Hit the Road, Jill!

In 2013/2014, I knew that spending 9 months on the road might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so I sometimes wrote about adventures and emotions that didn't have much to do with research. For example, I blogged about rooming in a fracker's hotel and about the depression that hit me during that year's overlong winter. For the first 4 months of my present sabbatical, I haven't had similar stories to tell. I have been doing much of my work from home, on a computer. Other than buying a membership at the Derry Township Community Center and taking up swimming as a new form of exercise, my life outside of my research has been much the same as it's been for years. 

Today, though, I packed up my car and drove to Norristown, where I'll be researching the history of the Montgomery County Norristown Public Library. Since this is my first "away" trip, I want to capture a little of what today was like. 

To be honest, it began in a nerve-wracking fashion. Yesterday morning, our cat Colbie started howling, refusing food, and hunkering down in a difficult-to-reach corner on the far side of our living room loveseat. This morning she wasn't any better, so Mike drove her to an animal hospital in Hershey while I stayed home and finished getting ready for my trip. After 2 hours, I relieved him and stayed with her until she was discharged -- several more hours, umpteen tests, and $1,500 later. Everything points to an infection, and the vet seemed confident that a shot of antibiotics will do the trick. But I've got a sinking feeling that a sad chapter in my personal history might be repeating itself. The last time I was on sabbatical, we lost 2 of our cats, Fili and Gabby, and while I powered through those hard times, I wasn't the better for them. In addition to their suffering, I haven't forgiven myself for not being by their sides, and neglecting Mike, while I was focused so intently on my work.

Canceling my research trip for what appears to be "just" a cat's temporary illness, especially when I have a non-refundable booking for a weeklong Airbnb, doesn't seem like a logical choice, though. So, by 2:30 p.m., I was standing by my car, hugging Mike tightly as he double-checked with me about the vet's aftercare instructions. To remind myself that I am taking a sabbatical from work, not from my family, I placed a small cat, built from LEGO, on the dashboard of my car, and I resolved to call home as soon as I was settled.

My travel companion
-- and a reminder of family

Then I slid into the driver's seat, tapped a Norristown address into Google Maps, and asked Spotify to play me some Smokey Robinson. When I was a kid, my parents listened to a lot of 1950s/1960s doo-wop and Motown, so I find crooners from that era to be comforting sometimes. I skipped over "Tracks of My Tears," but I let my shoulders loosen to "Just to See Her." After about 40 miles, I wanted  something more up-tempo, so I switched to Ray Charles. In time, a sassy smile spread across my face and I found myself hollering along to "Hit the Road Jack" and "What I'd Say." As I jetted eastward on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I noticed how farms in Lebanon, Lancaster, and Chester counties are starting to green up, and that trees along the highway are budding. Thinking about the daffodils and tulips that I'll see over the next few weeks brightened my spirits, so much so that my 90-minute drive passed by more quickly than a trip toward Philadelphia ever has. Thank goodness, I found and unlocked my Airbnb without trouble. As I unpacked my belongings, Smokey, Ray, and I sashayed around my new bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. 

After a quick chat with Mike and hearing that Colbie's well-being is no better, but no worse, I slapped together a ham sandwich, flopped into bed, and began to write. Now that I'm about to get ready to sleep, some of my words feel like prayers:

Please let Colbie recover.

Please give Mike an easy week.

Please let me reach the library safely tomorrow.

Please let this trip be successful.

Only time will tell if all my wishes are answered. 

A Library Fit for a Governor

Growing up in Southeastern Massachusetts, the state capital in Boston didn't feel like a substantial part of my childhood world. However, after I moved close to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I became more aware of the special traditions that arise in cities that host substantial numbers of public buildings and government officials. One annual event that I enjoy is the Holiday Open House at the Governor's Residence -- an afternoon in December when just about anyone can walk in and rub elbows with the topmost political leader of our state. In years past, I've gotten a kick out of meeting Tom Corbett and Tom Wolf, and this winter, I am hoping to see Josh Shapiro. 

Each time I go to the Residence, the book-nerd in me feels compelled to peep inside the governor's library to suss whatever it could tell me about the person who uses it. Alas, I've never seen anything provocative before I've noticed suits with earpieces eyeballing me sternly and feel I should move along. However, due to an interesting story I recently uncovered in the Pennsylvania Library Association's archives, I have another reason to pay close attention during my visits.

