Blog

November 07, 2022

100+ Books Loved by Mercantile Readers

If you’ve visited the Library in the last couple of years, you might have noticed that one of the windows looking into the lobby was...

June 08, 2022

Britini Bicknaver uncovers a paradise Lost and found at the Library

I was sixteen when I first went to the Mercantile Library. My uncle brought me as he was teaching me how to drive and used...

January 11, 2022

Library Minutes Books Conserved and Rebound thanks to Ohio History Connection History Fund Grant

It’s rare for an institution of the Mercantile Library’s venerable age to possess almost complete records that capture so vividly its evolution through the ages....

March 20, 2020

Books in the Time of Cholera

It might seem odd to think of libraries at a time like this. But it might also be worth noting that libraries exist for times...

February 12, 2020

The Mercantile Library Visitors' Register, 1872-1918 is Online

Excuse me while I geek out. The Mercantile Library’s Visitor Register is now available online, thanks to the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County...

October 01, 2019

10 Books About Road Trips

A Reading List for The Levee: A Photographer in The American South When we heard about The Levee: A Photographer in The American South, a...

December 17, 2018

Paris reading list

Reading about Paris, c. 1900 The announcement that Cincinnati Art Museum will open Paris 1900: City of Entertainment on March 1 sent us nosing through our...

October 12, 2018

Frankenstein

Pulling books for a display celebrating women writing science fiction, I went looking in the stacks for Frankenstein because Mary Shelley and her monstrous story...