#library hand

Let us practice the ancient skills of our trade.

From: Library Handwriting : A Guide for the Use of Students in the New York State Library School. [Rev. ed.]. Albany: University of the State of New York, 1916.

One might not think that there is much writing to do within a library - after all, the words are already in the books, we librarians merely handle the stories already written, right? Well, not quite. A long time ago, back when libraries were still relatively ‘new’ to human society (I use the term ‘new’ loosely, since libraries of written words have been around for several thousand years in some way or another), books were organised and categorised by hand on small cards. These cards were the only identifiers as to what is what in a large and sometimes daunting collection of work and it so it was rather important that one should be able to read the cards with some form of clarity. Unfortunately, this wasn’t always the case. Librarians, though lovers of the written form, were often not esteemed writers themselves, nor did they study penmanship in any great capacity and it would come about that many wasted moments would be spent attempting to decipher your colleague’s rather...unique...handwriting.  After a while, it was realised that uniformity would be required to create efficiency in the system. Two men by the name of Thomas Edison (yes, that Thomas Edison) and Melvil Dewey, came together to form a universal system of writing specifically for use in the library system. They called this ‘Library Hand’. It was a clear, rounded form of cursive writing that was legible to almost everyone who viewed it and could be easily trained without being too hard to learn for those with no cursive skills. The penmanship was based on Edison’s own handwriting, which he claimed  "I had perfected a style of handwriting which would allow me to take legibly from the wire, long hand, forty-seven and even fifty-four words a minute". In 1903, a book of standards was written by the New York State Library which included legibility, speed and uniformity as well as the more specific points, such as inks, pens, penholders even. Even the correct body posture was taught as a standard. This standard lasted until the early 20th century when we began to see writing mechanised by typewriters and eventually, computers. These days handwriting falls by the wayside; with computers, we rarely need to write anything at all. But it’s always worth sitting down and having some fun with words, even in an artistic form - just so you can remember the joy of seeing those delicate curves on the paper.

Library Hand, the Fastidiously Neat Penmanship Style Made for Card Catalogs by Ella Morton

In the 19th century Librarians developed their own, unique style of penmanship called Library Hand. Their goal was to create a standardised and legible style of handwriting for card cataloguing. 

As much as I love the modernisation and digitisation of library services I wish I'd had an opportunity to learn this beautiful, economical handwritten style while I was studying to be a librarian.

[Article via Atlas Obscura]