In 1961, with the adoption of the Public Library Code, Pennsylvania libraries won a hard-fought battle to obtain state subsidies. Given the annual process of executive budgeting, legislative appropriations, and the haggling that occurs in between, the association's leaders throughout the 1960s took advantage of every opportunity to demonstrate the value of libraries and librarians to those who held (or tugged on) the purse strings. Thus, in 1965, when PaLA President Pearl Frankenfield learned that a new Governor's Residence was going to be built in Harrisburg, she appointed an ad hoc committee to reach out to officials, find out whether a library was part of the plan, and offer the association's assistance in designing it. Ultimately, the team included:

• Ralph W. McComb, University Librarian and Archivist at Pennsylvania State University (main campus), who served as the committee chair
• Joseph J. Kelley, Jr., Secretary of the Commonwealth, representing the Governor's office
• Joseph W. Lippincott, President of J. B. Lippincott Company, a prominent Pennsylvania publisher, who was also an author
• Rowland Slingluff, President of Pennsylvania State University Press
• Emerson B. Greenaway, Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, a former PaLA President, and also a past-president of the American Library Association
• Keith Doms, Director of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, also a former PaLA President
• Herbert Anstaett, former Director of Franklin and Marshall College's library, and another former PaLA President

At least part of the story is told in an article that McComb wrote for the July 1971 issue of Pennsylvania Library Association Bulletin. Additional tidbits appear in meeting minutes of PaLA's Executive Committee, where McComb occasionally reported on the group's efforts. Apparently, the librarians were repeatedly disappointed with the small amount of space that would be devoted to the library. At most, there was only room for about 500 volumes. Nevertheless, they threw themselves into the work of determining which titles should make the cut. Since the collection was intended to be a permanent feature of the Residence, the long-term usefulness of the books was likely a top concern. According to McComb, they decided that the library should include about 200 volumes on "the Pennsylvania experience," about 100 volumes on American history and culture, about 50 reference books, and some "general" titles. However, it seems that some state agencies and other entities got wind of the project and donated materials, leaving less and less shelf space for the items that the librarians would have chosen. 

Ultimately, McComb's committee concentrated its efforts on the reference collection, which was funded through a $500.00 contribution from PaLA itself. Staff at Penn State University Press designed a special bookplate for the purchased titles, and employees at the State Library of Pennsylvania took charge of ordering, plating, and transferring the books to the Governor's Residence. I have not yet seen a final inventory of the collection, but according to PaLA Executive Committee meeting minutes from December 3, 1969, the last item ordered was the Dictionary of American Biography -- a multivolume set first published in the 1920s and 1930s, re-released in the 1940s, then supplemented by new volumes from the 1940s through the 1990s. In the days before Wikipedia, the DAB was "the" first place to check if you wanted to learn something about famous, deceased Americans.

Within the Committee Files of the PaLA Archives, there is an additional folder of material that I haven't seen yet that could shed even more light on this project. I can only imagine what fascinating stories and thought-provoking insights those records might offer. One thing that strikes me is how the committee was entirely composed of white men. Frankfield's appointees make sense on some level, given that they were building a library for a government official who had always been, and continues to be, a white male. I can't help but wonder, though, if female or Black representatives might have advocated for biographical items beyond the DAB, as a reminder of the many constituencies a Governor should know about and serve. If I were on this type of committee, I would urge for something about the history of women in the Commonwealth -- maybe Janice H. McElroy's Our Hidden Heritage, Marie A. Con and Thérèse McGuire's Sisterly Love, or whatever their 1960s equivalents might have been.

At present, though, the topmost question in my mind is whether any of the books that entered the library decades ago are still there today, and whether PaLA or anyone else made attempts to refresh it. Fortunately, the library survived the April 2025 arson attack on the Governor's Residence, but if his library is like most others, some of its contents likely went up in smoke years earlier -- cast aside as outdated or no longer helpful. I also wonder if any Governors read anything on the shelves, or if the library only came to their minds when someone wanted a backdrop for a photo. 

Another question I've been mulling over is what books I would choose if I were asked to assemble a library fit for a governor in 2026. As the modest footprint of the library suggests, and from what I've already learned through my sabbatical research, increased access to professional and scholarly materials was already becoming a reality in the 1960s -- due in part to the 1961 Library Code. The need for Pennsylvanians to store books in their offices only diminished further as the decades unfolded. Perhaps latter-day leaders are less bookish than there predecessors were, too. There's a running joke, referencing the crassness of modern-day governance, that most American politicians' libraries contain just 2 books, the Bible and the Shooter's Bible. I personally believe that our leaders need more than that. But the question is, what? It would be interesting to know what McComb, Greenaway, Doms, and Anstaett thought about the intellectual requirements of the political leaders of their generation. 

