Librarian history

Jacob Grimm: Grimms’ Fairy Tales was first published in 1812, but the stories, including “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella,” and “Snow White,” are still classic children’s stories constantly reinvented as plays, Disney movies and more.

In 1814, the British burned Washington, destroying the Capitol and the small congressional library in its north wing.

Melvil Dewey: Founder of the Dewey Decimal System, Melvil Dewey was born in New York in 1851.

Dodgson first told the story of Alice Adventures in Wonderland to the three daughters of the Dean of Christ Church, in 1862.

Dewey has been named the “Father of Modern Librarianship” and even helped created the American Library Association in 1876.

The impressive new structure in Italian Renaissance style, the largest library in the world when it opened in 1897, was a monument to American achievement and ambition.

Moreover, in 1903 Roosevelt issued an executive order that transferred the records of the Continental Congress and the personal papers of six of the founding fathers to the Library to be “preserved and made more accessible."

In 1914, Putnam established the Legislative Reference Service (LRS) as a separate Library department.

Beginning in 1923, the Fifty Books of the Year competition was a yearly mainstay of AIGA. Even in an era of digital books and Insta stories, AIGA understands the timeless, magnetic power of design to engage readers and encourage them to turn the page.

He began publishing poems in 1940 and was even offered the Poet Laureateship of England after the death of Sir John Betjeman, but he declined.

In collaboration with Congress and the Office of the Architect of the Capitol, in 1958 the Library initiated planning for a third major building on Capitol Hill.

In 1980, he presided over the opening of the James Madison Memorial Building.

She started the trend of city-wide book clubs when she organized the “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book,” program in 1998.

Stanley Kunitz: Stanley Kunitz is a celebrated American poet who was named the United States Poet Laureate in 2000.

Since the award was established in 2008, 140 librarians have received this distinguished honor.

In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated librarian Carla Hayden, chief executive officer of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, to be the 14th Librarian of Congress.