend: Governor Dick Thornburgh," PLA Bulletin, November 1981, 1
  • McFadden, Robert D. "Richard Thornburgh, 88, Governor Who Kept Cool at Reactor Meltdown, Dies." Times (New York, NY), January 1, 2021, B11. New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/us/politics/richard-thornburgh-dead.html. 
  • "Gov. Thornburgh Announces LSCA Title II Grants," PLA Bulletin, November 1983, 7.  
  • Nyren, "Access Pennsylvania Spearheaded by Governor," Library Journal, January 1985, 18.
  • "Penn. State Aid Increases; Library Access Not Funded," School Library Journal, December 1985, 12.
  • "Shelkrot Appointed State Librarian," PLA Bulletin, February 1980, 1.
  • State Library of Pennsylvania, "Information and Knowledge for All Pennsylvanians: Library Advances During the Thornburgh Administration" [typescript]. Available in State Library of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Documents, PE 136.2 I43a.
  • Thompson, Charles, "Former Pa. Gov. Dick Thornburgh Remembered as a Leader Who Was Right for His Time," Patriot-News (Harrisburg, PA), December 31, 2020. PennLive, https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/12/former-gov-dick-thornburgh-remembered-around-harrisburg-and-throughout-pennsylvania-as-a-governor-who-was-right-for-his-time.html. 
  • "Thornburgh: Servant-Leader." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 9, 2021, WB-2.
  • Thornburgh, Dick, Where the Evidence Leads: An Autobiography, Revised and Updated (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003).
  • Wallace, Andy, and Angela Couloumbis, "From Governor to Head of Justice: Turbulent Time as AG Followed Effective Years in Pa.; Richard Thornburgh: 1932-2020," Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA): January 1, 2021, A1. Philadelphia Inquirer, https://www.inquirer.com/news/dick-thornburgh-dies-pennsylvania-governor-attorney-general-20201231.html.



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Monday, June 29, 2026

"Learning is for Everyone": Altoona's Library Service for People with Disabilities

This month, when I was doing a site visit at the Altoona Area Public Library (AAPL), I began my research with 10 boxes of material that had been pulled together into a Library Records Collection. Near the end of my first day, I was weary from reading a decade's worth of trustees meeting minutes. But I wanted to continue working if I could stand it, so I opened a box of scrapbooks. On top was a brown, string-bound volume with an intriguing title: "Our L.I.F.E. History." After flipping through the first few pages, I realized I'd found a treasure-trove of pamphlets and news stories pertaining to an innovative outreach program for people with disabilities. I was so engrossed that I remained in the library until closing time!

Scrapbook of Altoona Area Public Library's
L.I.F.E. program Photo by the author.

Among various social movements that took place in Pennsylvania during the 1960s-1970s, it could be argued that one of the greatest revolutions took place in the area of disability rights. First, the U.S. government began to require that facilities and programs receiving federal funds be accessible (see the 1968 Architectural Barriers Act and the 1973 Rehabilitation Act). About the same time, changes began in the educational realm, starting at the state level where the primary responsibility for schooling resides. Ever since 1874, Pennsylvania'S Constitution had required our state legislature to maintain a "thorough and efficient system of public schools" for all children aged 6 and over. However, this didn't necessarily include kids with disabilities. Those who were deemed "uneducable and untrainable" could be shunted toward state hospitals and other institutions that were focused more on controlling them than helping them. In 1971, several families took their school districts and other agencies to court (see PARC v. Commonwealth). Ultimately, they obtained a consent decree which required the state's education system to evaluate children with disabilities and place them in publicly-funded educational settings. Another important case, Halderman v. Pennhurst, challenged cruel conditions at a Pennsylvania state hospital. The plaintiffs successfully argued that confining residents there had violated their constitutional rights. These and other landmark decisions helped set the stage for additional federal actions. In 1975, for example, the U.S. Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children (EAHCA) Act (later called IDEA) that required all states to provide free, appropriate education in the "least restrictive environment" for every student. IDEA was one of various national laws that opened up schools, public facilities, job opportunities, and more for people with disabilities.

Unsurprisingly, public libraries that received federal funds or were closely allied with school systems sought to improve their services for blind, deaf, and other people with disabilities. However, AAPL was early among them. At the time, Altoona had a significant population because Blair County was home to Hollidaysburg State Hospital and residents were being integrated into surrounding communities. An estimated 3,000 people in the area had intellectual disabilities (see Forer and Zajac, pg. 6); additional youths and adults had other special needs. 

At present, I am not sure who originated the idea for AAPL's L.I.F.E. Center, but the earliest mention I have found so far is in the December 1974 meeting minutes of the library's board of trustees. They note that Matthew Kane, a recently-hired Head of Reference, informed the trustees that he planned to pursue a Library Services and Construction Act (federal) grant to fund a specialist to focus on serving patrons with disabilities. At first, some board members felt this was "unnecessary" because "other organizations are trained for handling services to the retarded." Kane pushed back, however, apparently arguing that there were informational gaps that the library could and should fill. A few months later, AAPL won a 1-year grant that covered a full-time coordinator, a part-time clerical assistant, and collection enhancements for the coming year.