“The End of an Era”: When State Rules Required a Long-Serving Librarian to Step Down

A few days ago, I was scrolling through social media posts from one of the professional groups I follow. Perhaps because this is the time of year when graduating library school students are in the throes of job-hunting, the perennial debate over whether librarians really need to have Master’s degrees arose again. It has been a hot topic at least since the early 1950s, when the American Library Association changed its accreditation standards and determined that a Master’s degree should be required for entry-level professional positions (for background, see Boyd Keith Swigger’s book, The MLS Project). Across the decades, many have argued that the MLS provides valuable standardized introductions to information organization, research, technology, leadership, and other topics that might not be sufficiently covered through on-the-job training (especially for those who work at poorly-performing libraries). There’s also value in coursework that exposes MLS students to less-visible career paths that they might not otherwise consider. However, particularly in the past 20 years, there are just as many in the field who note the soaring cost of graduate education, juxtaposed against a tight job market and salaries that are so low that some would be better off working at Amazon warehouses. There are also those who feel that the MLS enforces harmful class hierarchies and inequitable power dynamics that are artificial and are antithetical to the egalitarian spirit of our work. 

Where the rubber truly hits the road, though, is at the state and local levels, where government agencies may tie public funding to staff’s educational attainment, and where employers decide what degrees to demand of those applying for open positions. In Pennsylvania, for example, there was a certification system from the 1930s through the 1960s, administered by the Pennsylvania Library Association, but it was voluntary and was enforced (if at all) at the local level. Then, in 1961, a new Public Library Code and accompanying regulations stipulated that if a state-aided library serves an area with a population of 20,000 or more, that library must be administered by someone who is certified as a Professional Librarian by the State Library/Pennsylvania Department of Education. To be certified, one must hold a Master’s degree from an ALA-accredited program or another MLS program that is approved by the state. Pennsylvania doesn’t require the MLS, however, for positions in college or private libraries, or in communities with fewer than 20,000 people. It also doesn’t require graduate-level training for libraries that do not receive state aid, or for non-administrative roles. In all these cases, employers determine the necessary academic preparation for each position. 

This week, as I was searching for news articles about the history of the Cumberland County Library System (CCLS), I discovered some thought-provoking items that illustrate the impact of the state’s rules. Because I am still learning about the Public Library Code and about Cumberland, it’s unclear to me when and how the state’s requirements would have applied to each of the member libraries within CCLS’s federation. Nevertheless, by the early 1980s, the Mechanicsburg library’s funding was at risk.  

Founded by volunteers in 1961, the Mechanicsburg Area Library (now the Joseph T. Simpson Library) had no paid staff for its first five years. Nevertheless, it developed facilities and services through the efforts of devoted community members who repainted walls, organized pancake breakfasts, and provided other labors of love (for more information, see Simpson Library’s 50th anniversary booklet and timeline). One of those volunteers, Clare Walker, had canvased town streets pulling a small red wagon, gathering book donations for the new library’s collection. She also staffed the library’s bookmobile for a time. By 1980, she had become the institution’s director. Unfortunately, though, her tenure in that position was cut short.

As 2 news articles in the Carlisle Sentinel describe, Walker was “forced” from her leadership role in 1982 because state law required the Mechanicsburg library to be led by someone holding an MLS and Walker had not finished college (see David Stellfox, “Library Changes Forced,” Sentinel, October 2, 1982, pg. 5). Apparently, not only were the funds that the state provided directly to Mechanicsburg (about $10,000) in jeopardy, but additional money provided to the county system (about $16,000) was also under threat (see Dave Stellfox, “Rules Force Librarian Out,” Sentinel, September 24, 1982, pg. 5). In terms of sweat-equity, it appears that Walker would have been hard to replace. One article noted that she often put in 60 hours per week, even though she earned roughly half of what degreed librarians did. Walker stepped down from the administrative role and told the press that she did so without bitterness. In fact, she remained the library’s Assistant Director until the early 1990s. I haven’t uncovered the rest of the story, but despite its very small budget, Mechanicsburg scraped together enough financial support to recruit a degreed librarian. I would bet that a countywide tax levy, approved by voters in 1986, helped somewhat.  

Since my research at CCLS is incomplete (and especially since I haven’t tapped any sources Mechanicsburg might offer), it is not my place to weigh in on whether this situation was fair to Walker or whether it resulted in positive outcomes for the library and its users. Whether it marked the “end of an era,” as library board vice-president Mary Lynn Faries told the Sentinel’s reporter, is unknown. Still, I believe that the partial story I’m preserving here is worth remembering as I continue to research Pennsylvania libraries in the 1950s-1990s and I try to understand how the Public Library Code shaped services throughout the Commonwealth. What did the 1961 law give us, and what it may have taken away, is a question that many Pennsylvania library advocates ask. Stories like Mechanicsburg’s can help inform the answer. 

Seeing a Sentinel photo of Walker, grinning widely with her arms overflowing with books, also reminds me of an important emotional truth. We need to value all our library workers, whatever their credentials, regardless of how our libraries subsequently evolve. Regrettably, I’ll never get to interview her, since she passed away in 2007. I already know, though, that she deserves significant credit for the start she gave to Mechanicsburg’s library.