LHRT News & Notes is honored to host this project completed by Dr. Joseph Winberry and his library history students at the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Sciences. As part of his INLS 551-01: History of Libraries and Other Information-Related Cultural Institutions course, Dr. Winberry organized an assignment that gave students the opportunity to compose Wikipedia pages about outstanding librarians. This project provides a clear example of engaged scholarship and service learning in a library history course–creating a high impact learning experience for students while at the same time serving the global community by producing well-documented, open access essays about the history of librarianship. Thank you to Dr. Winberry and his students for an excellent set of profiles!
Dr. Winberry discusses the assignment below and provides a thematic menu with links to the students’ essays. I hope his students’ work will inspire other library science faculty and students to undertake similar projects that LHRT News & Notes can support and host.
–Brett Spencer, Editor, LHRT News & Notes
Showcasing Student Wikipedia Pages on the Librarians Who Made Library History
Information scientist Kathryn La Barre once wrote “If we don’t have a history, we lack an identity.” I took this notion to heart when designing the most recent iteration of my class, INLS 551: History of Libraries and Other Information-Related Cultural Institutions, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. To help students understand the librarian identity, I designed a project that would allow them to learn from the experts: the remarkable librarians essential to the success of our field who nevertheless haven’t always gotten their due in the broader space of public history. Promoting the contributions of extraordinary librarians was accomplished through students researching and creating Wikipedia pages on notable librarians of their choice.
Assignment Details
But what is public history and how does Wikipedia facilitate it? Public history (also referred to as applied history) has been described by the National Council on Public History as “the many and diverse ways in which history is put to work in the world.” I found it important for my students—many of whom are seeking careers as librarians or archivists—to consider the relevance of those who came before them to the professions they seek to join, the patrons they wish to serve, and the world they wish to make better. But what does that have to do with Wikipedia? With more than 111 billion views to just the English Wikipedia collection alone in 2025, it is arguably the busiest library/archive/museum in the world; library history needs to be part of that conversation so that people may understand further the purpose, value, and accomplishments of libraries and librarians in our society which may challenge outdated stereotypes and promote further pride in community libraries.
Towards that end, I gave students several venues for identifying a librarian they would like to research and write about such as existing Wikipedia lists of award-winning librarians who nevertheless still lacked their own page. Others found their subjects through independent searching. They worked on their pages throughout the first half of the semester supported by training in the library on how to conduct historical research and the knowledge I learned from the hard work and generosity of library scholars who had discovered first the value of Wikipedia for sharing library history.
Wikipedia Challenges
But this project also taught us that Wikipedia is not without its flaws when it comes to its possibilities for increasing the public connection to library history. Librarians are, by the nature of their positions, supporters who often focus on what they are doing to help others versus on promoting their role in that help. Consequentially, the accomplishments of librarians may not always rise to the level of notability that is Wikipedia’s threshold for inclusion nor are there often many secondary sources which independently confirm the accomplishments of such librarians and thus meet the so-called reliable sources requirement. While important for protecting Wikipedia’s ease of access and credibility that have made it such a widely used source, these and other rules nevertheless create obstacles for enshrining library history. To that end, in cases where a Wikipedia page could not currently be published due to these rules, students often left draft narratives and sources in the Wikipedia page sandboxes that others can build on someday.
Thanks
For the success of the project as both a process and product, we are especially indebted to 1) Sarah Carrier, a research and instructional librarian at my home institution, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who taught my students how to fish in physical and digital holdings for library history tidbits, 2) Dr. Kathleen de la Peña McCook whose previous work and ongoing mentoring to me made this project possible for a novice Wikipedian like myself, and 3) Brett Spencer, a librarian himself at Penn State University and curator of the American Library Association’s Library History Round Table News and Notes blog on which this post lives alongside a treasure trove of other historical records. Thank you for your essential contributions to the success of this project and class!
I further extend my gratitude to the students of INLS 551 who hopefully learned a thing or two from me on library history because they certainly gave me an education in creative thinking, determination, and passion for the library history or identity that likely all of us who read this post share. Below you can find links to additional blog posts that group student Wikipedia pages by theme and give more insights into Wikipedia pages or sandboxes that can be built upon in the future; I share the name of the students responsible for each of the published Wikipedia pages (or their unpublished research) if they gave me permission to do so. Lastly, I want to thank the subjects of the student Wikipedia pages, most of whom are with the ancestors now. Whether the data students found on their contributions met the requirements of Wikipedia (such as Virgina Young Lee who saved and clandestinely shared Black literature when banned from doing so in 1960s Virginia) or not (such as Elizabeth Kapp Tyson who as director of the Transylvania County, NC Public Library across 5 decades helped maximize its community service), each of them has contributed to what librarianship is today and for that we will always be grateful. Sincerely, Joseph Winberry, Ph.D.
