Midterm 2

What Are the major Themes of the in-person and online lectures?

Louise Robbins': A Question of Access

Ms. Robbins discussed the accessibility of technology in the southern portion of the United States. In her PowerPoint she showed that southern states had little to no libraries which meant that there were no books or technology available to people of the South. Also, there was a lot of racial tension in the southern states in the 1930s-1960s which led to libraries for whites only (African Americans weren't allowed in libraries.) Ruth Brown was a firm believer in integration and she supplied library service to blacks. On one slide there is a picture of the cover of the book "The Rabbits' Wedding" by Garth Williams that had one black rabbit and one white rabbit together. This book was in circulation in a library in Alabama and a librarian almost lost her job because of it. All in all, this lecture discussed the issues of poor access, both in terms of not having enough libraries available to the public as well as the segregation of blacks in the library.