hclib: From the Desk of Gratia Countryman Here is the first in an ongoing series from the desk

hclib: From the Desk of Gratia Countryman Here is the first in an ongoing series from the desk of Gratia Countryman. Gratia Countryman was very important to the history of Hennepin County Library.  She was the director of Minneapolis Public Library for over 30 years and she founded Hennepin County Library. This is from Ms. Countryman’s annual report from the first year of her administration, 1904: What is a library for? A public library is the one great civic institution supported by the people which is designed for the instruction and pleasure of all people, young and old, without age limit, rich and poor, without class limit, educated and uneducated, without culture limit. Its function being to instruct and benefit, how are we going to accomplish this end? In the opinion of your librarian there is positively no limit to the things which a public library can legitimately do in carrying out its purpose, except the limitations of financial resources. It should be “all things to all men” in the world of thought, by keeping in close touch, not only with the leaders of thought, but with the rank and file of the people. This will mean many forms of activity which in the past were not connected with the idea of a library. Perhaps still in the minds of many a library is only a place where books are stored, or distributed under many objectionable restrictions. But in the larger sense, the library should be a wide-awake institution for the dissemination of ideas, where books are easily accessible and readily obtainable. It should be the center of all the activities of a city that lead to social growth, municipal reform, civic pride and good citizenship. It should have its finger on the pulse of the people, ready to second and forward any good movement. It should be the home of clubs and societies and free lecture courses. …gracious and sympathetic hospitality should be the prevailng spirit of the place, and every member of a well disciplined staff will need, not only a broad education, but the most genuine willingness to serve. How to reach the busy men and women…how to enlist the interest of tired factory girls, how to put the workingman in touch with the art books relating to his craft and so increase the value of his labor and the dignity of his day’s work - these are some of the things which I concieve my duty to study, if I would help this public library to become what it is for. Gratia Countryman, Librarian Kellian Clink (Minnesota State University, Mankato) and Kaia Sievert (University of Minnesota) both got in touch this year to sing the praises of legendary Minnesota librarian Gratia Countryman. Bailey Diers (Hennepin County Library) helped point out HCL’s wealth of online resources about Countryman, including a whole series of Tumblr posts and a significant collection of digitized photos.Her life and career are pretty amazing (quoted from this post):Gratia Alta Countryman was born November 29, 1866, in Hastings, Minnesota, the daughter of pioneer parents Levi and Alta Chamberlain Countryman. […] In 1904 she succeeded Hosmer as chief librarian, becoming the nation’s first female head librarian. Countryman was chief librarian for over thirty-two years until 1936 when she was required to retire at the age of seventy. She was then made librarian emeritus.Upon Countryman’s promotion to chief librarian she immediately began to make changes, expanding the Library’s services to reach more and more people. In the thirty-two years she directed the Library, service expanded into all areas of the city including elementary and junior high schools, hospitals, engine houses, welfare centers, and factories. By the time of Countryman’s retirement, the book collection had increased to 662,842 volumes and the circulation, which was 519,000 in 1904, had increased to 3,293,484 in 1936. The number of registered borrowers had increased from 40,500 in 1904 to 181,582 in 1936. Of the 11 branch library buildings in Minneapolis, 9 were built during her administration. Countryman was instrumental in local, state, and national library work, and was elected President of the American Library Association from 1933-34 becoming the sixth woman to hold that distinction in the association’s hitherto sixty year history.Read the whole post for more about her career, the son she adopted, and the homes she built and lived in with her colleagues (one of whom, Marie Todd, was her life partner and a co-parent to her son). -- source link
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