| This research aims to study the role of two of the major commercial vendors of library equipment--the Library Bureau and Gaylord Brothers--in the development of library technology within the context of the industrialization and modernization of the United States from 1876 to 1930. The Library Bureau had its origin in 1876 when, at Melvil Dewey's suggestion, the Co-operation Committee on Library Supplies of the new American Library Association established a department to enable libraries to order supplies at reduced prices. Gaylord Brothers was founded in 1896 by H. J. and W. E. Gaylord to sell mending tissue to banks. Soon afterwards they began to furnish libraries with this mending tissue, cut in strips for use in repairing books. This dissertation focuses on four areas: the establishment of the companies and the role of Melvil Dewey, and his assistant Herbert Davidson, in the founding and early years of the Library Bureau and H. J. and W. E. Gaylord as founders of Gaylord Brothers, the development and standardization of library equipment, the relationship between the library community and the commercial vendors, and the sale of equipment by the Library Bureau and Gaylord to both the library and business communities. This study will be placed within the theoretical framework of modern historiography of American business--the threefold themes of entrepreneurship, organizational theory, and scientific management are used as models for the examination of the activities of the commercial vendors of library equipment. |
