Sarah N. Bogle: Librarian at Large

Biographical study of Sarah Comly Norris Bogle (1870-1932), a library educator active from 1904, when she graduated from the Drexel Institute Library School, until her death in 1932. Bogle was an academic librarian (Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania); a public librarian (Queens Borough, New York and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania); a library school director (Training School for Children's Librarians, later the Carnegie Library School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania); and an association executive (American Library Association, Chicago, Illinois). The study explores her role in the development of library work through her involvement in library education. Coverage includes the training of children's librarians, the opportunities for blacks to receive a library school education (Hampton Library School) and the location of the Graduate Library School at the University of Chicago. In addition, the American Library Association/Graduate Library School textbook series, the work of the Temporary Library Training Board and the Board of Education for Librarianship (BEL), and the importation of American theory and methods into European, especially French, library school education through the Paris Library School (1923-1929) are explored. Also included is biographical material on Bogle's life before she became a librarian and a sketch of her personal life while a librarian and library educator. Bogle is shown to have been influential in the professionalization of librarianship through her work with the American Library Association, the Board of Education for Librarianship, the Association of American Library Schools and various schools and training programs for library education. Her work as a library educator and as a member of the organizations which reviewed library education placed her in an unusually prominent position, which she used to shape the goals, objectives and requirements of library education for decades to follow.