A Brief Profile of the Browne Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green St. University in Ohio
Bowling Green State University’s extensive Sound Recording Archives receives considerable attention, but just one floor above the vast music repository is an equally important link to our cultural past, the Browne Popular Culture Library.
This library isn’t about books so much as it is preserving vaguely historical but always interesting artifacts from our past. The Browne Popular Culture Library is crammed with 200,000 such curios, one of the biggest comprehensive collections in the nation, including:
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● A century of the Sears Wish Book and J.C. Penney catalogs
● World War II propaganda posters
● Classic board games
● McDonald’s Happy Meal toys
● Lunch boxes
● New and used postcards
● Original movie, TV, and radio scripts
● An E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial head mask
● A Civil Defense Kit, complete with hard hat and toilet paper
Learn More, Read the Complete Article
Additional Resources
Visit the Browne Popular Culture Library Web Site
Digitized Material from the Browne Popular Culture Library (via BGSU Digital Commons)
Digitized Images From the Browne Popular Culture Library (via Flickr)
Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Journal Articles, Libraries, News, Open Access
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.