Renate L. Chancellor

This work provides a comprehensive examination of the life and professional career of E.J Josey within the broader historical and political landscape of the civil rights movement. In the era of Jim Crow, Josey rose to prominence in the library profession by challenging the American Library Association (ALA) to live up to its creed of equality for all. This was not easy during the 1950s and 1960s, during segregation. Using interviews with Josey and his contemporaries, as well as several archival sources, library educator Renate Chancellor analyzes Josey’s leadership, particularly within modern day racial currents. During his professional career, spanning over fifty years (1952-2002), Josey worked as a librarian (1953-1966), an administrator of library services (1966-1986), and as a professor of library science (1986-1995). He also served as President of the American Library Association and perhaps his most notable achievement, he successfully drafted a resolution that prevented state library associations from discriminating against African American librarians. This essentially ended segregation in the ALA. Josey’s transformative leadership provides a model to tackle today’s civil rights challenges both in and outside the library profession.This authoritative work copublished by the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) documents for the historical record a significant period of history that is underexplored in the scholarly literature. The target audience for this book are researchers, historians, LIS educators and students interested in understanding the complex struggle for civil and human rights in professional organizations.

Within the broader social and political landscape of civil rights, this book examines the life and career of librarian, educator and activist E.J Josey. During Josey’s professional life, which spanned fifty-five years, he worked as a librarian (1953-1966), an administrator of library services (1966-1986), and as a professor of library science (1986-1995). He also served as President of the American Library Association and is attributed for successfully drafting a resolution preventing state library associations from discriminating against librarians of color. This act is considered by many to have desegregated the American Library Association. Using interviews with Josey and his contemporaries, as well as documentary evidence, this book will discuss Josey’s leadership, particularly within modern day social currents. One question the book will seek to answer is: In what ways did Josey transform the Library and Information Science profession? The publication will provide much interest and value to undergraduate and graduate Library and Information Science (LIS) students. It documents for the historical record a significant period of history that is underexplored in the scholarly literature. The target audience for this book are researchers, historians, LIS educators and students interested in understanding the complex struggle for civil and human rights in professional organizations.

Discover the story of the first woman to direct a major public library system in the United States and the first African American president of the American Library Association. Jones’s appointment to Director of the Detroit Public Library in 1970 resulted in a public backlash against her hiring. Two members of the library board resigned in protest and library commissioners refused to honor the supplemental salary that was to be paid to the incoming director. Despite it all, Jones rose to the top of her profession, focusing on community outreach with her signature achievement, The Information Place (TIP), a service designed to provide guidance to users seeking legal, social, and government information. Jones advocated for the American Library Association’s Resolution on Racism and Sexism Awareness. She was appointed by Jimmy Carter to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science following her retirement from the Detroit Public Library. She was a member of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, the Public Library Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Council of Negro Women, and many more.

This book tells the story of Clara Stanton Jones, the first woman to direct a major public library system in the United States and the first African American president of the ALA. After being appointed as Director of the Detroit Public Library in 1944, Jones transformed libraries everywhere. She focused on community and worked to desegregate libraries, library services, and overall library culture by encouraging the American Library Association to pass the Resolution on Racism and Sexism Awareness. In addition to being the first Black to be president of the ALA, Jones was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. She was a member of the Public Library Association, American Civil Liberties Union, National Council of Negro Women, and more.

What does it mean for a library to be without borders? This remarkable collection of essays, drawn from the Library History Seminar sponsored by the Library History Round Table (LHRT), explores the roles that libraries have played in the communities they serve, well beyond the stacks and circulation desk. The research contained in these pages shows how librarians and users can not only reach beyond the border separating professionals from patrons, but also across institutional boundaries separating different specializations within the profession, and outside traditional channels of knowledge acquisition and organization. Delving into a variety of goals, approaches, and practices, all with the intention of fostering community and providing information, this collection's fascinating topics include a critique of library history as it is currently conducted, pointing out the borders of habit, familiarity, and bias that thwart diversity within library and information studies; stories of the community-based activism that has been key to battling the “epistemicide” that can undermine collective understandings about the world and the interests of African American library users; profiles of current Indigenous library practitioners who are both documenting and creating library history; a grassroots movement to create a comprehensive collection related to the theology and practice of the Society of Mary at the time of great ecclesiastical and liturgical changes; histories of the innovations which led to the Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services and the Instruction Section of ACRL; using the “due date” as a lens for understanding how patrons and the general public feel about the role of libraries and their rules in the lives of average Americans; how the federal Foreign Agents Registration Act influenced the work of research libraries that collected materials from the Communist Bloc; and a primer on conducting research in library history that will allow readers to explore how libraries in their own communities have affected the lives of their users.