LIBRARY NOTES
Mark Piel
Shelf Talk: Membership Libraries
Monday, January 1, 1996
For the past five years this Library has been part of the Membership Libraries Group, comprising the subscription libraries of the United States. Our number stands at about twenty, but the count is not precise as libraries come to our attention that were not included before.
Some of the larger institutions and their dates of founding are: The Athenaeum of Philadelphia (1814); The Boston Athenaeum (1807), with which we are now affiliated by reciprocal membership privileges; The Mercantile Library (1820), another New York City membership library; The St. Louis Mercantile Library (1846); and San Francisco's Mechanics' Institute (1855).
The group meets annually, the libraries taking turns as host in their home cities. The festive occasions provide a forum to share information and to discuss how best to serve our publics. Programs under consideration are a possible joint publication with a description of each library's history and collections as well as a cooperative exhibition that would travel to each of the member libraries.
For those interested, I would be glad to distribute a list of some of the better-known membership libraries across the country.
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