Library Company of Philadelphia's #GiltyPleasures: Sharing Special Collections Through Social Media

LCP seems an unlikely social media sensation. The 287-year-old research library, set on a quiet block of Locust Street, specializes in American history and culture from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its holdings — special collections of rare books, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera, prints, photographs, and art — aren’t really suited to hashtags. And yet, they sort of are.

Natural extension of mission

With themed postings such as #MorrisMonday, #TinyTuesday, and #WetNoseWednesday, LCP has developed an enthusiastic following among those who know the institution and those who may never cross its threshold. Since 2015, almost 800 posts — items designed to pique curiosity and encourage inquiry — have paraded across Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube.

Cultivating a robust social media presence is a natural evolution of LCP’s mission: to preserve, interpret, make available, and augment its holdings. The exhibit points out that libraries are the essence of social media: making information available, encouraging expression, and stimulating discussion.

#GiltyPleasures demonstrates that LCP is doing more than improving remote access for scholars. Clever and informative postings cast a wider net, perhaps inspiring enthusiasm for history among people they might not otherwise be able to reach.

All about the book

Fittingly, books are central in LCP posts. One #TinyTuesday gem on display, The Book of Nouns, or Things Which May Be Seen (Philadelphia, 1802), is a 2.5-square-inch children’s picture book. Part of the Michael Zinman Collection of Early American Books, it is 125 pages of exquisite engraved images and printed text. Posted in November 2016, it attracted 436 likes. Another #TinyTuesday star is a daguerreotype no bigger than a pocket watch, Portrait of an Unidentified Man in a Top Hat (c. 1850). Lovingly and elaborately framed, it recalls a time when cherished personal portraits were rare.

The most popular post to date, London Rhymes (Frederick Locker-Lampson, New York, 1893), collected more than 1,400 likes and shares on Tumblr. Featured on a #PublishersBindingThursday, the volume was chosen for its cover, which combines gold-and-white brocade with a print of delicate pink blossoms. It’s a superb example of 19th-century bookcloth and decorative techniques.

Gauffering, in which book-page edges are tooled or pressed to create an embellished pattern, can involve gold — hence the “gilt” of the exhibit title.

“Photograph album with gauffered edges” (c. 1860), a #ForeEdgeFriday post, is an ornate example. When closed, the book’s three-inch-thick fore edge becomes a gleaming field decorated with a nest of scrollwork framing the name “Coken.”

Children and animals never fail

Posts frequently feature children and animals. #WetNoseWednesday, a fan favorite, often involves dogs, as in the 1931 postcard “Boy and His Dog Sitting on Marble Steps,” photographed by John Frank Keith in Philadelphia.

Followers of #Caturday and #FelineFriday will recognize four business-card-sized advertisements from Joe Freedman Collection of Philadelphia Trade Cards (Philadelphia, 1870-1900). Printed for a restaurant then at 1405 Fairmount Avenue, they depict anthropomorphized felines. The cats wear period clothing, stand upright, and carry accessories — a parasol, riding crop, wig, and what appear to be castanets. The tagline promises the choice of “A Big Stew of 20 Oysters” or “8 Large Fried Oysters” for 15 cents.

Unexpected discoveries

Digital presentation enables followers to experience items as LCP staff do, inspecting them up close and maybe discovering a trace of the past. Inside the back cover of a congressional journal written as the U.S. Constitution was being debated, for example, a bored legislator doodled hearts, horses, and several American flags (United States Constitutional Congress, Journal of the United States in Congress Assembled, Philadelphia, 1784).

The owner of Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands (Lydia Howard Sigourney, Boston, 1842) pressed flowers in the book and wrote in the margins. The pencil impressions are so softened by age, and the feminine handwriting so small, that only scraps are discernable. “Can you + will you…” she wrote. Then: “if you think them worthy.”

Besides actual items to actual visitors, #GiltyPleasures illustrates LCP’s virtual identity through a lighthearted .gif animation, “A Touch of Whimsy,” in which volumes open themselves, illustrations dance, bindings wiggle, and an engraving of Margate, New Jersey’s Lucy the Elephant comes to life, waving her trunk in the air. The point is this: for all of the valid criticism leveled at social media, it can also educate, engage, and enthrall.