We’re thrilled to announce our most recently completed Legacy Libraries project, the personal library of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.! Dr. King’s collection of over 600 books, which currently reside at Morehouse College in Atlanta, were added to LibraryThing as a tribute to Black History Month.

Thanks to our contributing LT members for their help: JBD1 (who organized the project and broke up the library into sections for helpers), benjclark, mrmapcase, waitingtoderail, timspalding, cpirmann, AndrewB, ReneeGKC, cbl_tn, Literate.Ninja, jcbrunner, nancyewhite, SassyLassy, JoEnglish, cinaedus, katya0133, Michael.Rimmer, and amandafrench. Special thanks goes out to moonradio and seki for starting the thread back in 2008!

Come join the discussion about Dr. King’s books in this Talk thread. If you’re interested in Legacy Libraries and want to help, check out the Legacy Libraries homepage or contact the administrator, Jeremy (JBD1).

Cataloging Louis Armstrong’s Library

Next up for Legacy Libraries: the personal library of jazz trumpeter, composer, and singer, Louis Armstrong. Armstrong’s library (shared with his wife, Lucille) is housed at his former home in Queens, NY. There’s still plenty of cataloging to do, and we need your help! Join the project on Talk.

More Famous Libraries

We’ve also added the personal libraries of poet Langston Hughes, and civil rights activist Rosa Parks to our Legacy Libraries ranks this month. Thanks to Jeremy for his efforts on both of these!

In honor of Black History Month, LibraryThing members are starting a new Legacy Library project, to catalog the personal library of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We’re welcoming everyone to join the fun in cataloging Dr. King’s books!

Legacy Libraries are the personal libraries of famous and infamous people and institutions throughout history, cataloged by LibraryThing members. Our first Legacy Library was Thomas Jefferson‘s collection, added in 2007. February being Black History Month got us investigating Dr. King’s library once again (following behind Frederick Douglass’ Legacy Library, cataloged in 2012). Since the last time we looked, better data became available, so now’s the time do do it.

Residing in his alma mater, Morehouse College in Atlanta, Dr. King’s books were saved in 2006 from being auctioned off at Sotheby’s in New York City. Archival staff at the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center processed the collection, and now LibraryThing members are working on getting these records (over 600 in total) added to our Legacy Libraries.

Check out the Talk thread or jump right to the project Wiki page to get started and claim your section of the library list. If you haven’t worked on a Legacy Library project before, this is a great introduction to them, as the sections are short! LibraryThing member and former LT staffer Jeremy is running the project and can answer any questions you have on the Talk thread.

Thanks for joining us, and have fun!