James Hadley Billington (born 1 June 1929) is an American
librarianA librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs. Typically, librarians work in a public or college library, an elementary or secondary school media...
and academic. He is the thirteenth Librarian of the
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election....
.
Born in
Bryn Mawr, PennsylvaniaBryn Mawr is a census-designated place in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia along Lancaster Avenue and the border with Delaware County...
, Billington was educated in the public schools of the Philadelphia area. He was class valedictorian at both
Lower Merion High SchoolLower Merion High School, is an American public high school in Ardmore, a community on the Pennsylvania Main Line.It is the larger of the two high schools in Lower Merion School District, which serves both Lower Merion Township and the Borough of Narberth. It was ranked among the top 60 U.S...
and
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....
, where he graduated with highest honors in 1950. Three years later, he earned his doctorate from
Balliol College, OxfordBalliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.Traditionally, the undergraduates are amongst the most politically active in the university, and the college's alumni include three former prime ministers. H. H...
, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
James Hadley Billington (born 1 June 1929) is an American
librarianA librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs. Typically, librarians work in a public or college library, an elementary or secondary school media...
and academic. He is the thirteenth Librarian of the
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election....
.
Early years
Born in
Bryn Mawr, PennsylvaniaBryn Mawr is a census-designated place in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia along Lancaster Avenue and the border with Delaware County...
, Billington was educated in the public schools of the Philadelphia area. He was class valedictorian at both
Lower Merion High SchoolLower Merion High School, is an American public high school in Ardmore, a community on the Pennsylvania Main Line.It is the larger of the two high schools in Lower Merion School District, which serves both Lower Merion Township and the Borough of Narberth. It was ranked among the top 60 U.S...
and
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....
, where he graduated with highest honors in 1950. Three years later, he earned his doctorate from
Balliol College, OxfordBalliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.Traditionally, the undergraduates are amongst the most politically active in the university, and the college's alumni include three former prime ministers. H. H...
, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Following service with the U.S. Army and in the Office of National Estimates, he taught history at
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
from 1957 to 1962 and subsequently at
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....
, where he was a professor of history from 1964 to 1974.
Career
From 1973 to 1987, Billington was director of the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for ScholarsThe Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars , located in Washington, D.C., is a United States Presidential Memorial that was established as part of the Smithsonian Institution by an act of Congress in 1968...
, the nation’s official memorial in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
to America’s 28th president. As director, he founded the
Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian StudiesThe Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars was founded in 1974 to the carry out studies of the Soviet Union , subsequently of post-Soviet Russia and other post-Soviet states....
at the Center and seven other new programs as well as the
Wilson QuarterlyThe Wilson Quarterly is a magazine published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. The magazine was founded in 1976 by Peter Braestrup and James H. Billington. The Quarterly is noted for its nonpartisan, nonideological approach to current issues, with articles...
.
Billington was sworn in as the Librarian of Congress on September 14, 1987. He is the 13th person to hold the position since the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress and is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books. The head...
was established in 1800.
Billington has championed the Library’s American Memory National Digital Library (NDL) Program, which makes freely available on-line over 8.5 million American historical items from the collections of the Library and other research institutions. These unique American Memory materials and the Library’s other Internet services, which include the congressional database,
THOMASTHOMAS is the database of United States Congress legislative information, was launched in January 1995 at the inception of the 104th Congress. It is a comprehensive, Internet-accessible source of information on the activities of Congress, including:...
, the on-line card catalog, exhibitions, information from the
U.S. Copyright OfficeThe United States Copyright Office, a part of the Library of Congress, is the official U.S. government body that maintains records of copyright registration in the United States. It is used by copyright title searchers who are attempting to clear a chain of title for copyrighted works.The head of...
and a web site for children and families called America’s Library, handled more than 2.6 billion transactions last year.
Billington created the Library’s first national private-sector advisory group, the
James MadisonJames Madison was an American politician and political philosopher who served as the fourth President of the United States , and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States....
