The Library Bureau was a business founded by

Melville Dewey Melville Louis Kossuth "Melvil" Dewey (December 10, 1851 – December 26, 1931) was an influential American librarian and educator, inventor of the Dewey Decimal system of library classification, a founder of the Lake Placid Club, and a chief li ...

in 1876 to provide supplies and equipment to libraries. The Library Bureau quickly became a one-stop vendor for supplies and equipment a library might need. By 1900, its lengthy, well illustrated catalog was widely distributed. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Library Bureau supplied furniture, equipment, supplies, and services to many of the new Carnegie Libraries being built. The Bureau prospered. It opened a number of large factories to provide furniture and supplies. It sold merchandise and services through a network of sales offices and distributors in the United States (46 in 1922), England (4), France (1), and Belgium. In

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, its headquarters operated from offices located successively at Hawley Street, Franklin Street, and Atlantic Avenue. In the 1890s, the Library Bureau introduced vertical filing. It soon became a large supplier of filing equipment, supplies, and expertise to business and government. Library Bureau schools in major cities taught filing to clerical workers. It opened a large factory in 1909 in a brick building at 224 Albany Street,

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

; by 1925, there were 450 workers here. In 1918, the adjacent building, 230 Albany Street, became its headquarters. By 1922, the Library Bureau had factories in Cambridge,

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, and

Ilion, New York Ilion is a village in Herkimer County, New York, United States. The population was 7,790 at the 2017 census. The village is at the northern edge of the town of German Flatts, though a tiny portion is in the town of Frankfort. It is south of the ...

,. Between 1896 and 1899 Library Bureau collaborated with

Herman Hollerith Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine The tabulating machine was an electromechanical machine designed t ...

Tabulating Machine Company The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems subsequently known as IBM. In 1911, financier and noted trust organizer, "Father of Trusts", Charles R. Flint amal ...

to distribute its

punched cards A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to d ...

processing machines.

Successors

In 1927, the Library Bureau was absorbed along with a number of suppliers of office supplies and equipment by the newly formed

Remington Rand Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand wa ...

holding company. The Remington Rand continued to use the brand name "Library Bureau" into the 1950s. After Remington Rand and its successor companies had stopped using the Library Bureau brand name, they sold the name to a furniture company in Maryland which makes furniture in the spirit of antique Library Bureau furniture. The Library Bureau Steel company claims to continue the Library Bureau shelving business.

Notes

References

* Library Bureau, ''Classified Illustrated Catalog of the Library Department of the Library Bureau'', 189
full text
* —, ''The Story of Library Bureau'', 190
full text
* —, ''Filing as a Profession for Women'', 191
full text
* —, "Steel Card and Filing Cabinets, Library Bureau", 192
full text
a catalog of office supplies and equipment * "Remington Rand", an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times, 21 June 1927, p. 23, announces the opening of a Los Angeles office and display room. The Remington Rand business services are listed as Kardex Rand, Remington, Dalton, Vaxter-Vawter, Powers Accounting, Library Bureau, and Safe-Cabinet.

External links

* Additional materials can be found at th
Open Library
and th
Digital Public Library of America
{{Authority control 1876 establishments in Massachusetts Companies based in Boston Companies established in 1876 Libraries in the United States

Successors

See also

Notes

References

External links