LHRT Research Forum 2004

"From the Outside In: The Library in the Life of its Historical Users"

The Library History Round Table (LHRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) seeks papers for its Research Forum at the 2004 ALA Convention, Orlando, Florida 23-30 June, 2004. While we encourage the submission of any paper that takes a cultural and historical perspective, we are especially interested in the submission of papers that address the library in the life of its historical users. Most scholarship in the history of libraries has focused on libraries as institutions, or on the lives and contributions of individual library leaders. By contrast, little attention to date has been paid to groups and individuals who actually made use of libraries. Most research that does take users as its focus has concentrated on the "user in the life of the library"-that is, from "within" the library--rather than the "library in the life of the user." By contrast, taking a view from the "outside in," we are interested in research that explores the ways in which historically-situated groups and individuals have encountered public, academic, school, private and other types of libraries.

We anticipate examples of historically-situated user groups to be distinguished by their occupancy of a particular time period as well as social, cultural and geographic place. They might include, for example, ethnic minorities, immigrants, religious organizations, children, rural residents, interest group members or the GLBT community.

Proposals for papers, 400 words in length, should give the paper title, a short abstract, and biographical identification of the scholar.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 30 NOVEMBER 2003.