Council, whose members have supported the NDL Program, many other Library outreach programs, and acquisitions for the Library’s collections. In 2000, the Library’s bicentennial year, Madison Council Chairman
John W. KlugeJohn Werner Kluge is a German-American entrepreneur and a billionaire. He is best known as a television industry mogul in the United States.- Early life :...
made the largest monetary donation in the Library’s history: US$60 million to create within the Library the
John W. Kluge CenterThe John W. Kluge Center occupies study and meeting spaces within the Library of Congress' restored Thomas Jefferson Building. The Center brings together a group of 21 international scholars, the Kluge Scholars' Council, to stimulate, energize, and distill wisdom from the rich resources of the...
, a place for advanced scholars and a
NobelThe Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
-level prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities or social sciences.
Billington is the author of
Mikhailovsky and Russian Populism (1956),
The Icon and the Axe (1966),
Fire in the Minds of Men (1980),
Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope, August 1991 (1992) and
The Face of Russia (1998), the companion book to the three-part television series of the same name, which he wrote and narrated for the
Public Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television service with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. However, its operations are largely funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting...
.
The Icon and the Axe, Fire in the Minds of Men and
The Face of Russia have been translated and published in a variety of languages. Billington has accompanied ten congressional delegations to
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and the former
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. In June 1988 he accompanied President
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
to the Soviet Summit in
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
. He is the founder of the Open World Program and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Open World Leadership Center. The Open World Program is a nonpartisan initiative of the U.S. Congress that has brought 6,265 emerging young Russian political leaders to communities throughout America.
Billington has received 33
honoris causa degrees, as well as the Woodrow Wilson Award from
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....
(1992), the UCLA Medal (1999), and the Pushkin Medal of the International Association of the Teachers of Russian Language and Culture (2000). Most recently he was awarded honorary doctorates from the
Tbilisi State UniversityTbilisi Ivane Javakhishvili State University, better known as Tbilisi State University , is a university established on 8 February, 1918 in Tbilisi, Georgia. TSU is the oldest university in the whole Caucasus region...
in
GeorgiaGeorgia Georgia Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan...
(1999) and the
Moscow State UniversityM. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University , for a time the Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be the oldest university in Russia and the tallest educational building in the world...
for the Humanities (2001). He received an honorary doctorate from the
University of OxfordThe University of Oxford , located in the UK city of Oxford, is the oldest surviving university in the English-speaking world and is regarded as one of the world's leading academic institutions. Although the exact date of foundation remains unclear, there is evidence of teaching there as far back...
in November 2002.
Billington is an elected member of the
Russian Academy of SciencesThe Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals.Headquartered in Moscow, the Academy is...
, and has been decorated as
ChevalierA knight was a "gentleman soldier" or member of the warrior class of the Middle Ages in Europe. In other Indo-European languages, cognates of cavalier or rider are more prevalent suggesting a connection to the knight's mode of transport...
and again as a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters of
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, as Commander of the
National Order of the Southern CrossThe National Order of the Southern Cross is Brazil's highest order of merit.It was originally known as the Imperial Order of the Southern Cross...
of
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
, awarded the Order of Merit of
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, and a Knight Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
. He has also been awarded the Gwanghwa Medal by the Republic of
KoreaKorea is a civilization and formerly unified nation currently divided into two states. Located on the Korean Peninsula, it borders China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait....
, and the Chingiz Aitmatov Gold Medal by the Kyrgyz Republic.
Billington was a longtime member of the editorial advisory boards of
Foreign AffairsForeign Affairs is an American magazine on international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations six times annually...
and of
Theology TodayTheology Today is a journal published by the Princeton Theological Seminary. It appears four times a year. The current volume is 68.The first issue of Theology Today appeared in April, 1944. The lead editorial, "Our Aims," by founder and editor, John A. Mackay, President of Princeton Theological...
, and a member of the Board of Foreign Scholarships (1971-76; Chairman, 1973-1975), which has executive responsibility for academic exchanges worldwide under the Fulbright-Hays Act. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. He is on the Board of the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing ArtsThe John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
and is a member of the
American Philosophical SocietyThe American Philosophical Society is a discussion group founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin as an offshoot of his earlier club, the Junto...
and of the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
.
Personal life
Billington is married to Marjorie Anne Brennan. They have four children: Susan Harper, Anne Fischer, James Hadley, Jr. and Thomas Keator.