Wikipedia Pages by Themes
Without further ado, please enjoy these posts on the librarians who shaped our history.
- Theme #1: The Academics & Internationalists
- Theme #2: The Trailblazers
- Theme #3: The Analyzers
- Theme #4: The North Carolinians
- Theme #5: The Volunteers
Theme #1: The Academics & Internationalists
Subjects in this theme worked in academic settings and/or had ties to countries other than the United States that seemed to shape their professional contributions.
John J. Grabowski (born January 15, 1949) is a professor emeritus at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) where he served as the Krieger-Mueller Associate Professor of Applied History from 1999 until his retirement in 2025. Since 2012, he has been the Krieger-Mueller Historian and Senior Vice President for Research and Publications at the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS), and he still performs contract research. He has been the chief editor for the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History since 2003. [Research conducted by Vivian Lewis]
Sarah K. Vann (May 15, 1916-May 25, 2012) was a practicing librarian and later professor in the Library and Information Science Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa[1] and an international scholar. She conducted field studies of the Dewey Decimal System internationally[2], assisted in the establishment of several library schools around the world[2], and served on several American Library Association committees[3]. In 2004, the University of Hawaii at Manoa named an award for Vann that recognizes positive impacts on the Library Information Science profession in Hawaii called the Sarah K. Vann Professional Service Award.
Berta del Carmen Mexidor Vazquez is a Cuban former economics professor, and co-founder of the Independent Library Movement in Cuba. Mexidor is from the Las Tunas province of Cuba.
Alexis Babine (March 22, 1866-May 10, 1930) was a librarian and historian who was born in the Russian Empire. In Russia, he is most well known for authoring The History of the North American United States (Russian: История Северо-Американских Соединенных Штатов), the first major work written by a Russian author about the history of the United States. In the United States and abroad, Babine is more well known for managing the acquisition of the Yudin Collection, a set of eighty-thousand rare Russian and Slavic books, for the Library of Congress. [Research conducted by Sid Tiller]
Wolfgang Freitag (October 27, 1924-November 14, 2012) was a German-American librarian known for his notable contributions to the field of art librarianship in North America and for his leadership in ARLIS/NA. He served as the director of the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University from 1962 to 1989.
Theme #2: The Trailblazers
These subjects were in some way the first or early leader in their category.
Alice Mabel Jordan (November 7, 1870-March 9, 1960) was an American librarian who helped define children’s librarianship in the United States. She led children’s work at the Boston Public Library from 1902 to 1940. She trained librarians at Simmons College, organized the New England Round Table of Children’s Librarians beginning in 1906, and helped launch the Boston Public Library Training School after 1922. [Research conducted by Penelope Bacher]
Virginia Young Lee (November 22, 1906-January 11, 1992) was a librarian at the Gainsboro Branch Library in Roanoke, Virginia. Lee earned recognition for her advocacy for Black literature during the Harlem Renaissance and for mentorship of young librarians in Virginia. [Research conducted by Priya Dames]
Marian Frost (September 22, 1876-December 27, 1935) was an English librarian. She was instrumental in the expansion of the Worthing Libraryand was the first female chief librarian in the UK, with an all-female staff. [Research conducted by Emily Schenck]
Kate Rotan (1851-1931) was an American civic activist from Waco, Texas. She was the organizer and first president of the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs, earning her the sobriquet “The Mother of the Texas Federation.” Rotan was an early supporter of the library movement in Texas, which included helping to establish the first traveling library in the state in 1901, and an advocate for new legislation to develop Texas public libraries. [Research conducted by Katie Parker]
Anges E. Law (March 3, 1892-January 14, 1986) was an employee of CBS from 1927-1956, primarily serving as the Chief Librarian. She is the basis for the character Bunny Watson in the play The Desk Set, and the film of the same name. [Research conducted by Lucy Marous]
Theme #3: The Analyzers
These subjects doubled down on data to make an impact.
Lucia J. Rather (born September 12, 1934) was a prominent librarian in the library science field, having worked in several prominent positions, including as the Director of Cataloging at the Library of Congress from 1976-1991.In 1991, she was awarded the ALA Medal of Excellence for her work cataloging in the Library of Congress. Additionally, she did a lot of work with the International Federation of Libraries Associations, and frequently published scholarly articles on important topics in the library science field, namely cataloging.
Robert A Wolven (born May 11, 1949) is the associate university librarian for bibliographic services and collection development at Columbia University. He is also a member of the HathiTrust board of governors and is co-chair of the ALA Working Group on Digital Content and Libraries.
