Category: Librarian Spotlight

“This isn’t a hoax, is it?”

That is what American Libraries editor, Arthur Plotnik, asked Professor Wayne Wiegand after receiving Wiegend’s unsolicited manuscript about disgraced and forgotten ALA President, Klas August Linderfelt.[1]

It was not a hoax. Wiegand became interested in Linderfelt’s story while researching his book, The Politics of an Emerging Profession: The American Library Association, 1876-1917.[2] Prior research on Linderfelt’s story was thin and incomplete, so Wiegand wrote a more vigorously investigated article. “The Wayward Bookman” ran in two parts in the March and April 1977 issues of American Libraries and remains one of the most complete histories of Linderfelt’s downfall.[3]

Continue reading “Mr. Linderfelt’s Trouble: Restoration to the Record, Part 2” →

On April 28, 1892, the first librarian of the Milwaukee Public Library (MLP), Klas August Linderfelt, was summoned to a meeting with library trustees and Mayor Peter J. Somers. There, Linderfelt was accused of embezzling $4,000, to which he admitted guilt and was subsequently arrested.

Linderfelt’s arrest came as a shock to the library profession. Not only was he the head of the MLP, but he was also the president of both the American Library Association (ALA) and the Wisconsin Library Association (WLA). A longtime and active member of ALA, Linderfelt was well liked by his colleagues, leaving them reeling at his arrest. The news spread quickly in both the local and national press, with newspapers as far away as California, proclaiming, “Linderfelt in a Cell. The Public Librarian of Milwaukee Uses the City’s Cash.”^[1]

Continue reading “Mr. Linderfelt’s Trouble: ALA’s Lost President, Part 1” →