Shelby County, Indiana
Biographical Sketches
Bertha Bowlby
Biographical Sketches
Bertha Bowlby
The Shelbyville Public Library, which was opened November 1, 1897, with a thousand volumes in its collection, has steadily grown through the past thirty years, enlarging its service in keeping with the standards of public libraries over the country and also corresponding to the general growth and progress of the cultural agencies of this Indiana city. The library was first housed in one of the school buildings. A library building was made possible by a donation of twenty thousand dollars from Andrew Carnegie and was completed in 1903. The library today has a total of about nineteen thousand volumes.
The librarian is Miss Bertha Bowlby, who has two assistants. She was born in Shelby County, daughter of Dr. Joseph and Mary Ellen (Yarling) Bowlby. Her early education was acquired in Shelby County. She took the library course of training in Butler University at Indianapolis and in Columbia University of New York. Miss Bowlby has been connected with the public library at Shelbyville since 1913, serving as assistant librarian until April, 1919, when she was made librarian.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT, Vol. 3, By Charles Roll, A.M., The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming
