The reading past revisited, by Dawn Finch

 I must confess that it's been a bit of a stressful start to 2021. Covid completely destroyed my career and that meant a complete reinvention to keep the wolf from the door. As I have spent the last six months trying to start up a new social enterprise I have struggled to find time to write anything other than food blogs and recipes. In a desperate attempt to find some inspiration for this blog I decided I would revisit one of my first posts on Awfully Big Blog with a look at library posters of the past.

I hope you enjoy this revisit too...

As a writer and passionate librarian I collect all things library and book related, and I have a particular love of vintage library posters. This this is just a small collection of my favourites. Library information posters have been produced all over the world, but in my opinion the very best are from the US and most are now part of the American Library Association's archive. This is a remarkable online resource and holds some fascinating material. The site is well worth a visit and at the foot of this gallery you can find links to some of my favourite parts of the collection.

Hope you enjoy these posters.....

I think they mean for you to ask for the book you want....but maybe they also had a shelf marked "friends"? I've known librarians keep all sorts under their desks.

The campaign for more books in the home is not exactly new.

A large number of library posters were produced in the war years as it was considered that ignorance was one of the greatest enemies a society faced. The ALA have a collection of wartime posters and you can find a link to these at the bottom of this gallery.

This campaign poster from 1918 encouraged people to donate fiction to soldiers serving at the Front. The government was concerned that soldiers would forget what they were fighting for, and so "good American literature" was regarded as essential to the mental well-being of the men. This campaign was so successful that by the end of the war over seven million books had been sent overseas with American soldiers.
The campaign had a rebirth in 1943, and has never officially ended.

At a time when fuel for vehicles was at a premium, people were being actively discouraged from driving by the Office of Defence Transportation, however this meant that library borrowing fell. It was considered that this was a serious enough issue to address and so there was an increase the number of mobile libraries and the librarians took the library to the people instead.

I do love a good book of fancies.

Swoon.....

(yes, quite frankly this one is disturbing....)

Do visit the ALA archive of posters as it's a remarkable resource and you could easily lose a whole day just clicking and exploring.

Dawn Finch is a poet, food writer and former library worker who now owns and runs a social enterprise focusing on food, cooking, growing for the table, and other community food projects in Scotland.

You can find out more at www.neepokra.co.uk

NB - Not all of these posters are part of the ALA archive, however it is my understanding that these are all public domain and all were part of public information campaigns. If you know otherwise, please do let me know and I will correct. Thank you.