By Emily Rennie, Archivist for the Levittown History Collection
Libraries provide communities with many resources and services, but foremost, they are about connecting people to books. Readers frequently depend on librarians for personal recommendations of what to read next. This matchmaking art between reader and book is what we know professionally as readers’ advisory. One long-standing advisory practice is the creation of mass-produced handouts featuring curated reading lists. Preserved today in the Levittown History Collection, these ephemeral materials have become historical records that reveal how librarians promoted reading and how social priorities, interests, and norms in Levittown were shaped and reflected through the books residents were encouraged to read.
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Readers’ advisory handouts from the Levittown History Collection, Levittown Public Library (Vertical File, Levittown Public Library: Printed Material/Programs, Folder 1), Levittown, N.Y. |