At the time, people with intellectual disabilities were often called "mentally retarded," and words like "handicapped" and "impaired" were used to describe people with other disabilities. These terms, which we now understand as demeaning, appear often in AAPL's historical documents. However, L.I.F.E.'s operating philosophy revolved around "mainstreaming," an effort to *include* people with disabilities. At first, L.I.F.E. was an acronym for "Libraries Initiative Freeing Experiences"; over time, the mantra became "Learning is for Everyone." In addition to the typical literacy and recreational opportunities that libraries offered, L.I.F.E. intended help its clientele become better integrated across all aspects of everyday life in Altoona and Blair County. As described verbatim in a booklet written in the late 1970s by L.I.F.E's coordinators, their goals included: 
  1. "Serve mentally retarded [sic] persons of all ages and abilities by providing a collection of multi-media materials which they can borrow and that are best that are suited to their special needs; providing appropriate programs in which they can participate and find enjoyment;  and providing situations in which they can interact comfortably with other regular patrons.
  2. Serve parents, teachers, and advocates of retarded [sic] citizens by providing a multi-media collection on all aspects of mental retardation; providing a parent resource collection of instructional materials materials which which will help them them teach specific skills and concepts at home to their retarded children; providing an information-referral service; and providing programs in cooperation with the local chapter of the Pennsylvania Association Retarded Citizens to help parents of retarded children with their many special needs.
  3. Serve the general public by providing access to information on all aspects of mental retardation [sic] including career opportunities in this field; and providing a forum in which normal children and adults interact with the retarded, and through which their attitudes and misconceptions will hopefully be changed."
From September 1975 through the Spring of 1976, Anne-Marie Lehner (later Forer) was L.I.F.E.'s coordinator. A special education teacher who was pursuing a library science degree at Drexel, she first focused on preparing a space and acquiring appropriate materials. In particular, she purchased what were then called "high-low" (high-interest, low vocabulary) books developed for adults with emerging or limited reading skills. She also obtained parent training materials, as well as films, puzzles, toys, games, and posters that could be enjoyed by young children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. When selecting them, she focused on simplicity of format, clear and uncomplicated directions, durability, and other qualities needed for shared public use. In addition to checking recommendation lists that were available at the time, Forer and her successor Mary Zajac visited other libraries and talked extensively with local organizations and parents about their needs.  

Altoona's L.I.F.E. Center officially opened on November 18, 1975. Initially staffed on weekday afternoons, incoming donations and volunteers later enabled it to extend its hours to include Monday nights and Saturday afternoons as well. An article in the Blair Press provides the most detailed documentation of what the center looked like during its first year. As shown in the image below, the center was located on the library's ground floor, adjacent to the Children's Department. Measuring about 13 by 30 feet, it was the size of a "large living room" and was carpeted like one. In addition to book shelves, cubbyholes at one corner housed kits and toys. There were also a large playhouse and multimedia stations. As reported by Matthew Kane at monthly AAPL's board meetings, L.I.F.E.'s users steadily increased: during the first month, it offered 2 dozen public programs which attracted more than 200 participants, more than 50 of whom registered for library cards. Special education classes from McKinley School, and groups from the Altoona's Children's Center, Easter Seals, and Social Rehabilitation Center, visited as well.

A full-page article about L.I.F.E. in the Blair Press, June 2, 1976. From the Our L.I.F.E. History Scrapbook, Altoona Area Public Library, Library Records Collection.

When Lehner (Forer) resigned to focus on her studies in Philadelphia, the project was taken up by Mary Zajac, another special education teacher who worked with teens at McKinley. Joining the effort near the end of a 1-year grant, it seems that Zajac was more focused on delivering public programs and securing additional funds so that L.I.F.E.'s work could continue. A series of "Parent Training Workshops" focused on different-aged people during each session, starting with preschool children. Each week for six weeks, language development, behavior management, self-help skills, and other topics were presented along with resources to help caregivers learn more. Free sign language courses, taught by volunteer Reverend Jack Emswiler, pastor of the Christ Second Lutheran Church, were offered as well. On the fun side, a series on Harry the Dirty Dog not only included read-alouds, but also a multisensory opportunity to meet Harry himself. There were also "Learn a Hobby" craft activities where attendees could try rock painting, stitching, and woodworking. The creativity of staff and volunteers was impressive. For example, one promotion they developed was the "Lifesavers Club" -- by obtaining a borrower's card and borrowing 10 items from the center, a L.I.F.E. user could receive a roll of Lifesavers candies or a Lifesavers lollipop. 


