I noticed a reference to Library Notes on the Library History Buff Blog. At Illinois I must have taken a course that talked about the history of library education because I wrote a paper about library hand. Library hand, like almost everything else in libraries at the end of the 19th century was strongly influenced by Melvil Dewey, so I was interested to see that an article in Dewey's Library Notes Vol. 1, #4, March 1887 pp. 273-282 about library hand is available in Google Books.
As I remember, I was able to find some original material about library hand in the archives at Illinois and the school also had a good collection of old library school brochures. As far as I could tell, students at many schools were expected to master library hand at least up until World War II. Even in 1887 when the Library Notes article came out it was recognized that 'mechanical writing' would probably dominate in libraries, but legible handwriting was still considered very important.
Ever since writing that paper I've been interested in Dewey, who was quite a character.
OCLC publishes the DDC.
--Th
A fellow alum at my alma mater (UNCG) once told me that mastering library hand was still required in her cataloging course in library school in the mid-1960s so who knows how long it was part of some programs? Great blog post.
Posted by: Eric | July 28, 2009 at 14:33
Poking around in Google Books a bit I found an interesting 'meditation' by Michael Gorman.
Here's the book in WorldCat: Our singular strengths : meditations for librarians
--Th
Posted by: Thom | July 28, 2009 at 15:15
OMG! Times were so simple then that they had to create complexity.
Posted by: Ricky | July 28, 2009 at 15:26
Until we find a way around some of our difficulties with getting the label printing wizard in our ILS to work the way we want, I still have to print legibly enough for our student workers to read the call numbers and enter the label information. Library hand may not be taught in library schools anymore, but that doesn't necessarily mean we can get away with sloppy handwriting. Too bad my 5's look like S's and vice versa...
Posted by: Melissa | July 29, 2009 at 15:46