Minerva Sanders (February 11, 1837 – March 20, 1912) was the first librarian of the Pawtucket Free Public Library in

Pawtucket, Rhode Island Pawtucket ( ) is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 75,604 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making the city the fourth-largest in the state. Pawtucket borders Providence, Rhode Island, Prov ...

. Sanders earned a national reputation for innovative library services, including allowing open access to book stacks, opening the library on Sundays to accommodate working people, and permitting full library privileges for children.

Life and library work

Minerva Amanda Sanders was born February 11, 1837. She was widowed at age 26 and was a teacher before beginning library work. Sanders oversaw the Pawtucket

subscription library A subscription library (also membership library or independent library) is a library that is financed by private funds either from membership fees or endowments. Unlike a public library, access is often restricted to members, but access rights ca ...

before the free

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officially opened, and worked at the Pawtucket Free Public Library from its opening in 1876 until she retired in 1910. She was the chief planner of the new Deborah Cook Sayles Memorial Library building, which opened in 1902. Sanders found that work with children was "the most important, and in its results, the most satisfactory of all library work." Sanders was disturbed by seeing children who wandered the town unaccompanied by adults, as well as the young age of children who worked in the Pawtucket

textile mills Textile manufacturing or textile engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful good ...

. While children were typically forbidden from entering public libraries, Sanders welcomed them in; she was likely the first public librarian to allow children under 12 to use library books. In 1877 she created a separate area for children in the library; she sawed legs off tables and chairs to create child-sized furniture and provided picture books for children to inspire their imaginations. Concerned with the moral education of the children of Pawtucket, she encouraged her young patrons to review a scrapbook featuring newspaper clippings describing how boys were lured into lives of crime by reading sensational fiction, claiming that after twenty minutes her patrons would give up reading the types of books she described as "pernicious trash". She worked to find positive channels for youthful energy, saying she wanted children to "understand that even they are of use in a community". Sanders also broke with tradition in allowing open access to library shelves, a practice that was contested by most other librarians at the time as a risk to the taxpayer's investment. She oversaw the collection's retrospective conversion to the

Dewey Decimal Classification The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) (pronounced ) colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. ...

and taught children and their teachers to use it. She believed that understanding the community she was working with was crucial to her work. Sanders asked library trustees for additional staff so she could have time to "mingle with the people, to learn their habits and tastes, and to direct their reading (especially the young)". Under her leadership, the Pawtucket Free Public Library was one of the earliest libraries to open on Sunday so the many Pawtucket mill workers who worked six days a week could visit. After 30 years of heading the library, Sanders was affectionately known as "Mawtucket of Pawtucket" by the adults and "Auntie Sanders" by the children of her community. Sanders was an active participant in librarianship in the United States: attending and speaking at

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world. History 19th century ...

conferences, authoring ''

Library Journal ''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...

'' articles, and helping to found the Rhode Island Library Association. She was a strong advocate for cooperation between libraries and schools, advocating for class visits to libraries and providing collections of books to teachers. Her health declined in later years and she retired in 1910; she died March 20, 1912.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Minerva 1837 births 1912 deaths American librarians American women librarians