Publishers' donations to public libraries

[Tom Glynn]

For a book on early public libraries in New York City, I've been
scouring thru the annual reports of the Cooper Union, which maintained a
non-circulating collection open to the general public in the latter half
of the nineteenth century. I've found that for several years, Harper's,
George Munro and John Lovell donated hundreds of titles from their
"Franklin Square Library," "Seaside Library," and "Lovell's Library"
series. Has anyone come across such large donations in other libraries,
public or otherwise? In other libraries I've looked at, it was fairly
common for a few publishers to donated a title or two on occasion, but
this is the first time I've encountered donations of entire series.

Any help appreciated. Apologies for cross-postings.

Thanks, Tom

[Adam Arenson]

I'm working on a history of the first 25 years of the St. Louis
Mercantile Library, and I know their annual reports from the late
1850s forward list the donors of books, magazines, and newspapers.
Many of the donors of the periodicals were the publishers; I can't
remember about the books, beyond the fact that the library often
sought donations from government issuers (Smithsonian, Congress,
etc.), and regularly bought books in New York and London. It suggests
to me that local and regional publishers may have been donating
books, as there is an extensive St. Louis imprint collection at the
library and no real record of their purchase.

The SLML annual reports are available at Yale, the NYPL, and
elsewhere on the East Coast; contact me if further information would
be helpful.

Adam Arenson
Ph.D. Candidate in History, Yale University
***@yale.edu