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INDIANA LIBRARIE~ Volum.E 6, Nuntber 2 1986

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INDIANA LIBRARIE~ Volum.E 6, Nuntber 2 1986 INDIANA LIBRARIE~ Volum.e 6, Nuntber 2 1986 I : Merica Evans Hoagland, 1898 Indiana's First Library Educator Journal of the Indiana Library Association Indiana Library Trustee Association and Indiana State Library INDIANA LIBRARIES Daniel Callison, Editor Mary Krutulis, Copy Editor Joyce Martello, Managing Editor Production by the Indiana Historical Bureau PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE M. Jacqueline Nytes, ILA and 'Ghairperson, Carmel C. Ray Ewick, Indiana State Library, Indianapolis Patty Pizzo, ILTA, Bloomington · ~ £.~_ndstrom, ILA, Fort Wayne Gerald Sargent, ILTA, Beech Grove INDIANA LIBRARIES is published two to four times a year as warranted by the number of articles received. Subscription price, $10 annually. Advertising and subscription offices: Indiana Library Association, 310 North Alabama, Indianapo­ lis, IN 46204, (31 7) 636-6613. Address articles for publication to Daniel Callison, School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, (812) 335-5113, or 335-2018. OFFICIAL NOTICE: This issue completes the 1986Volume. Because of a lack of manuscripts and because of problems in printing schedules, IndianaLibraries will not publish any issues dated 1987. Volume 7 will begin with Issue 1 dated 1988. Cover Photograph Credit: Merica Evans Hoagland, about age 40. Photograph reproduced from Grace G. Courtney, History: Indiana Federation of Clubs, Fort Wayne, 1939. Volunie 6, Num.ber 2 · 1986 Special Issue: Historical Perspectives on Indiana Libraries Indiana's First Library Educator ...................................... 2 Joanne Bailey Two Publics: The Willard Library and the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Library ....................... 11 Donald E. Baker The Dream of a Small Town . 31 Connie J. Brown Profile of an Indiana Career in Libraries: Florabelle Wilson . 34 Susan A. Stussy Harold J. Sander ..................................... ............ 40 Robert L. Logsdon From Distant Shores: A Library and Community Heritage ............... 4 7 Arthur S. Meyers Looking Back: "My First Year as Director of a Public Library" ............ 53 Fern Miner, Linda Robertson, Julie Hersberger, David Eisen \UPUl JUL 31990 Journal of the Indiana Library Association Indiana Library Trustee Association and Indiana State Library 2/Bailey Indiana Libraries Indiana's First Library Educator Joanne Bailey Acting Head of the Education Library Indiana University Melvil Dewey, who established Although librarians praised the in­ America's first library school at Co­ stitute and recommended that it be­ lumbia University in January, 1887, is come an annual event, it did not, and well known as the nation's first library the only other library training effort educator. Before library schools came in the state was a course taught by into being, people who wished to be­ visiting lecturers at the Winona come librarians could acquire know­ Assembly and Summer School. 4 ledge of the profession in several At the turn of the century, a Fort ways, including learning by doing, Wayne woman, Merica Evans Hoag­ imitating other librarians, and serving 1 land, emerged as Indiana's first library as apprentices. The rapid growth of educator. She was born in 1858. Her public libraries during the last quarter father, Pliny Hoagland (1810-1884), a of the nineteenth century rendered Fort Wayne businessman, was wid­ these methods impractical because owed when Merica was three. She they could not keep up with the grow­ attended the Fort Wayne public ing demand for librarians. As a result, schools and the Vassar College pre­ other forms of training emerged, in­ paratory class of 187 5-7 6. While still cluding library institutes lasting sev­ young she became involved with club eral days to a week, training classes at work, organizing the Qui Vive Club in public libraries, summer library Fort Wayne in 1878, and by the schools, and year-long library schools. 1890s she was a prominent Fort By 1910, eleven one-year library Wayne club woman. Her club and schools had been established in the community activities often focused on United States; only one, the Indiana library related matters. In 1893, for Library School, did not survive to the 2 example, she served on the Woman's present day. Club League committee for the selec­ Indiana Librarians expressed an in­ tion of books for the public library terest in library education as early as and the following year she worked to 1896, when the Indiana Library establish the Fort Wayne YWCA and Association, in lieu of its annual meet­ held the position of secretary of the ing, held a three-day library institute.3 Fort Wayne Public Library Commit- Volume 6, Number 2 (1986) Bailey/ 3 tee. By 1895, she was contributing "designed to give an outline, some­ club and library items to a weekly thing of the work given in the regular column in the Fort Wayne Morning library school with a view to the needs Journal, and in 1896 she began a of smaller libraries."8 weekly publication, Public Occurrent, Merica Hoagland did not rest content dedicated to club and library work.5 with a short course in library work. That same year she attended her In 1900, before her appointment as first American Library Association state organizer, she had proposed that meeting, and in 1897 Hoagland the Indiana Library Association became state president of the Indiana appoint a committee "to draw suit­ Union of Literary Clubs. able resolutions in favor of securing an Miss Hoagland 's interest in library endowment for a library school to be work grew, and at the age of 40 she located in Winona, Indiana."9 The attended the New York State Library ILA was reluctant to act on her 1900 Summer School at Albany. (Melvil recommendation, and it remained so Dewey had moved his school from in 1904, when Hoagland presented Columbia University to Albany in plans for a one-year library school to 1889.) Following completion of the be conducted as a department of the course, she gained practical expe- Winona Technical Institute in Ind­ rience by organizing libraries in Iron­ ianapolis, a school originally intended wood, Michigan (1899); Sioux Falls, to provide technical education to South Dakota (1899); and Joliet, Il­ boys. The ILA 's dubious endorse­ linois (1900/1901). Her speeches before ment noted that " ... salaries paid li­ state and regional library meetings on brarians are not sufficient to permit the suJ?jects of library legislation and them to attend library schools. This the role of club women in library de­ school enables high school graduates velopment gained Hoagland recogni­ to take a course for fifty dollars a tion which led to an appointment, in year. "1 0 It is evident that the ILA 1901, as the state organizer for the regarded the proposed library school Indiana Public Library Commission.6 as inferior to other schools. In her role as organizer, Miss Hoag­ The Public Library Commissioners land increasingly saw need for library also had reservations about the library training in Indiana, a state that had school. At a November 7, 1905 meet­ only one library school-trained librar­ ing, William W. Parsons, one of the ian by 1899 .7 Initially she visited the commissioners and the president of librarians of Indiana's public libraries, the Indiana State Normal School in giving informal training in the organi­ Terre Haute, suggested that the school zation of collections, selection of should have been established at his building sites, choice of building institution. Miss Hoagland countered plans, appointment of librarians, and that Indianapolis was the best location administration. The need for more in the state because of its centrality systematic instruction led Miss Hoag­ and that the State Normal School was land to conduct a library institute in established to train teachers, not li­ the fall of 1901; it was attended by brarians. Parsons remained uncon­ thfrteen students.7 This was followed vinced, and the commission decided by a month-long course in the spring that while it "might continue to act in of 1902, and in 1903 the Public [an] advisory capacity, it would not Library Commission hfred Miss Anna maintain any entangling alliance with Redfield Phelps as an instructor for its the W.T.I. " 11 Nevertheless, Miss newly established summer school for Hoagland 's position as secretary and librarians. The summer school was state organizer for the Public Library 4 /Bailey Indiana Libraries Commission undoubtedly lent cred­ ed in graduating the Winona Library ibility to the project. School's last class that spring. Lack of official enthusiasm did not Although she was without financial dampen Hoagland 's interest in library support and no longer had official ties education, and Indiana's first one-year to the Public Library Commission (she library school opened on November had resigned her post as organizer in 15, 1905, with eighteen women stu­ 1906), Hoagland did not let the dents and two instructors. The In­ school die.16 In February 1908, she dianapolis News reported that this secured the support of women library school, operating as a department of enthusiasts who, "chilled by exposure the Winona Technical Institute, was to the drizzling rain, with bedraggled created "to train young men and wo­ skirts and ruffled dispositions," forced men that they may properly conduct their way into the Indianapolis Prop­ public libraries in Indiana and other ylaeum to hold a meeting to discuss States of the middle west."12 The steps that could be taken to obtain Winona Library School's statement of financial backing for a permanent li­ purpose, printed in its
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