Over the past 20 years, I have undertaken deep research in dozens of libraries, and in my experience, near-complete caches of institutional newsletters are surprisingly rare, especially in mid- and small-sized libraries. Promotional publications are often short-lived victims of their own success, cultivating so much business that staff soon run out of energy to generate fresh material. Also, printed giveaways are one of the first expenses to be cut when libraries are facing budget crunches. Even among libraries that have the wherewithal to keep newsletters going, few seem to keep archival copies -- because the information in goes stale so quickly, or seems too commonplace or granular. But it's precisely that type of datedness, everydayness, and detail that is invaluable to historians like me.
EAPL's Ex Libris started in 1972 and lasted until at least through the 2010s. The earliest editions are missing, but starting in 1974, someone tucked them away regularly. It took me a couple of hours to comb through every issue, but it was well worth the effort. I found details about early interlibrary loan procedures (1970s), emerging concerns like unattended children (1980s), and the local impact of changes to the state aid program (2000s) that I hadn't found elsewhere. After I copied all the articles that pertained to my research, I pulled out the issue from exactly 50 years ago: August 1976. Then, I fished out copies at subsequent 5-year intervals and I laid them side by side: July/August 1981, Fall 1986, Fall 1991, September 1996, September 2001, and so-on. Comparing them reveals some interesting things.
The pages of Ex Libris provide plenty of nostalgia for those who enjoy pop culture. The August 1976 issue, for example, mentioned a sewing pattern collection -- a valuable public service in an era when some women still made or altered their own clothes. Also, staff in the Marx Room, which continues to house the Easton flag and other Revolutionary War items, put out a call for donations relating to the recent Bicentennial Celebration. In the back pages of the issue, the events calendar featured some film showings that are still timely, such as Curious George Rides a Bike (remade just a few years ago), as well as more obscure ones like Automania 2000, a short which was nominated for an Academy Award in the 1960s and nobody accept diehard film buffs seem to know about.
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| Ex Libris, Fall 1976, pages 1-2. Note the blurbs about the Bicentennial and EAPL's sewing pattern collection, as well as the hand-drawn masthead and illustrations. |
Jumping ahead 2 decades to the September 1996 and September 2001 issues, one can see how EAPL and the larger Easton community were enthralled with electronic databases, the Internet, and other information/communication technologies that were emerging at the time. Although techies and academics had access to them years earlier, the broader public began using them in the mid-late 1990s when lower costs and user-friendly software made them more accessible. Thus, in the September 1996 issue, the library's how-to workshops on FirstSearch (now more widely known as WorldCat) and "Internet Basics" were front-page news. Further in, a wrap-up about the annual Summer Reading Program thanked several video rental companies -- notably Blockbuster and West Coast Video -- that provided gift certificates as prizes for participating children. Similarly, page one of the September 2001 issue heralded the debut of Horizon, which replaced the library's obsolete Galaxy system. Unlike the earlier catalog, Horizon allowed customers to check holdings at Allentown and Bethlehem public libraries as well as Easton's, and it enabled customers to view their own borrowing records. The final page of the issue had a blurb about Power Library, a suite of state-funded databases EAPL had gained access to just a couple years earlier.
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| The September 1996 and September 2001 issues of Ex Libris, when technological advancements were frequent, front-page news. |
If you ask today's librarians what their newsletters contain, many would probably say "oh, we do that type of thing on social media now." But among those who still produce newsletters, most would describe theirs as similar to Ex Libris: a desktop publication of 2, 4, or 8 pages that mentions opening hours, holiday closures, new books and AV, upcoming events, and fundraisers. But in addition to that, 1980s issues of Ex Libris show an interesting deviation which speaks to a distinct time in Pennsylvania library history.