L.I.F.E. public programs in August 1976, as listed in AAPL's newsletter. 
From the Our L.I.F.E. History Scrapbook,
Altoona Area Public Library, Library Records Collection.

Public appreciation for L.I.F.E. resulted in some important donations and publicity. One of L.I.F.E.'s most important collaborators was the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC, now the ARC of Pennsylvania) which provided a $100-per-week stipend (about $600 in 2026 dollars) for a clerical worker who helped with basic public services and collection upkeep. The Altoona School of Commerce's Student Council also contributed, providing a $500 gift (about $2,800 in 2026 dollars). Due to the pathbreaking nature of L.I.F.E.'s work, Zajac was invited to speak at library conferences and other events. Perhaps for that reason, she teamed up with Anne-Marie Forer to author Library Services to the Mentally Retarded [sic]. Published by AAPL and the State Library of Pennsylvania in the late 1970s, the booklet included a description of L.I.F.E. and offered practical tips on collections and programs for people with intellectual disabilities. Aware that Altoona's program represented a "maximum effort" that most public libraries couldn't afford, Forer and Zajac recommended reaching out to local service organizations to learn about the size and needs of one's local population, then picking one age group or demographic to start with. Including children with disabilities in the library's regular story times, and reaching out to special education teachers as well as elementary teachers, were the most basic ways of including everyone. Self-education about current terminology, legislation, and resources was also important, they advised. These and other recommendations were so valuable that Forer and Zajac's booklet was forwarded to the U.S. Department of Education and distributed to hundreds of libraries nationwide through the ERIC microfiche service (see ED 165728). 

Mary Zajac (third from the left) was the 2nd Director of L.I.F.E. Here, she receives a donation from Tyke Rhodes (far right) and other members of the Altoona School of Commerce's Student Council. From the Our L.I.F.E. History Scrapbook, Altoona Area Public Library, Library Records Collection.

Unfortunately, despite L.I.F.E.'s successes and connections, AAPL encountered difficulty sustaining the center after the LSCA grant terminated. In 1976, the Altoona Area School District cut the library's budget, causing a cascade of problems that nearly resulted in AAPL losing its state aid. As the library sorted out its financial woes, Zajac applied for another grant which was initially approved by the State Library (the administrator of Pennsylvania's LSCA programs) and would have supported the center through June 1978. However, SLP pulled back the funds because of AAPL's ongoing budget deficits. Overtures to Intermediate Unit 08 (responsible for special education in Blair, Bedford, Cambria, and Somerset Counties), PARC, and other regional organizations were unsuccessful. Thus grant-funded staff were released in June 1977. In 1979, a new grant enabled AAPL to hire a temporary Director of Special Services, Elaine Hilsinger, to oversee L.I.F.E. and other efforts the library was making to reach blind, deaf, and homebound customers. However, when funding ceased in June 1980, she was laid off  as well. In between grants, Matthew Kane and other AAPL staff kept the center running using college students from various workforce development programs. He also recruited volunteers, especially through Altoona's Retired Senior Volunteering Service. However, L.I.F.E. never resumed the busy schedule of class visits and public programs that had been achieved during its first year. Judging from board minutes, it appears that as time passed, Kane's attention was redirected toward implementing and upgrading information technologies in other areas of the library. In Fall 1988, all L.I.F.E.'s books and audiovisual items were moved to other parts of the library and it became simply a "special area" within the children's department. 

In reflecting on L.I.F.E.'s promising start and its unfortunate demise -- a story that I've seen paralleled many times within other libraries trying to reach historically marginalized populations -- I see a wider concern that I want to explore and think about further. While these stories are fascinating and inspiring, I have to admit that from where I currently sit, the notion that temporary federal and state funds can "stimulate" ongoing local and private investment in public libraries simply doesn't pan out in a lot of cases. At all 6 of the libraries I've researched for my current project, most grant-funded service initiatives for non-white, aged, disabled, and other underserved customers disappeared after a few years. Importantly, as was the case in Altoona, this was not because of a lack of trying on the libraries' parts. And yet, a lot of library funding mechanisms, as created by national and state government officials, are steeped in this probably-fallacious idea. Further, because of the wonderful things that libraries can accomplish *when funded to do so*, professional and public expectations have increased, when, truthfully, the resources necessary to realize those hopes only materialize for those institutions that have the ability and energy to dollar-chase year after year. When other prerogatives arise -- such as the opportunity/need to automate library operations arose in Altoona (and everywhere else) during the 1980s/1990s -- fundraising for specialized services can fall to the wayside. Perhaps some librarians and their customers are consoled by the thought that something for a little while is better than nothing at all, ever. But this consolation may be a distinction without a difference if people with disabilities, or other historically-ignored groups in our communities, are left to go without far more often than they are served. If funders really want everyone to be welcome in libraries, they've got to put more permanent moneys where their mouths are. 

For more about AAPL's L.I.F.E. program, see:
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