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.
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 or picture recordings, digital files, or other physical objects.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard between West 135th and 136th Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it has, almost from its inception, been an integral part of the Harlem community. It is named for Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
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.
Fidelia Ann Hoscott Fielding, also known as Dji'ts Bud dnaca, daughter of Bartholomew Valentine Smith and Sarah A. Wyyougs (1804–1868), and granddaughter of Martha Shantup Uncas (1761–1859), was the last-known speaker of the traditional Mohegan Pequot language.
Vivian Gordon Harsh was an American librarian. Harsh is noted as the Chicago Public Library (CPL) system's first African American librarian, being assigned to the position on February 26, 1924. Harsh served as a librarian for 34 years until retiring in 1958. During her career, she began an extensive archive on African American history and culture, which is now known as, the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection, at the CPL.
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.
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.
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.
The Alice G. Smith Lecture, established in 1989, is sponsored by the University of South Florida School of Information. The lecture is an annual recognition of a scholar or author whose achievements have been instrumental in the development of librarianship or information studies. The lecture series honors the memory of the School's first director, Alice Gullen Smith, known for her work with youth and bibliotherapy. The Lecture Fund was created with the purpose of memorializing the work of Smith, who was central to the School's first accreditation by the American Library Association in 1975. Florida Library Association archivist, Bernadette Storck has provided an oral history of the development of libraries in Tampa, Florida that details the contributions of Smith including her establishment of the Tampa Book Fair that encouraged thousands of children to foster a love for books and reading
Helen Willa Samuels is an American archivist and scholar in archival studies. She is best known for her 1986 essay "Who Controls the Past", which introduced the concept of archival documentation strategy, and her 1992 book Varsity Letters: Documenting Modern Colleges and Universities.
Meredith Evans is an archivist, historian and scholar and the director of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta. Her work focuses on the African-American experience in the United States, including the documentation of archival records from African-American churches in the Atlanta area, and the preservation of social media from recent civil rights protests such as those of the Ferguson unrest in Ferguson, Missouri after the shooting of Michael Brown.
This is a timeline of women in library science throughout the world.
Nancy E. Gwinn was 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. Gwinn died on April 29, 2024, at the age of 78.
Helen Wong Smith is an American archivist and librarian. She is the archivist and librarian for University Records at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She works in the University Archives and Manuscripts Collection of the Public Services Division. She is formerly an Archivist and Librarian for the State Historic Preservation Division as well as the Executive Director of the Kauaʻi Historical Society. Smith is an active member of the Society of American Archivists, becoming President in 2023, and having served in many leadership roles including on the Council, the Committee on Education, and the Nominating Committee from 2012-2014. Smith was named an SAA Fellow on June 10, 2016.
Diana Lachatanere is an American archivist. She retired from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library in 2013, where she held the position of assistant director for Collections and Services from 1995 to 2013, and Curator of the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division from 1988 to 2013. She was also the Manager of the Scholars-in-Residence Program, 1990–2013.
Bertha Pleasant Williams (1923–2008) was the first African American professional librarian in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. In 1948 the segregated city required a certified librarian as a prerequisite to open a library for the city's African American residents. Williams, who had recently graduated from Atlanta University, took the position, established the Union Street Library, and worked in libraries for most of her life.
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.
Constance Porter Uzelac (1939–2012), also known as Coni Porter Uzelac, was a medical librarian and archivist in the United States. She was the Executive Director of the Dorothy Porter Wesley Research Center. She is the daughter of Dorothy Porter Wesley and James Amos Porter, and assisted Wesley with writing many books. She also worked on cataloging all of her mother's works that were housed at the African American Library and Research Center. The catalog for her father was a part of the James A. Porter: From Me To You exhibition that was shown at various galleries across the United States.
Sarah M. Pritchard is an American academic librarian known for her contributions to research library governance, women's studies and the future of digital libraries.