Since the 1960s, EAPL has served as the District Library Center for eastern Northampton County and Monroe County. As such, it receives extra funding from the Commonwealth to enhance library service across its district. In the early years, DLCs provided direct training in librarianship for smaller libraries, which were often staffed by non-degreed employees or volunteers. Not long after this was formally articulated as an expectation in the first Minimum Standards and Guidelines for District Library Centers Receiving State Aid (1978), Ex Libris started to morph from a patron-facing to a librarian-facing publication. For example, the July/August 1981 issue contained a paragraph about Chase's Calendar of Events, an annual reference book that listed both standard holidays (think: July 4th, Independence Day) and unusual-but-fun reasons to celebrate throughout the year (such as July 15th, National Ice Cream Day). Although Chase's could be helpful a pre-Internet reference desk, it was especially useful to librarians doing public programming and book displays -- something that libraries large and small were involved with. The same issue also contained a "District News" section which mentioned state policies, upcoming professional development activities, and one paragraph of news from each of the institutions in Easton's district. Over the next few years, this inward focus of Ex Libris became even more pronounced. In the Fall 1986 issue, for example, the calendar of events listed district meetings, trainings offered by the State Library, the dates of the Pennsylvania Library Association conference, and deadlines for reports -- nothing of interest to library patrons. The rest of the issue was comprised of a page of news from each district library.
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| The cover and first page of the Fall 1986 issue of Ex Libris. Edited by Lynn Moses, the District Consultant, the publication focused on news for librarians in the Easton District. |
Fortunately, by the 1990s, staffing conditions in Pennsylvania's libraries had improved substantially and professional development opportunities proliferated to an extent that DLCs no longer took such a heavy hand in educating colleagues. Perhaps for that reason, EAPL's newsletter reverted to its earlier, more typical purpose and format, as shown in the 1996 and 2001 examples above. But it's also interesting to observe other changes to Ex Libris's layout and format. Indicative of the desktop publishing technologies of the times, and librarians' competencies in using them, there was an evolution from typewritten text and hand-drawn illustrations -- see the August 1976 issue above -- to the inclusion of additional fonts and the use of print and digital clip art -- see the Fall 1986 and September 2001 covers. In later issues, photographs became common as well.
Perhaps the most important reason Ex Libris is so valuable, though, is because it gave voice to employees who were briefly if ever mentioned in board minutes or other sources. For example, issues from the early 1990s contained several articles by June Andel, a late-career Audiovisual Librarian who was shepherding EAPL's transition from vinyl records to CDs, and 16mm films to VHS to digital formats. At the time, Ex Libris was a by-librarians-for-librarians publication, so her writings typically focused on workaday matters such as audio and picture quality, format durability, public performance rights, and collection strategies. However, in a 1992 piece she was more reflective and personal, offering something that's as close as I'll ever be able to get to an oral history interview. There, she provided some life-story that isn't available in her obituary. She also conveyed a sense of wonder about the technological changes she had witnessed first-hand. She wrote:
In the early 1950s, I was statistician at Allstate Insurance Company's Manhattan Office when they installed the mainframe computer -- the first monthly reports printed out all in 9's. I have enjoyed watching computer-telecommunications technologies develop since those halting early steps -- develop more rapidly and dramatically than even the futurists of those days had imagined. Even in the specific field of audiovisual media, it has been amazing to watch long-playing records replaced by compact discs and to contemplate the demise of of 16mm film in favor of VHS videotape. While the challenge of the Audiovisual Librarian remains to provide material to today's patrons in the format they need in the present, one must keep an eye on the technological horizon for new possibilities. Probably the next major audiovisual software development will be laser videodiscs, considered a new standard of excellence for home entertainment. Players which sold for $2,500 in 1985 are now available for as little as $500 ... With this to look forward to, the CD-Rom databases already available, and the automation project right around the corner for the Easton District Center, I will have to come back from my retirement for visits to this forthcoming "library of the future" about which I have been reading ever since I was in Library School.
Like Andel, I feel graced to have lived through the transition from analog to digital media, though my reasons are a little different from hers. One of the ironies of historical research is that, sometimes, older stuff is more accessible than the recent stuff. While many libraries generate newsy content on the web and through social media, long-term preservation and future access isn't assured, and material from just a few years ago can be challenging to find. For example, while EAPL's site links to its Newsletter, past issues don't seem to be available there. The Internet Archive/Wayback Machine has only captured a few editions back to 2021. As a practicing librarian, I'm loathe to tell busy colleagues how they should spend their time, but if I could whisper something in their ears, I'd say "print it out." Or, at least, "save a copy." I hope future historians are able to tap something that is as rich as Ex Libris.
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