Joanne E. Passet

As someone who found my beloved profession the first time I entered a library, this is highly recommended. Although I know there are those who do not cherish libraries, who do not read, who do not think, I also know that without books, our civilization would be seriously harmed. For years now, people have foreseen the end of books, but I'm thrilled how many new books are still being published in many formats daily.

FROM AMAZON: "I have found just the work for me, for I love it more all the time." Thus wrote one of several hundred professionally trained women who carried the gospel of books and libraries throughout the West during the early twentieth century. Pioneers in a profession, they regarded the West as a fertile field for their cultural crusade which included establishing traveling libraries in rural areas, participating in community-building activities, and professionalizing existing public and academic libraries and as a place where they could develop as independent women.

Passet uses extensive archival material to provide a picture of the women librarians' experiences. She explores their education, family relationships, degree of autonomy, and reactions to the West. Her account is enlivened throughout by the words of the women themselves. It is further enriched by brief biographies of four women exemplifying the combination of personal and professional goals that motivated many women librarians to move west.

Please note - librarians aren't just women - there are many men who find it just as wonderful as do I.… (meer)

Jeanette Howard Foster was an academic and librarian, born in 1895, who published a groundbreaking book, Sex Variant Women in Literature, in 1956. I found this biography interesting and engaging most of the time. Passet researched her subject thoroughly (there are 68 pages of notes and references), and Foster's personality comes through clearly. One weakness in the writing was that there was a lot of "may have", "must have", and "would have", and some speculation into the motivations of people about whom there is minimal information. Overall, it is a good documentation of the life of a lesbian woman in the early and mid-twentieth century, and explaination of the importance of Foster's book in the social context of the 1950s-70s.… (meer)