Reconstructing Early American Libraries: Concord, Massachusetts, 1795-1850.

Outlines the emergence of the social library and uses Concord as a case study to recover the tastes and norms of readers. Prior to the establishment of a public library in 1851, the townspeople relied on the Charitable Library Society (1795-1820) and the Concord Social Library (1821-51). Reconstructed catalogs of the two libraries' collections, including all bibliographic data, chart the popular reading topics of the time.