Tag: librarians

Library Hall of Fame

October is Canadian Library Month and International School Library Month. As we celebrate CLM and ISLM each year, we highlight notable librarians who have made significant contributions to libraries and librarianship. We also celebrate librarians who have raised the profile of libraries and librarianship with their fame in other fields. Here are the 2025 inductees into our Library Hall of Fame:

Shiela Egoff

(source)

Sheila Egoff (1918-2005) was one of Canada’s most outstanding librarians. Egoff worked in both public and academic libraries. Egoff was also a writer, a historian, a professor, a literary critic. Among her many accomplishments, Sheila Egoff was Canada’s first tenured Professor of Children’s Literature (at the University of British Columbia.) Egoff was named to the Order of Canada. The Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize for excellence in children’s and young adult literature, has been awarded in her name since 1987.

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Audre Lorde

(source)

Audre Lorde (1934-1992) spent many of her early years as a teacher librarian in New York Public Schools, before garnering greater fame, and many honours, as a poet, academic, novelist, activist, philosopher, feminist, and more. Much of her work spoke to fight for the freedom and equality of the oppressed and marginalized, including the intersections of race, gender and sexual orientation.

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S.R. Ranganathan

(source)

S.R. Ranganathan (1892-1972) is known as the “Father of Library Science”in India. Best known for “The Five Laws of Library Science,” Ranganathan also developed the Colon Classification system. His work not only revolutionized the practices of libraries and librarians in India, but grew in influence throughout the world.

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Previous Library Hall of Fame Inductees:

Brian Deer
Ed Greenwood
Zoia Horn
Gene Joseph
Nancy Pearl
Ken Roberts
Leslie Weir
Jessamyn West
Zenodotus


School Library Day AND Drop Everything and Read

Today is Canada School Library Day, BC School Library Day, and the day of the annual DEAR Challenge: Drop Everything and Read.

Library Books about Libraries

Library books about libraries and books. And librarians, literacy, information, reading, intellectual freedom, learning commons, and all topics to consider for Canadian Library Month and International School Library Month.

Canadian Library Workers Day

Happy Canadian Library Workers Day to the wonderful Volunteers and Library Science students. October is Canadian Library Month and on the third Friday each year we celebrate the vital role played by workers in all of libraries across the country, including school libraries, public libraries, and more.

October 17 is Canadian Library Workers Day
October 27 is Canadian School Library Day
October 27 is DEAR: The Drop Everything and Read Challenge
October is Canadian Library Month
October is International School Library Month

Library Hall of Fame

October is Canadian Library Month and International School Library Month. As we celebrate CLM and ISLM each year, we highlight notable librarians who have made significant contributions to libraries and librarianship. We also celebrate librarians who have raised the profile of libraries and librarianship with their fame in other fields. Here are the 2024 inductees into our Library Hall of Fame:

Ed Greenwood

Ed Greenwood (source)

Ed Greenwood is a library clerk from rural Ontario. He is more famous for his prolific creativity in the world of role playing games and fantasy literature. He is the creator of the Forgotten Realms game world, which he first developed as a young child and integrated with Dungeons and Dragons. He would go on to develop intricate role playing game worlds, and write myriad novels, novellas, short stories and articles for fantasy and gaming magazines. He has won numerous awards and honours, including induction into the Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Leslie Weir

Leslie Weir (source)

Since 2019 Leslie Weir has served as Librarian and Archivist of Canada. She is the first woman to hold this post. Weir has served in many important roles in Canada’s academic libraries, including President of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, and University Librarian at the University of Ottawa. She has been honoured with numerous awards during a distinguished career.

