A University of Virginia professor enlisted students to document the messages—profane, hopeful, despairing—left on library carrels by previous generations.

Stories from JSTOR Daily about education, libraries, learning, and student life.

Larsen’s novels were influenced by her training in the New York Public Library system, where she faced rigid ideas about the racial classification of knowledge.

Archival material shows the hefty and careful investment the president and his team put into crafting his image for perpetuity.

Recruited to the war effort thanks to their deft research skills and technological know-how, librarians used microforms to gather and share intelligence with Allied forces.

During World War I, the American Library Association built libraries on military training camps in a project that championed patriotism, literacy, and self-improvement.

Founded in 1807, the subscription library was a gathering place for local scholars, “men of business,” and members of the upper classes in search of knowledge.

Librarians gathered in 1970 to challenge Library of Congress classifications and catalog subject headings that aligned homosexuality with deviance. 

Freedom libraries in the south provided Black residents with access to spaces and books, whether in church basements or private homes.

When Rome burned in 192 CE, the city's vibrant community of scholars was devastated. The physician Galen described the scale of the loss.