John Cotton Dana (
1856-
1929), US
librarian
“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”
Dana was born into a large family in
Woodstock, VT. He attended
Dartmouth College, but faltering health forced him to move westward to recover. He joined a friend in
Colorado and both worked as
surveyors for the
railroad. His health improved and he returned west to study
law, but after passing the
bar in
New York, he came back to Colorado to practice law in
Denver.
His involvement with libraries began with a campaign against the “hands off” book policy of the
Denver Public Library and other libraries. When the position of library director for that institution became vacant, he was offered the job and he served there nine years. Among his innovations were
open stacks and a separate section for children’s materials.
Dana returned east to spend four years at the
Springfield Library in
Springfield, MA. Then, in
1902, he arrived at the
Newark Public Library in
Newark, NJ, where he would work for the remainder of his life. There, he acquired a significant collection of foreign language materials to cater to the city’s large
immigrant population. He also catered to Newark’s businessmen by opening a branch library dedicated to business materials in the heart of the business district, the first such
special library in the country. He was also very active in working with local schools, such as
Rutgers, and began the collection which became the foundation for the
Newark Museum. For his contributions to civic life, he became known as “Newark’s First Citizen”.
Primary source: http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rulib/abtlib/danlib/danabio.htm