| Herbert Putnam |
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This phrase perfectly sums up Putnam's vision for the Library of Congress during his time as Librarian of Congress. President William McKinley appointed Putnam to the position of Librarian of Congress in 1899, replacing John Russel Young, who died in office. He was the first librarian with prior library experience to hold the position. The Library of Congress was originally designed to be the reference library for the legislature. However, Putnam strongly believed that the library should serve the American people. He introduced several programs designed to encourage widespread public use. Putnam implemented several new programs during his tenure. With the advice of Charles Ammi Cutter, he introduced a new system of classifying books in 1901, which continues today as the Library of Congress classification. All the classes except K (Law) and parts of B (Philosophy and Religion) were well-developed. He also established an interlibrary loan system which made the collections available to local institutions. Along a similar trend, he opened up use of the collections to scientific investigators and other qualified individuals. Through these new and centralized services, Putnam expanded the LOC's role and relationships with other libraries and helped it move toward being the nation's library. Holdings increased to six million volumes while he was in office. To accomodate the growing inventory, he secured congressional approval for construction of a massive annex. Putnam submitted his desire to retire to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938. Putnam was given the title of Librarian Emeritus on October 1, 1939, and his successor, poet Archibald MacLeish, took over the very next day.
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Life
Born: September 20, 1861, New York City, NY