02 May 2010

Let's hear it for sexy librarians...

Happy birthday to Alice Bertha Kroeger (May 2,1864 – 1909) librarian; born in St. Louis, Mo. A protégée of Melvil Dewey. She taught librarianship at Drexel Institute (Philadelphia) and became the first director of Drexel's Library School (1892–1909). Her Guide to the Standard Usage of Reference Books was a widely used text. The Guide began as a labor of love of Alice. Her legacy is the Guide to Reference, published in 2008 as the online successor to Guide to Reference Books, is a selective guide to the best print and online reference sources. An editorial team of reference librarians and subject experts have selected and annotated some 16,000 entries, which are organized by subject. It is a subscription database, published by the American Library Association, and is updated on an ongoing basis. It is intended as a resource for libraries when answering reference questions, planning library instruction, identifying items to purchase, and training staff. The print edition was published regularly since 1902 by the American Library Association, and had been a staple of academic reference libraries throughout the United States. She was an active suffragist.