From Storehouse to Laboratory: Trends and Ideals in Academic Librarianship Reflected in C&RL, 1946–1968

Abstract

Dee Garrison’s classic history of American public libraries, Apostles of Culture , vividly describes the idealism that drove and shaped the work of American public libraries through the turn of the 20th century. The book seems to lead naturally to questions of what ideals have shaped American libraries in more recent periods. Specifically, as an academic librarian, I have long wondered what happened to our profession’s ideals in the midst of the social and political transformations that followed World War II.