Martha Mitchell (died December 14, 2011) was an American librarian and archivist. She was the longtime archivist at Brown University [1] and author of Encyclopedia Brunoniana , a reference work on Brown's history.
A native of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, [2] she attended Tufts University and earned a degree in library science from McGill University. [3] She began working at Brown as a librarian in 1949 and led the archives from the 1960s [4] until her retirement in 2003.
She became known as the university's "unofficial historian" [3] and "trivia whiz," [5] with an "encyclopedic mind [that] was filled with all things Brown." [6]
Brown University is a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island. It is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. One of nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution, it was the first college in the United States to codify in its charter that admission and instruction of students was to be equal regardless of their religious affiliation.
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.
An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can consist of a variety of forms, including letters, diaries, logs, other personal documents, government documents, sound and/or picture recordings, digital files, or other physical objects.
Library and Archives Canada is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the fifth largest library in the world. The LAC reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
Dorothy Louise Porter Wesley was a librarian, bibliographer and curator, who built the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University into a world-class research collection. She was the first African American to receive a library science degree from Columbia University. Porter published numerous bibliographies on African American history. When she realized that the Dewey Decimal System had only two classification numbers for African Americans, one for slavery and one for colonization, she created a new classification system that ordered books by genre and author.
Encyclopedia Brunoniana is an American reference work by Martha Mitchell covering Brown University. Published in 1993 by the Brown University Library, the encyclopedia has 629 pages. A digital version can be read free of charge on the Internet. Mitchell was the university's longtime archivist and "unofficial historian" until she retired in 2003; she died in 2011.
Dave Rollin Smith was the founder and chief archivist of Walt Disney Archives at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California.
David Sean Ferriero is an American librarian and library administrator, who served as the 10th Archivist of the United States. He previously served as the Director of the New York Public Library and as the University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at Duke University. Prior to his Duke position, he worked for 31 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology library. Ferriero was the first librarian to serve as Archivist of the United States.
Edward "Ted" Ladd Widmer is an American historian, writer, librarian, and musician who served as a speechwriter in the Clinton White House.
The Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women was established in 1981 at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, as an interdisciplinary research center focused on gender and women. In addition to research, the center is home to archives of feminist theory and women's history as well as Brown's undergraduate Gender and Sexuality Studies concentration. Postcolonial theorist Leela Gandhi, is the Center's director, having assumed the position in July 2021.
Shelley Sweeney is a Canadian archivist. She was university archivist at the University of Regina from 1983 to 1998, and the Head of the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections from 1998 to 2020. She helped found two regional archival organizations, the Saskatchewan Council of Archives and the Saskatchewan Archivists Society, and the University and Research Institutions section of the International Council on Archives. Sweeney is a charter member of the Academy of Certified Archivists and, with colleagues, wrote the first code of ethics for the Canadian archival profession.
Phyllis Mander-Jones MBE was an Australian born librarian and archivist who helped establish the archival profession in Australia.
Elizabeth Yakel is an archivist, researcher, and educator in information science. Yakel is known for work advancing archival practice, the use of primary sources in archives education, studies of data reuse practices, and digital curation. Yakel is the senior associate dean for academic affairs and a professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, where she has been on the faculty since 2000. She is the former coordinator of the Preservation of Information specialization in the Master of Science in Information program and teaches in the Archives and Record Management area. She specializes in digital archives and digital preservation and has developed five such graduate level courses at UM, including "Economics of Sustainable Digital Information" and "Practical Engagement Workshop in Digital Preservation."
Kylie Percival is an Australian archivist. She is University Librarian of Curtin University, having previously served as Associate University Librarian at University of Adelaide. In addition, she is a former president of the Australian Society of Archivists.
Florence Edwards Borders was an American archivist, historian, and librarian. She specialized in the preservation of African American historical artifacts, especially those related to Afro-Louisianans.
Martha Hoeprich Kennedy is an Eisner award winning author and curator of popular and applied graphic arts at the Library of Congress (LoC).
Ricardo L. Punzalan is a Filipino American archivist who is an Associate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan School of Information. He has shaped the fields of archival science, virtual reunification, repatriation, reparative description, and has studied the nature of collections in both museums and archives. He holds undergraduate and Masters degrees from the University of the Philippines and a doctorate in information science from the University of Michigan.
Judith Schiff was an American archivist. She was chief research archivist at Yale University and historian for the city of New Haven, Connecticut.