{{short description|American librarian}} {{Infobox person | name = Minerva Sanders | image = Minerva Sanders.png | birth_date = {{birth date|1837|02|11}} | birth_place = Marblehead, Massachusetts, US<ref name=Pioneers /> | death_date = {{death date and age|1912|03|20|1837|02|11}} | death_place = Pawtucket, Rhode Island, US | education = | occupation = Librarian }} thumb|right|Deborah Cook Sayles Public Library '''Minerva Sanders''' (February 11, 1837 – March 20, 1912) was the first librarian of the Pawtucket Free Public Library in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. 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.<ref name=Pioneers /> She was widowed at age 26 and was a teacher before beginning library work.<ref name="Garrison">{{cite book |last1=Garrison |first1=Dee |title=Apostles of culture : the public librarian and American society, 1876-1920 |date=2003 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |location=Madison, Wisconsin |isbn=9780299181147}}</ref>{{rp|21}}
Sanders oversaw the Pawtucket subscription library before the free public library officially opened, and worked at the Pawtucket Free Public Library from its opening in 1876 until she retired in 1910.<ref name="Pioneers">{{cite book |author1=Eaton |authorlink1=Gale |editor1-last=Miller |editor1-first=Marilyn L. |title=Pioneers and leaders in library services to youth : a biographical dictionary |date=2003 |publisher=Libraries Unlimited |location=Westport, Connecticut |isbn=9781591580287 |pages=209–211 |chapter=Minerva Amanda Sanders (1837-1912)}}</ref> She was the chief planner of the new Deborah Cook Sayles Memorial Library building, which opened in 1902.<ref name=Bowker />
Sanders found that work with children was "the most important, and in its results, the most satisfactory of all library work."<ref name=Garrison />{{rp|180}} 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.<ref name=Vandergrift /> While children were typically forbidden from entering public libraries, Sanders welcomed them in;<ref name="Bowker">{{cite journal |last1=Bowker |first1=R.R. |title=Women in the Library Profession |journal=Library Journal |date=15 June 1920 |page=546}}</ref> she was likely the first public librarian to allow children under 12 to use library books.<ref name=Garrison />{{rp|208}} In 1877 she created a separate area for children in the library;<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Wiegand |editor1-first=Wayne A. |editor2-last=Davis |editor2-first=Donald G. |title=Encyclopedia of library history |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York, New York |isbn=9780824057879 |page=128}}</ref> she sawed legs off tables and chairs to create child-sized furniture and provided picture books for children to inspire their imaginations.<ref name=Bowker /> 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".<ref name=Garrison />{{rp|208}}<ref name=Pioneers /> She worked to find positive channels for youthful energy, saying she wanted children to "understand that even they are of use in a community".<ref name=Pioneers />
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.<ref name=Vandergrift /><ref name=Pioneers /> She oversaw the collection's retrospective conversion to the Dewey Decimal Classification and taught children and their teachers to use it.<ref name=Pioneers />
She believed that understanding the community she was working with was crucial to her work.<ref name="Vandergrift">{{cite journal |last1=Vandergrift |first1=Kay E. |title=Female Advocacy and Harmonious Voices: A History of Public Library Services and Publishing for Children in the United States |journal=Library Trends |date=Spring 1996 |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=683–718 |hdl=2142/8047 |url=http://hdl.handle.net/2142/8047}}</ref> 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)".<ref name=Vandergrift /> 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.<ref name=History /> 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.<ref name=History />
Sanders was an active participant in librarianship in the United States: attending and speaking at American Library Association conferences, authoring ''Library Journal'' articles, and helping to found the Rhode Island Library Association.<ref name=Bowker /><ref name=Pioneers /> She was a strong advocate for cooperation between libraries and schools, advocating for class visits to libraries and providing collections of books to teachers.<ref name=Vandergrift />
Her health declined in later years and she retired in 1910;<ref name=Bowker /> she died March 20, 1912.<ref name="History">{{cite web |title=The History of the Pawtucket Public Library |url=https://www.pawtucketlibrary.org/History.pdf |website=Pawtucket Public Library |access-date=9 April 2020}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Minerva}} Category:1837 births Category:1912 deaths Category:American librarians Category:American women librarians