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At the time of her death, it seemed that Adelaide Hasse would simply pass from memory and be forgotten. However, by the turn of the century, American Libraries would sanctify her as one of its hundred library leaders of the twentieth century, one of only thirty women given this honor. Thus, the unsinkable Adelaide Hasse has risen to the status of a giant of the profession and has been established as a sort of patron saint of documents librarians. The Government Printing Office even named a room in her honor in 1985.
Though much of her career has remained obscure, Hasse did leave records that could provide a more balanced understanding of her life and work. Besides the extensive print record in periodicals and The Compensations of Librarianship, there were the long submerged archival records awaiting discovery in the New York Public Library Archives, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the files of the FBI, as well as in the papers of various contemporaries.
Hasse spoke and wrote about issues that are as relevant today as they were a century ago. How should librarians be recruited and educated? What is the nature of their professional expertise? How do libraries function as organizations? What services do they provide? How do they provide access to government information? What are the dynamics of a feminized profession? Hasse tried to stir such discussion, but her ideas were often submerged in allegations that she was a difficult, disloyal woman. This biography brings to light Hasse's achievements, setting aside enigmas of personality, and examines the impact of her work, her values, and her experience in a gendered system.
Published | Aug 31 2006 |
---|---|
Format | Paperback |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 362 |
ISBN | 9780810851061 |
Imprint | Scarecrow Press |
Dimensions | 9 x 6 inches |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
...highly satisfying....thoughtful analysis of a spirited and talented woman. Definitely worth a read.
Information & Culture
[Adelaide Hasse] is now vibrantly alive to me and anyone else who reads Clare Beck's outstanding biographical study....Beck artfully interweaves primary source material...with secondary interpretations...using her considerable talent for historical synthesis and good old-fashioned storytelling....I urge everyone to read this book.
(GODORT Newsletter), Documents To The People
...a comprehensive and gripping biography....Beck is to be praised for this impressive and long overdue biography of Adelaide Hasse.
College & Research Libraries
Hasse toiled rather quietly, given that she was fairly obvious in what had been a male enterprise, a collector, controller and disseminator of information. She spent 21 years at New York Public Library, until her conscience made her controversial, with significant sojourns before at the Los Angeles Public Library, the Government Printing Office, the Astor Library, and after at war agencies and the Brookings Institution. In those years she learned to speak her mind, and sometimes what she said was directed at professionals and library users as well: what shall we read? What shall we keep openly and what shall we hide away? What role does documentation play in a democracy? Beck (government documents library emerita, Eastern Michigan U.) frames her biography in the larger issues Hasse handled in her long and distinguished career and focuses on how her work affects librarianship and library policies now.
Reference and Research Book News
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