This Week in Bookselling History

This week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that, on April 19, 1929, John Howell of San Francisco submitted a resolution to the Western division convention of the ABA advocating the establishment of a permanent library in the White House with an original gift of 500 books. Howell noted that, on the night of President Herbert Hoover's inauguration, there was no White House library and his own books had not yet arrived, so the President had to borrow a book from one of the guards there, the Chronicle wrote.

The tradition of presenting a gift of books to the White House Library at the beginning of a new President's term has continued -- most recently in October 2002, when ABA presented over 260 books to the White House Library. First Lady Laura Bush met with the ABA Board and senior staff and received, from the full collection, 17 representative titles: the 2002 Book Sense Book of the Year (BSBY) winners and honor books for Fiction and Nonfiction, the BSBY winners for Children's Literature and Children's Illustrated titles, and the BSBY winner and honor books in the Rediscovery category.

To read more about the presentation to Mrs. Bush, click here.