Early in the 20th century, the Carnegie Corporation of New York began offering grants to change the direction of library education and scholarship. The result was the 1926 endowment of a research-oriented program at the University of Chicago offering only the Ph.D. degree,[7] With an emphasis on investigation fostered among students, studies conducted and conferences held at GLS provided a center for intellectual inquiry in the development of 20th century librarianship. The Library Quarterly, a scholarly journal focused on research, was launched in 1931 to provide an outlet for the publication of rigorous research.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Graduate Library School in 1951 Louis Round Wilson assessed its impact noting that it broadened the concept of librarianship, developed it as a field for scientific study, introduced critical objectivity, contributed to the philosophy of librarianship by scholarly publishing and furnished leaders to the field.[8] Writing of the impact of the Graduate Library School in 2020, Nathan Johnson has observed that its faculty were more closely aligned with the social sciences and they "turned a research gaze on the spaces codified and distributed during the earlier eras of American librarianship."[9]
Structure and focus
The Graduate Library School (GLS) at the University of Chicago changed the structure and focus of education for librarianship in the twentieth century. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation [10] the GLS set forth policies to establish an institution to educate students imbued with the spirit of investigation. Prior to establishment of the GLS education for librarians had been an apprenticeship model.[11] Douglas Waples wrote of the policies that would differentiate "The Graduate Library School at Chicago" from schools in the apprenticeship mode.
John V. Richardson Jr.[12] has written of the establishment and the first 30 years of the GLS in The Spirit of Inquiry: The Graduate Library School at Chicago, 1921–51.
Joyce M. Latham has written of the role of GLS faculty in the development of the Chicago Public Library (CPL) noting "In their final report on the status of CPL, A Metropolitan Library in Action, Carleton B. Joeckel and Leon Carnovsky devoted significant attention to the role
of the public library in adult education."[13]
A list of the Dissertations, Theses, and Papers demonstrates the range of early inquiry.[14]
The faculty of the GLS had a profound effect on the development of public library structure and governance following World War II.[15] Joeckel developed the National Plan for Public Library Service in 1948.[16][17] GLS faculty were also innovators in the use of computers for library functions. In 1982 Don Swanson described the Microsystem for Interactive Bibliographic Searching (MIRABILIS) for the general library community in Library Journal[18]
The faculty of the Graduate Library School established the journal, The Library Quarterly in 1931. The work of the GLS faculty to establish a scholarly journal focused on research has been carefully detailed by Steve Norman.[23]
Association of American Library Schools. New Frontiers in Librarianship; Proceedings of the Special Meeting of the Association of American Library Schools and the Board of Education for Librarianship of the American Library Association in Honor of the University of Chicago and the Graduate Library School, December 30, 1940. [Chicago]: The Graduate library school, the University of Chicago, 1941.
Stieg, Margaret F. (1991). "The Closing of Library Schools: Darwinism at the University". The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy. 61 (3): 266–272. doi:10.1086/602365. S2CID144038790.
Varlejs, Jana (2023). "Lowell Martin: The Shaping of a Public Library Leader". Libraries: Culture, History and Society. 7 (1): 46–65. doi:10.5325/libraries.7.1.0046. S2CID257263606.
Wilson, Louis R. (1966). "Impact of the Graduate Library School on American Librarianship". In Tauber, Maurice F.; Orne, Jerald (eds.). Education and Libraries: Selected Papers by Louis R. Wilson. Hamden, CT: Shoe String Press. pp.268–277.
Keppel, F. P. (1931). "The Carnegie Corporation and the Graduate Library School: A Historical Outline". The Library Quarterly. 1 (1): 22–25. doi:10.1086/612840. JSTOR40039626. S2CID145174607.
Latham, J. M. (2011). "Memorial Day to Memorial Library: The South Chicago Branch Library as cultural terrain, 1937–1947". Libraries & the Cultural Record. 46 (3): 321–342. doi:10.1353/lac.2011.0017. S2CID161896003.
"Congestion at Card and Book Catalogs: A Queuing-Theory Approach". The Library Quarterly. 42 (3): 316–328. July 1972. doi:10.1086/620046. S2CID55291249.
Shera, Jesse H. (Winter 1979). "'The Spirit Giveth Life': Louis Round Wilson and Chicago's Graduate Library School". The Journal of Library History. 14 (1): 77–83.
Steve Norman (1988). "The Library Quarterly in the 1930s: a journal of discussion's early years". The Library Quarterly. 58 (4): 327–351. doi:10.1086/602047. JSTOR4308292. S2CID147248390.