'Civilization' magazine marks bicentennial of its host

The American Reporter

Vol. 6, No. 1324 -- May 4, 2000

'CIVILIZATION' MAGAZINE
MARKS BICENTENNIAL OF ITS HOST

By Allan R. Andrews
American Reporter Correspondent

WASHINGTON -- The year 2000 is a special year in the world of libraries in the United States because it marks the bicentennial year of the Library of Congress.

The Congressional bill authorizing a library for the national legislature was signed on April 24, 1800, but it wasn't until 1814, after a sputtering -- and war-ravished -- start, that the Library of Congress took off in its present direction when it purchased the personal library of then retired Thomas Jefferson.

Last week was National Library Week (April 9-15), and in some places April is celebrated as National Library Month, but unless one is close to a college or university library or makes a habit of visiting the neighborhood library one is not likely to notice. Libraries celebrated with special events, and some, like the library at the University of Nebraska, offered amnesty from fines for those who returned books during the week.

Statistics show that public libraries are growing. According to sources at the American Library Association, library budgets have increased by 4.4 percent since 1998 (about 99 percent of the money coming from local and state taxes). New library buildings have been built in Chicago; Denver; Memphis; Nashville; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Sacramento; San Antonio, and San Francisco. My own small town in Maryland -- a part of the county library system -- is in the midst of a building campaign to get out of its leased (and crowded) quarters.

In one of the ironies of the digital age, about 75 percent of all public libraries now offer access to the Internet, many of them beneficiaries of the Gates Learning Foundation (of Microsoft's Bill Gates' fortune), which the ALA's president, Ann Symons, told the has given the "biggest single gift to libraries since [Andrew] Carnegie." Much of the Gates Foundation money has been used to wire the nation's libraries.

Monitor writer Marilyn Gardner, taking a nostalgic look back at childhood library memories, notes that today's library "long ago ceased being simply a plain-vanilla repository of the printed word." Indeed, while computers, Internet access, CD-ROMs and audio cassettes, videos and books on tape have become de rigueur for practically all libraries, some even offer coffee, juice and soft-drink bars adjoining the reading rooms.

One of the treats of the cyberrevolution is that most libraries are now online, and the grand-daddy of them all, the Library of Congress, provides one of the most useful Web sites of public access http://www.loc.gov

Unobtrusively included at the LOC site is the library's slick, prize-winning magazine, "Civilization" (Official title: "Civilization: The Magazine of the Library of Congress," published by Worth Media, the publishers of Worth Magazine, through a licensing agreement with the LOC).

For $20 per year one can subscribe to the six-times-a-year print publication, or one can check it in its near-entirety (some book reviews, small features and the printed word games and puzzles appear missing from the online version) at its Web site http://www.civmag.com

Of particular interest in the April/May issue is the library's self-conscious celebration of its 200th birthday:

Journalist Nicholas von Hoffman, a contributing editor for the magazine, offers an historical appreciation of the LOC, noting its origin in Jefferson's financial woes and concluding that it is one of the few things Congress has gotten right.

James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, offers an introductory essay on the challenges of technology and diversity facing the collection, and a series of staff-generated articles, including a fine essay by John Y. Cole on the "myth of the dying book." They give readers -- especially those who do most of their reading online -- a wonderful look at the world's largest library collection. Cole, incidentally, is the founding director of the Center for the Book at the library.

There's much more to "Civilization" than its self-consciousness, however.

Its February/March issue offered a look at the future through the eyes of Alvin Toffler, the author of "Future Shock" and other books. It also made two impressive forays into the world of religion with a feature on Johann Sebastian Bach and a look at the secretive, conservative Roman Catholic priests known as Opus Dei and their work in Chicago.

These kinds of excursions into less explored realms of knowledge are one of the strengths of "Civilization," reflecting, as von Hoffman points out, a trend since the days of Jefferson, whose original collection went far beyond the law books and handbooks to which many early legislators wanted the collection limited.

For anyone who let National Library Week slip by unnoticed and for most of the nation that doesn't live in close proximity to Washington and can't visit the Library of Congress in person, a peek at "Civilization" will provide a cultural education par excellence and underscore the value of reading, which is, after all, the force that drives this nation's premier library.

As a headline writer for the Bergen (N.J.) Record caught it above a story about last week's commemorations: "National Library Week -- Your Assignment: Read."

Allan R. Andrews is an editor in Washington, D.C., and a freelance writer. He can be contacted at allan.andrews@reporters.net

Return to Online Meanderings