Herbert Goldhor (February 8, 1917-March 29, 2011) was a professor and director at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign recognized especially for his leadership at the Library Research Center which produced a survey between 1974 and 1988 which tracked national trends in public library circulation and expenditures. [Research conducted by Jessica Nifong]
Ethel Farquhar McCollough (July 11, 1876-October 10, 1950) was Chief Librarian of the Evansville Public Library from 1912 to 1947. She served as President of the Wisconsin Library Association from 1911 to 1912 and President of the Indiana Library Association from 1913 to 1914. She was instrumental as part of the American Library Association War Service which provided libraries to soldiers during World War I. [Research conducted by Will Nowland]
Beth Mueller (1934-2021) was a librarian in the greater Chicago area who consulted with various suburban municipalities to build their public libraries in the 20th century. Her work helped earn her the title of Illinois Librarian of the year in 1993. [Research conducted by Roman Myers]
Theme #4: The North Carolinians
North Carolina is often recognized for its contributions to the history of American democracy and to global aviation…turns out, it has contributed considerably to library history as well.
Lillian Griggs (January 8, 1876-April 11, 1955) served in various important roles in her career such as the first trained librarian to serve North Carolina as Durham’s public library director from 1911 1o 1923. She would go on to serve as a trainer of other librarians serving the military during World War I, director of the North Carolina Library Commission from 1923-1930, and two, inconsecutive terms as president of the North Carolina Library Association, among other roles. [Research conducted by Max Story]
David McKay (August 31, 1929-November 18, 2010) was the North Carolina State Librarian from 1976 to 1985. He was advocate for library funding, and during his leadership took steps to develop library cooperation by developing statewide and regional library networks. He received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine which is given to those who provide extraordinary service to the state.
Annie Smith Ross (March 4, 1866-April 20, 1924) was the first professionally trained librarian and library director at the public library in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. In addition to her work in the local community, Ross led the creation of the North Carolina Library Association, a statewide organization of librarians that is active to this day, and served as the organization’s first president from 1904 until 1908.
Elizabeth Kapp Tyson (May 26, 1912-March 18th, 2008) was the head librarian of the Transylvania County Library in Brevard, North Carolina from 1944 to 1982. Under her leadership, the library holdings expanded nearly six fold from 3,000 books to over 19,000 and growing by 1974. She donated $5,000 upon stepping down as head librarian to seed a staff development fund which remains in operation as of 2025. She was awarded the annual woman who makes a difference award in 2007 by the Brevard Chapter of the American Association of University Women for career contributions. [Research conducted by Emma Tynch]
Selena Warren Wheeler (December 28, 1911-July 18, 2014) was the first professional African American librarian in Durham County, and just the second librarian of the Stanford L. Warren Library. During her tenure, the library grew as a major community hub. The special collections she helped develop at the Stanford L. Warren Library is now named in her honor. After librarianship, she worked at her son’s aviation businesses and mentored the first four African American female pilots to fly for major airlines.
Theme #5: The Volunteers
Subjects in this category share a willingness to step into the breach when leadership has been needed in various areas of librarianship and for differing populations.
Louisa F. Goodwin (July 21, 1832 or 1833-Otober 11, 1911) was the first woman to serve as a state librarian when she was the State Librarian of Minnesota from 1865 to 1867. Despite her role as the first female state librarian, there is little literature about Goodwin. Even her initial appointment in 1865 went without notice, with only one newspaper article reporting on her achievement. The Minnesota State Law Library[6] is currently the only repository with notable information about her life. [Research conducted by Carly Jensen]
Tony Stankus (born March 9, 1951) is a celebrated science librarian who spent over 15 years at the University of Arkansas. Stankus was the most published Science Librarian in the world from 2011-2015, cited more than 350 times in professional/academic literature. Stankus joined the Special Libraries Association (SLA) in 1975 and served in multiple leadership positions within the organization, received the Rose L. Vormelker award and was inducted in the Hall of Fame for the SLA.
Mary Lee Bundy (May 2, 1927-August 2, 1987) was a librarian and professor in the College of Library and Information Services at the University of Maryland, College Park, who specialized in library services to the financially and culturally deprived, prison inmates, the elderly, and other minority groups. Among her many projects was the Urban Information Specialists Program (USIP) at the University of Maryland in 1970. The USIP trained what they called “information interpreters.” These librarians were not neutral information providers; instead, they focused on helping community members navigate institutional challenges and systemic barriers. The program prioritized recruiting African American students and encouraged fieldwork that was politically motivated. The USIP emphasized the importance of information access in empowering marginalized communities.
Mary Alice Tsosie (Born early 1950s) is a Navajo librarian, educator, and architect of the Indigenous Nations Library Program at the University of New Mexico where she served for over 20 years before retiring in 2016. Among her many activities was the creation of the Native American Oral History Program at the Center for Southwest Research. In this role, she recorded oral histories with approximately 45 Indigenous leaders or people who worked closely with Indigenous communities in order to develop a comprehensive, historical perspective about the relationship between Native Americans and the University of Next Mexico, from the 1940s onward. [Research conducted by Haley Wilkerson]