John Y. Cole | |
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| Born | July 30, 1940 |
| Nationality | American |
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| Occupation(s) | Historian of the Library of Congress (2016-present) |
John Y. Cole (born July 30, 1940) is an American librarian, historian, and author. He was the founding director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress and in 2016 became the first official historian of the Library of Congress.
John Young Cole was born in Ellensburg, Washington, July 30, 1940. [1] [2] [3] He graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1962, going on to earn a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Washington School of Librarianship the following year. [4] He later earned a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 1966 and a Ph.D. from George Washington University in American civilization in 1971. [4]
From 1946 to 1966, Cole was chief of the library branch of the U.S. Army Intelligence School, stocking the library's collection on foreign intelligence from books in the Library of Congress surplus books program. [5]
Cole was hired at the Library of Congress in 1966 as an administrative assistant. [6] He also worked in the Library's Congressional Research Service and in the Reference Department as a collection development librarian. [6] He researched and wrote articles on the history of the library, focusing his Ph. D. dissertation on Ainsworth Rand Spofford, the nineteenth century Librarian of Congress who expanded the library from a small reference collection to a national institution. [5] Cole's knowledge about the history of the organization led to his role on a yearlong planning task force initiated by Library of Congress Daniel Boorstin. [5] Boorstin recommended Cole to lead the new Center for the Book, created in 1977 to use the resources of the Library of Congress to promote literacy and reading. [5]
Cole served as the executive director for the Center of the Book from 1977 to 2016. [5] [6] Under his leadership, the Center began the popular National Book Festival, opened the Young Readers Center to encourage reading by young people, and created the Library of Congress Literacy Awards, providing recognition and financial prizes for organizations that promote increased literacy. [5]
In 2016, Cole was named the first Historian of the Library of Congress. [7] The position is dedicated to research and documentation of the history of the Library of Congress. [7]
He has received a variety of awards, notably the first "Champion for Literacy" award, presented by the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy in 2016, [8] and the 2000 Joseph W. Lippincott Award, presented by the American Library Association for distinguished service to librarianship. [9] The Lippincott Award statement praised Cole for having "exposed the American people to the power of the written word through dozens of national reading and library promotion projects including the landmark Read More About It series on CBS Television." [9]
Since 2003 Cole and his wife, Director of the Smithsonian Libraries Nancy E. Gwinn, have maintained endowments to support the internships of library and information science students at the Smithsonian Libraries and at the University of Michigan School of Information. [10] [11] They also fund an endowment for supporting the operations of the technical services of the University of Wyoming Libraries. [12]
The librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the president of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years. The librarian of Congress also appoints and oversees the Register of Copyrights of the U.S. Copyright Office and has broad responsibilities around copyright, extending to electronic resources and fair use provisions outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The librarian determines whether particular works are subject to DMCA prohibitions regarding technological access protection. In addition, the librarian appoints the U.S. poet laureate and awards the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
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.
Daniel Joseph Boorstin was an American historian at the University of Chicago who wrote on many topics in American and world history. He was appointed the twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress in 1975 and served until 1987. He was instrumental in the creation of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.
The US Library of Congress Center for the Book was founded in 1977 by Daniel J. Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, to promote literacy, libraries, and reading and an understanding of the history and heritage of American literature. The Center for the Book is mainly supported by tax-deductible donations. In 1984, the center began creating affiliated State Centers for the Book. Today, the Center for the Book has an affiliate center in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to library and information science:
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 Wedgeworth is an American librarian who was the founding President of ProLiteracy Worldwide, an adult literacy organization. He is also a former executive director of the American Library Association, served as president of IFLA, served as Dean of the School of Library Service at Columbia University, and was university librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has also authored and edited several major reference works, and has won many awards over the course of his career. In 2021 the American Library Association awarded him Honorary Membership, its highest award.
Aliteracy is the state of being able to read but being uninterested in doing so. This phenomenon has been reported on as a problem occurring separately from illiteracy, which is more common in the developing world, while aliteracy is primarily a problem in the developed world. In 2002, John Ramsey defined aliteracy as a loss of a reading habit usually since reading is slow and frustrating for the reader.
James G. Neal is an American librarian, library administrator, and a prominent figure in American and international library associations. In 2022 President Joe Biden appointed him to the National Museum and Library Services Board which advises the agency on general policies with respect to the duties, powers, and authority of the Institute of Museum and Library Services relating to museum, library, and information services, as well as the annual selection of the National Medal for Museum and Library Service.
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., that serves as the library and research service of the U.S. Congress and the de facto national library of the United States. Founded in 1800, the library is the United States's oldest federal cultural institution. The library is housed in three elaborate buildings on Capitol Hill. It also maintains a conservation center in Culpeper, Virginia. The library's functions are overseen by the Librarian of Congress, and its buildings are maintained by the Architect of the Capitol. The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its collections contain approximately 173 million items, and it has more than 3,000 employees. Its collections are "universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 470 languages".
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is an institutional archives and library system comprising 21 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers. The Libraries and Archives serve Smithsonian Institution staff as well as the scholarly community and general public with information and reference support. Its collections number nearly 3 million volumes including 50,000 rare books and manuscripts.
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.
Carla Diane Hayden is an American librarian who is serving as the 14th librarian of Congress. Since the creation of the office of the librarian of Congress in 1802, Hayden is both the first African American and the first woman to hold this post. Appointed in 2016, she is the first professional librarian to hold the post since 1974.
Kathleen de la Peña McCook is a library scholar and librarian. Much of her work centers around human rights, First Amendment issues, and the freedom of information.
Barbara J. Ford is an American librarian who served as president of the American Library Association from 1997 to 1998. She earned a bachelor's degree from Illinois Wesleyan University, a master's degree in International Relations from Tufts University and a master's degree in library science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Nancy E. Gwinn is an American librarian and administrator. She was the director of the Smithsonian Libraries, the world's largest museum library system, from 1997 until her retirement in 2020.
Richard M. Dougherty is an American librarian and educator who was the director of libraries at both the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan. He served as the president of the American Library Association from 1990 to 1991, focusing on bringing attention to information access issues and supporting children's literacy.
Mary Niles Maack was an American librarian and scholar known for her work on comparative librarianship and the history of the book.
The Joseph W. Lippincott Award was established in 1938 by the American Library Association.
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