A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members as of 2021.
Elonnie J. Josey was an African-American activist and librarian. Josey was the first chair of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, having been instrumental in its formation in 1970; served as president of the American Library Association from 1984 to 1985; and was the author of over 400 books and other publications.
Wayne August Wiegand is an American library historian, author, and academic. Wiegand retired as F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies and Professor of American Studies at Florida State University in 2010.
Robert Sidney Martin is an American librarian, archivist, administrator, and educator. He is Professor Emeritus, School of Library and Information Studies, Texas Woman’s University, where he was the Lillian M. Bradshaw Endowed Chair until his retirement in 2008.
The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association, is a professional association of academic librarians and other interested individuals. It is dedicated to enhancing the ability of academic library and information professionals to serve the information needs of the higher education community and to improving learning, teaching, and research. The association serves librarians in all types of academic libraries at the community college, college, and university level and also serves librarians that work in comprehensive and specialized research libraries.
Edward Christopher Williams was the first African-American professionally trained librarian in the United States. His sudden death in 1929 ended his career the year he was expected to receive the first Ph.D. in librarianship. Williams was born on February 11, 1871, in Cleveland, Ohio, to an African-American father and an Irish mother. Upon his graduation with distinction from Adelbert College of Western Reserve University in 1892, he was appointed Assistant Librarian of Hatch Library at WRU. Two years later, he was promoted to librarian of Hatch Library until 1909, when he resigned to assume the responsibility of the Principal of M Street High School in Washington, D.C. He continued his career as University Librarian of Howard University until his death on December 24, 1929. Williams was rediscovered as a Harlem Renaissance author with the 2004 publication of his novel When Washington Was in Vogue, considered among the earliest epistolary novels by an African American.
Clara Stanton Jones was the first African-American president of the American Library Association, serving as its acting president from April 11 to July 22 in 1976 and then its president from July 22, 1976, to 1977. Also, in 1970 she became the first African American and the first woman to serve as director of a major library system in America, as director of the Detroit Public Library.
Lotsee Patterson is a Comanche librarian, educator, and founder of the American Indian Library Association. She has written numerous articles on collection development, tribal libraries and Native American Librarianship. A Native American, Lotsee Patterson first became interested in collecting Native American objects, as her mother was a collections director. In the late 1950s, she read the 1983 publication The Museum Handbook of Native American History. She saw that Native Americans were less well documented than other cultures and often paid exorbitant prices for materials that were soon obsolete. Patterson is a University of Oklahoma Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Studies.
The State Library of Louisiana is Louisiana's state library agency, located in Baton Rouge.
The Southeastern Library Association (SELA) is an organization that collaborates with different library associations within the Southeastern United States, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The field of library science seeks to provide a diverse working environment in libraries. Ways to change the status quo include diversifying the job field with regards to age, class, disabilities, ethnicity, gender identity, race, sex, and sexual orientation.
Alma Dawson is an American scholar of librarianship. She retired as Russell B. Long Professor at the School of Library & Information Science, Louisiana State University in 2014 and was awarded Emeritus status in 2015. In 2019 Dr. Dawson was honored with the Essae Martha Culver Distinguished Service Award from the Louisiana Library Association which honors a librarian whose professional service and achievements, whose leadership in Louisiana association work, and whose lifetime accomplishments in a field of librarianship within the state merit recognition of particular value to Louisiana librarianship.
Essae Martha Culver was an American librarian, the first state librarian of Louisiana and president of the American Library Association.
Mary Mims was born in Minden, Louisiana. She was a community organizer, teacher, educator, humanitarian, lecturer, and a pioneering sociologist. She was the founder of the "community organization movement" in cooperative extension. She was an extension services specialist in community organizing and worked for Louisiana State University. She was a state community worker for Louisiana.
Mollie Ernestine Dunlap was a librarian, bibliographer, and educator. Her research illuminated the scholarship of African Americans and the experience of African Americans in higher education, especially the groundbreaking publication of the Index to Selected Negro Publications Received in the Hallie Q. Brown Library. Her work as a founding member of the first African American library association, as well as within the American Library Association, championed the civil rights of black librarians in the United States.
Tommie Dora Barker was an American librarian and founding dean of Emory Library School in Atlanta, Georgia. She also served as a regional field agent, representing southern libraries, for the American Library Association.
The Mississippi Library Association (MLA) is a professional organization for Mississippi's librarians and library workers. It is headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi in the Mississippi Library Commission building. It was founded October 29, 1909 by Whitman Davis, a librarian at Mississippi A & M College. In 1968, it became incorporated as Mississippi Library Association, Inc.
The North Carolina Negro Library Association (NCNLA) was a professional organization for North Carolina's black librarians and library workers. It was the first black library association in the United States and the first black chapter in the American Library Association. It was headquartered in Durham, North Carolina at the North Carolina College for Negroes beginning in 1942.
The Georgia Library Association (GLA) is a professional organization in the United States for Georgia's librarians and library workers. It is headquartered in Savannah, Georgia. It was founded as The Georgia Library Club by members of the Young Men's Library of Atlanta and Georgia Federation of Women's Clubs. The organization changed its name to the Georgia Library Association at its first business meeting. GLAs first president was Anne Wallace, elected at the organization's first meeting May 31, 1897, in Atlanta, Georgia.
