SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

October 11, 2016 by Gary Price

Chicago’s Newberry Library Acquires Largest Postcard Collection in United States

October 11, 2016 by Gary Price

From Crain’s Chicago Business:

Before Instagram, there were postcards. And over the next six months, Newberry Library, Chicago, will take possession of 2.5 million of them from the Curt Teich Postcards Archives Collection, previously housed at the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda.
[Clip]
The collection’s centerpiece is the 360,000-card archives of Curt Teich, a company that operated in Chicago from 1898 to 1978 and was the world’s biggest printer of advertising and view postcards. Teich photographers took pictures in more than 10,000 towns and cities in the U.S., Canada and 115 other countries.
[Clip]
In addition to its famous “Greetings From” series, the archives includes prints, sketches and other material related to postcard printing. The Teich family donated the archives to the Lake County Discovery Museum when the company ceased operations.
The official appraisal for the collection is $4,643,360, Schreyer says, but there are discrete collections within the postcard archive that haven’t been appraised yet and so aren’t represented in the official appraisal figure.

Read the Complete Article

Source: Newberry Library
Source: Newberry Library

From the Newberry Library:

“The Teich Collection is a fascinating and unusual body of material, widely regarded as significant for twentieth-century cultural studies,” said Lake County Forest Preserve President Ann B. Maine. “Transferring the collection to the Newberry will place it in a broader context with their wonderful collections, and expose it to wider recognition as a scholarly resource. We are pleased that we were positioned to create it 35 years ago, and to develop it into the important collection it is today. Transferring it to the Newberry strengthens the missions of both organizations. In our case, it allows us to focus resources on preserving and telling Lake County’s rich natural and human story when the new museum opens in Libertyville.”
At the heart of the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection are the industrial archives of the Curt Teich Company itself. The company operated in Chicago from 1898 to 1978 as the world’s largest printer of view and advertising postcards. Consisting of over 360,000 images related to more than 10,000 towns and cities in the U.S., Canada, and 115 other countries, the Teich industrial archives also contain photographs, prints, sketches, and other layout materials documenting the creation of many of the company’s postcards. The range of themes aligns with several subject strengths in the Newberry collection, including local and family history, travel and exploration, Chicago and the Midwest, and the history of printing, publishing, and typography.
[Clip]
We are very excited by the many interconnections our users will be able to make between the Curt Teich Postcard Archives and the Newberry’s distinctive areas of strength,” said Alice Schreyer, the Newberry’s Roger and Julie Baskes Vice President for Collections and Library Services.
Schreyer is leading the Newberry’s effort to integrate the postcard materials into the library’s collection, a process involving both the physical relocation of materials and the digital migration of catalog records and inventories. By April, the Newberry expects to be able to provide reference service to anyone interested in knowing more about the contents of the archives. Access to the materials themselves at first will be by appointment only while the Newberry incorporates the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection into the library’s discovery and access systems. Users will have uninterrupted access to more than 30,000 digitized postcard views available through the Illinois Digital Archives.

Read the Complete Newberry News Release

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Associations and Organizations, Digital Collections, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Publishing

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Recent Articles on LJ

Positioned for Power: Hiring an EDI Officer | Equity

Tour de France: A Watching, Reading, and Listening Guide | Your Home Librarian

Prince George’s County Memorial Library System Targeted by Anti-LGBTQIA+ Vandalism

From the Top: Library Leaders Talk EDI | Equity

After the MLIS

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

Julie Mosbo Ballestro Appointed University Librarian at Texas A&M University

Full Text of a Texas A&M University Libraries Announcement: We are pleased to announce the appointment of Julie Mosbo Ballestro as University Librarian and Assistant Provost of University Libraries at ...

New Report From EBLIDA: "First European Overview on E-Lending in Public Libraries"

From an EBLIDA (European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations) Post: EBLIDA is laying the foundation for “sustainable copyright” in public libraries through the publication of the “First European ...

New Video Recording From Rare Book School: "Making and Reading Indigenous Archives"

The Rare Book School (U. of Virginia) video embedded below (a National Endowment for the Humanities-Global Book Histories Initiative Lecture by Kelly Wisecup) was recorded on June 15, 2022. From ...

New Funding: Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Awarded $850,000 by Mellon Foundation to Support the Advancement of...

From a DPLA Announcement: Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce an $850,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to support its effort to advance racial justice in ...

Roundup (June 27, 2022)

Coherent Digital Launches South Asia Archive on the Coherent Commons Platform The Longest-Running Queer News Radio Show Is Headed to the Library of Congress (via NPR) University of Cambridge Now ...

Report: "The Important Role Libraries Play in Building a Creative and Innovative Society"

From ArchDaily: As gateways to knowledge and culture, libraries play a fundamental role in society. Foundational in creating opportunities for learning, as well as supporting literacy and education, the resources ...

Not Real News: An Associated Press Roundup of Untrue Stories Shared Widely on Social Media This Week

From the Associated Press: A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were ...

Statement: American Library Association (ALA) Condemns Threats of Violence in Libraries

Full Text of ALA Statement (6/24): In response to the alarming increase in acts of aggression toward library workers and patrons as reported by press across the country, the American ...

Roundup (June 24, 2022)

FCC and IMLS Sign Agreement to Promote Broadband Access Library Impact Research Report: Impact of Archival Collections and Services on the Western University Department of History (via ARL) More Than ...

Report: "Vatican Releases Thousands of Holocaust-Era Letters and Requests Online"

From the Associated Press (via Times of Israel): Pope Francis orders the online publication of 170 volumes of its Jewish files from the recently opened Pope Pius XII archives, the ...

The New York Public Library Opens a ‘Virtual Branch’ on Instagram and Launches a Reading Recommendation Project Using...

From NYPL: The virtual branch— a custom designed interactive AR (Augmented Reality) Effect accessible via Instagram Reels is the centerpiece of #NYPLSummerBookshelf, a new initiative to spark a love of ...

Roundup (June 23, 2022)

CLIR Invites Proposals for Pocket Burgundy Series (via Council on Library and Information Resources) Oregon’s State Library added to National Register of Historic Places (via Oregon Capital Chronicle)

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW INFODOCKET ON TWITTER

Tweets by @infodocket

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.