Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1899 — NEW LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NEW LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS.

Herbert Putnam, Head of Boston's Public Library, Appointed. Herbert Putnam of Boston, has been appointed congressional librarian by President McKinley. Since he became head of the Boston public library in 1895 that institution has been greatly improved—a high compliment to the librarian’s merits, for Boston has always prided itself on its library. Mr. Putnam began his career as custodian of books in 1884, when he was called to Minneapolis to take charge of the Athenaeum Library in that city. When

Minneapolis created her public library the books of the Athenaeum were used as a nucleus. There were but 12,000 volumes in the collection. Seven years of labor on Mr. Putnam’s part swelled the number to 50,000 choice books and lifted the new library to the fifth place in circulation among the concerns of its kind in America. The new director of the National Library is a lawyer and a man of high culture. He knows not merely the titles of books, but their contents, too. He is not yet 40 years old.

HERBERT PUTNAM.