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Library hand is a rounded style of handwriting once taught in library schools. The intention was to ensure uniformity and legibility in the handwritten cards of library catalogs. Beginning in September 1885, Melvil Dewey and Thomas Edison developed and perfected the approved library hand to be taught in library school and used in libraries. The penmanship was based on Edison's own handwriting in which he stated that "I had perfected a style of handwriting which would allow me to take legibly from the wire, long hand, forty-seven and even fifty-four words a minute".

The 1903 Handbook of the New York State Library School listed the requirements of library hand. They included legibility, speed, and uniformity. The particular type of ink, inkstands, pens, penholders, and erasers was specified. The standards for lettering were dictated in regard to size, slant, spacing, special letters and figures, and even the proper posture and position of the writer was outlined.

The teaching of library hand declined after the widespread introduction of the typewriter in the early 20th century.

References

1. Morton, Ella (16 February 2017). "Library Hand, the Fastidiously Neat Penmanship Style Made for Card Catalogs". Atlas Obscura.
2. KAMINSKI, DAVID. "The Context and History of Library Hand". THE VARIETIES AND COMPLEXITIES OF AMERICAN HANDWRITING AND PENMANSHIP: LIBRARY HAND. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
3. History of the card catalog Archived 2018-07-07 at the Wayback Machine, Library and Information Science Wiki

External links

• Examples of library hand
• File This Under Nostalgia: New Book Pays Tribute To The Library Card Catalog
• Jayne Ringrose, The Library Hand, Cambridge University Library Special Collections blog, 13 June 2013
• Library handwriting: a guide for the use of students in the New York State Library School (The University of the State of New York, 1916) digitised by Connecticut State Library
• Dana Library Hand — scalable font family based on John Cotton Dana's Disjoined Hand sample, by Margo Burns

v t e Types of handwritten European scripts
Ancient and medieval	Roman Rustic Uncial Visigothic Merovingian Carolingian Insular script Beneventan Blackletter Rotunda Bastarda Georgian Greek Early Cyrillic Ustav Poluustav Serbian Cyrillic Bosančica Glagolitic Angular Court hand Lombardic
Modern	Cursive Chancery Johannine Humanist Italic Round Secretary Library Technical lettering Copperplate Spencerian Ronde Kurrent Russian cursive Skoropis (Ukrainian skoropys) Shorthand
Teaching scripts	Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting D'Nealian Getty-Dubay Italic Grundschrift Palmer Sütterlin Vereinfachte Ausgangsschrift Zaner-Bloser

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