MBLC Celebrates 125 Years

The New York Public Library under construction¹
The library was dedicated on May 23, 1911.²

In 1911: New Massachusetts legislation for interlibrary loan. The Legislature of 1911 passed the following:

An Act to Enlarge the Usefulness of the Free Public Library System.
"Any free city or town public library may lend its books or other library material to any other free public library in any city or town under such conditions and regulations as may be made in writing by the board of trustees or other authority having control of the library so lending."³

TODAY: 6,615,897 items were loaned via ILL by Massachusetts public libraries in 2014.⁴

What else happened in 1911?

• Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovery of the elements radium and polonium.⁵
• Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole.⁶
• The Standard Oil Company was declared an unreasonable monopoly by the United States Supreme Court and dissolved under the powers of the Sherman Antitrust Act.⁷

References:
1. 40.media.tumblr.com [link].
2. nypl.org [link].
3. Twenty-second Report of the Free Public Library Commission of Massachusetts, 1912.
4. MBLC website [link].
5. www.infoplease.com [link].
6. www.south-pole.com [link].
7. learning.blogs.nytimes.com [link].