Ken Roberts

Ken Roberts (source)

Ken Roberts is a Canadian librarian. He had distinguished career in many positions, including President of Canadian Library Association, and Chief Librarian in the Hamilton Public Library. He is also a well known as an award winning writer of books for children and young adults, including Past Tense, a Governor General’s Award nominee. Roberts has won numerous honours during his career. One supporter offered this high praise of Roberts, “What stands out for me with Ken is that, in spite of all his accomplishments, he is a librarian first and foremost, and a humble man.” (source)

Find out more:

Ed Greenwood

Leslie Weir

Ken Roberts

Previous Library Hall of Fame Inductees:

Brian Deer
Zoia Horn
Nancy Pearl
Gene Joseph
Jessamyn West
Zenodotus

Library Hall of Fame

October is Canadian Library Month and International School Library Month. Today we are highlighting a few noteworthy librarians for the “Library Hall of Fame.”

Zenodotus was the first Librarian of the Great Library of Alexandria

Gene Joseph


Gene Anne Joseph is the founding librarian of the Xwi7xwa Library, an Indigenous Library at the University of British Columbia. She was the first librarian of Indigenous descent in British Columbia. Gene Joseph is from Hagwilget, British Columbia and is a member of the Wet’suwet’en Nadleh’dena First Nations. (source)

Zenodotus

Zenodotus was the first Librarian of the Great Library of Alexandria


Zenodotus was the first Librarian of the Great Library of Alexandria. During his leadership of the Great Library, Zenodutus was credited with establishing the first classification systems and other organizational schemes for the library. (source)

Jessamyn West


Jessamyn West is a librarian whose work has had a profound impact in many different ways, including her activism and her pioneering work in library technology. She is the founder of librarian.net and the owner of Meta Filter. West sees her work as a contribution to social justice. In her own words, “my main interest area is the intersection of technology and civic engagement. I believe the digital divide is just one more symptom of an increasing distance between haves and have-nots…” (source)

Find out more:

Jessamyn.com
Librarian.net
X̱wi7x̱wa Library
Gene Joseph Scholarship
Zenodotus of Ephesus
Great Library of Alexandria

Previous Library Hall of Fame Inductees:
Brian Day
Zoia Horn
Nancy Pearl

October is Canadian Library Month
October is International School Library Month

International School Library Month

Come down to your School Library to check out our display for ISLM and for Canadian Library Month, including books and other materials on libraries, librarians, information science, literacy, and much more.

Canadian Library Workers Day

A big thank you goes out to all the workers in Canada’s libraries! We especially thank all those students, volunteers and staff here at LTSS who are the heartbeat of the School Library. Happy Canadian Library Workers Day!

Library Hall of Fame

October is Canadian Library Month and International School Library Month. Today we are highlighting a few noteworthy librarians who are the first inductees into our “Library Hall of Fame.”

Zoia Horn

source: Peter Brantley from El Cerrito, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Zoia Horn (1918-2014) was a librarian who went to jail rather than abandon her professional integrity and steadfast commitment to intellectual freedom. Horn was pressured by authorities to testify against anti-war activists charged with conspiracy during the Vietnam War. Horn refused, and was jailed for three weeks for contempt, the first time that has happened to a librarian in the United States. The California Library Association presents an annual Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award in honour of her legacy.

Brian Deer

source: The Eastern Door

Brian Deer (1945–2019), a Mohawk from the First Nations Territory of Kahnawake in Quebec, was one of the first Indigenous librarians in Canada. Deer developed an original library classification system that expresses Indigenous knowledge structures. The Brian Deer Classification System has been adapted for use in libraries across Canada, including the indigenous library at UBC,  the Xwi7xwa Library.

Nancy Pearl

source: Seattle City Council from Seattle, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Probably the most famous living librarian in the world. Nancy Pearl rose to fame in Seattle while working for the Seattle Public Library. Her fame grew rapidly with the success of her books. Today is she is well known around the continent, and even the world, for her presence on public radio, podcasts, public appearances and more. She has won numerous awards, including Library Journal‘s Librarian of the Year Award in 2011. Her crowning achievement, however, may be the phenomenal success of the Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figure.

Find Out More

Zoia Horn:

Brian Deer:

Nancy Pearl:

Check back here in upcoming posts for more additions to the “Library Hall of Fame.”