Invited on the Air: Public Librarians at the Beginning of Broadcast Radio.

This article examines the earliest involvement of public librarians in commercial radio broadcasting during the early 1920s, focusing on three key examples: the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the Toledo Public Library, and the Sutter County Library in California. It establishes that the earliest known broadcast by a public librarian occurred on December 19, 1921, when a children's librarian from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh read Christmas stories on Westinghouse station KDKA. The study highlights how librarians' participation was motivated by outreach and publicity goals, often facilitated by existing relationships with newspapers or personal connections to amateur radio operators. These early broadcasts positioned librarians alongside musicians, civic leaders, and entertainers as part of radio's formative programming, though the rise of commercial networks later limited sustained library presence on the air.