As the North Carolina Library Association is winding up its biennial meeting this week in Hickory, we’ve had fun comparing this year’s program with a program from the 1939 meeting, which is in a scrapbook of library activities compiled by the Braswell Memorial Library (Rocky Mount, N.C.) in the 1930s. While this year’s meeting featured lots of sessions about online research tools and e-books, the 1939 program included a “Discussion of the Use of the Printed Catalog Card,” and “A New System of Book Charging for College Libraries.” But a few of the 1939 sessions, like “The Librarian as a Coordinator in an Educational Enterprise” and “Financing the Public Library,” could very well have been titles of talks today.

The full 1939 program is in the Thomas Hackney Braswell Memorial Library Scrapbook, starting on page 32.