The Virginia Center for the Book at the Library of Virginia is
pleased to announce the recipients of the second Virginia Library History
Awards The awards go to the Friends of the Staunton Public Library and to
Professor Emily B. Todd, of Westfield State College, in Massachusetts, for
two outstanding and very different examples of Virginia library history. The
Friends of the Staunton Public Library are recognized for Books Bring
Adventure: The History of the Staunton Public Library, by Katherine L.
Brown, published in 2000, to mark the 125th anniversary of that library's
founding. Emily Todd's innovative scholarly essay, "Walter Scott and the
Nineteenth-Century Literary Marketplace: Antebellum Richmond Readers and the
Collected Editions of the Waverley Novels," appeared in Papers of the
Bibliographical Society of America, 93 (December 1999).

        Books Bring Adventure: The History of the Staunton Public Library
recounts that community's civic and cultural life since 1874 through the
story of its public library. Historian Katherine l. Brown's narrative
concisely shows how community leaders and organizations worked together in
support of the Staunton Public Library in order to fulfill its founders'
hope that the library would be "a lasting benefit to our city." Librarian
Ruth Arnold encouraged the project, and library staff members assisted with
research, design, and proofreading. The Friends of the Staunton Public
Library backed the book's publication, and a special memorial gift by a
library supporter made publication possible. This readable book is an
example of how the history of library can illuminate a community's history
as well.

        Emily B. Todd uses the records of the Richmond Library Company, a
private subscription library in existence from 1839 to 1860, to explore
several important aspects of book history. Her particular focus is on the
novels of Sir Walter Scott, which were published in numerous editions by
British and American publishers. The Records of the Richmond library, today
held at the Virginia Historical Society, reveal a pattern of what Todd calls
"binge reading," as borrowers devoured several of Scotts's novels in
succession. Her essay teases out how collected editions of the works of
Scott and other authors influenced both readers and librarians to treat the
novels as a body of entertainment and knowledge to be consumed as a whole.
Todd's essay demonstrates that library borrowing records can provide
important insights into readers' engagement with books.

        The purpose of the Virginia Library History Award is to honor
exemplary contributions to the preservation, interpretation, and/or study of
the history of libraries in Virginia.

        For more information, please contact John Kneebone at the email
address below or by telephone at 804/692-3720.

John T. Kneebone [log in to unmask]
Director, Publications and Educational Services
Library of Virginia http://www.lva.lib.va.us

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