Elliot Brandow Old books smell delicious, apparently like a combination of grass and vanilla . Browsing the stacks offers us a chance not ...

Dana Hamlin The History Section of the Reference and User Services Association ( RUSA) of the American Library Association, recentl...

Philip White  When we think about the budget mess in Washington, it’s easy to focus on how it affects what’s now and what’s next. But ...

Heather Cox Richardson Drie’s map of Columbia, South Carolina (1872). The recent news that a private collection of Hemingway works ...

Randall Stephens It takes a certain temperament to be a historian.  For example, you have to, at least on some level, enjoy rummaging th...

Randall Stephens Ah . . . the adventures of the archives. The thrill of the dusty old book hunt. The joy of finding that seldom-seen docume...

Randall Stephens I've worked, at most, 7 years on a single project. But, I'm just one person, toiling on my books and articles. Th...

Randall Stephens "Google demonstrated the possibility of transforming the intellectual riches of our libraries, books lying inert and u...

Randall Stephens Patricia Cohen, "Analyzing Literature by Words and Numbers," New York Times , December 3, 2010 Victorians were e...

This guest post comes from Dana Goblaskas a former student of mine who works at the MIT library. Dana stuck out to me from the start becau...

Randall Stephens [Cross posted at Religion in American History .] Henry Ward Beecher , America’s most well-known 19th-century preacher, ...