What were important issues for American librarianship in 1876?

Dear Ms. Singleton:

Thank you for posting your question here on History Hub!

The American Library Association (ALA) has a bibliography of "Writings on the History of Libraries, Librarianship, and Book Culture" available on its website at http://www.ala.org/rt/lhrt/popularresources/libhistorybib/lhrtbibspr08

which may help you identify relevant secondary sources to search. You may wish to continue exploring the website for the ALA Library History Roundtable for additional resources related to the history of librarianship in the United States.

The Library Journal is an American trade publication for librarians, founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. Older issues are available in full view on HathiTrust and the Internet Archive. A list of links to these issues is available from the University of Pennsylvania: https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=libjournal.

All the best of luck on your research project!