This week let’s detour away from History of Highland Park posts to look at an interesting Library document. Here we have “The Forty-Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Library Commissioners of the Los Angeles Public Library.” The report is for the 1933-1934 fiscal year. Those with a bit of historical acumen will not be surprised that this was a fiscally difficult period for the library, with the report noting cuts in salary, book buying, and even service hours. Reading on you’ll find the library circulated more than 13 million items that year, what specific work was done in the various library departments, and the work in branches.
This is an interesting document that lets you take a first-hand look of the impact of the Great Depression on a city institution. Take a look.
