The cover.(Woman's Building Library )(Cover story)

The materials in the Woman's Building Library emanated from forty American states and territories, the District of Columbia, and twenty-three foreign countries, distributed across four continents. (1) They included valuable manuscripts and rare books, popular, scholarly, and belletristic works, self-published volumes, scrapbooks of journalistic writing, yearbooks, cookbooks, newspapers, and musical scores. At every stage, the development and management of the library involved creativity, cooperation, and the occasional compromise. Its fate after the fair ended was no exception. With its parade of proprietary labels, paying tribute to Northwestern University Library, the Biblioteca Femina, the Chicago Public Library, and the 1893 World's Fair, the bookplate featured on the cover of this issue reflects something of the collection's checkered career after the Columbian Exposition drew to a close.

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Although the Woman's Building Library was neither a circulating library nor a reference library, for some it was, nevertheless, in a very real sense, a "working" library. During the entire six-month run of the fair the library was a hive of activity for the team of professionals hired to staff it. Together with half a dozen assistants, senior librarians Ellen…