Eliza Atkins Gleason ( 1909 - 1993), American librarian and educator, was first Dean of the School of Library Service, Atlanta University, and the architect of a library education program that trained more than 90 percent of all black librarians in the United States.
She was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, December 15, 1999, to Simon Green and Oleona Pegram Atkins. Her father was the founder and first President of Slater State College, now Winston-Salem State University, and her mother was a teacher.
After graduating from Fisk University in 1930 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Elza Atkins received the Bachelor of Science degree from the Library School of the University of Illinois in 1931. In 1936 she received the Master of Arts in Library Science from the University of Carlifornia at Berkeley. She studied at the University of Chicago Graduate Library School and in 1940 became the first black person to receive the Ph.D. in Library Science. She was married to Maurice F. Gleason, a physician, in 1937.
The Dean of the School of Library Service, Atlanta University (1940-46), which opened in 1941, Gleason was aware that the success of the program, even in a period of segregation and rampant discrimination against black persons, depended on a philosophy that was responsive to current human needs but at the same time capable of being remodeled and reshaped when necessary. She wrote, "these objectives are enunciated with the full recognition that no institution can long remain an active force unless it is sensitive to contemporary life, which implies a willingness to accept change. A program of this kind, therefore, predisposes that the objectives of the School of Library Service of Atlanta University are not static but that they may be altered according to the best judgment of the school in what seems to be the present and long-term needs of library service with special reference to the Negro" (Libray Quartely, July 1942).
Gleason´s professional career was distinguished, wide, varied, and productive. In 1931 and 1932 she was Librarian of the Louisville Municipal College. In 1932 she accepted the position of Head of the Reference Department and Assistant Professor at Fisk and served there until 1936. In 1936-37 she ws Director of Libraries at Talladega College, where she became aware of the lack of public library service to black people in the South and began to open the college library resources to black citizens in the surrounding communities. Her interest in access to public libraries for black Americans is reflected in her landmark dissertation, The Southern Negro and the Public Library (1941).
In 1953 Gleason beconme Head of the Reference Department of the Wilson Junior College Library in chicago. In 1953-54 she was Associate Professor of Library Science, Illinois Teachers College, Chicago, from 1954 to 1963. From 1964 to 1967 she was Assistant Librarian at John Crear Library in Chicago. She was Professor of Library Science, Illinois Institute of Technology, from 1967 to 1970. In 1970 she became Assistant Chief Librarian in charge of the regional centers, Chicago Public Library.
Writing in Illinois Libraries (April 1972) about the establishment of the Chicago Public Library´s regional library centers, Gleason manifests her continuing interests in students and education:
In planning for Regional Center service, what potential users did the Chicago Public Library have in ming ? It had in mind "students" - students of all kinds. Can one imagine a greater boon for the high school teen-agers who are in honors or accelerated courses, or for junior college students whose programs are terminal, or for junior and senior college students whose own college libraries may be inadequate or on the wrong side of town when they have time to study ? And finally, there is that vast hoard of "students" who are not entolled in formal courses but who wish to pursue a subject in depth.
In the 1974-75 academic year she again returned to the library education and served as Professor of Library Science at Northern Illinois University.
Active in professional associations, Gleason was the first Afro- American to serve on the ALA Council; she was a member from 1942 to 1946. In 1964 Fisk bestowed upon her its Alumni Award for outstanding accomplishments.
In addition to her book on The Southern Negro and the Public Library: A Studey of the Government and Administration of Public Library Service to Negroes in the South (1941), she wrote A History of the Fisk Universtity Library (1936) and a large number of journal articles.
A woman of great energy and resourcefulness, Gleason led and active community life. She was elected and apponinted to manu positions of ledership. In 1978, for example, she was appointed to the Chicago Public Library Board. While most people are in or considering retirement as they begin their 70th year, she demonstrated her vitaly by beginning - in the fall of 1978 she was appointed Executive Director of the Chicago Black United Fund.
Her death in 1993
Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award is presented by the Library History Round Table of the American Library Association every third year to recognize the best book written in English in the field of library history, including the history of libraries, librarianship, and book culture.
fonte : World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services, 1993
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