Lawrence Quincy Mumford
Encyclopedia
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
from 1954 to 1974.
Biography
Mumford was born in Hanrahn, Pitt County, North CarolinaNorth Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
to Jacob Edward Mumford, a tobacco farmer, and Emma Luvenia Stocks. He grew up working the farm alongside his 10 siblings when he was not in school. He attended Grifton High School where he excelled in debate winning school and district honors. Mumford also participated in school athletics where he played baseball and tennis.
Upon graduation, Mumford was granted a tuition scholarship to attend Trinity College
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
at Durham NC
Durham, North Carolina
Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...
; his educational goal focused on preparing for a teaching career. At Trinity College, Mumford followed the lead of his brother Grover and joined the Hesperian
Hesperian
The Hesperian is a geologic system and time period on the planet Mars characterized by widespread volcanic activity and catastrophic flooding that carved immense outflow channels across the surface. The Hesperian is an intermediate and transitional period of Martian history...
Society. As a member he continued to be active in debate, winning several distinguished awards for excellence in public speaking and debate. In addition to his oratory skills, Mumford began to hone his leadership skills in the society and over his undergraduate career eventually became president of the Hesperian Society. Outside of the society, Mumford participated in the Physics Club, Phi Beta Kappa, and acted in two dramatic productions on top of working in the library as a student assistant. He graduated magna cum laude in 1925.
Mumford was offered a full time position with the library and he accepted so that he could continue to work towards a Master degree that would help with his dreams of a teaching career. Mumford completed his Master’s in English in the spring of 1928, but was at this point persuaded by assistant librarian, Louis T. Ibbotson, to go back to school and get a Bachelor’s of Library Science degree at the School of Library Science, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, New York.
In the fall of 1928, Mumford entered the School of Library Science where he was able to work part time in the library proper while completing his education. In the spring of 1929, he was offered a position with the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
(NYPL) as a reference assistant. Shortly afterwards, Mumford met Permelia Catherine Stevens, a children’s librarian for the NYPL system, and they were married on October 4, 1930 and had one child, a daughter, Katheryn Mumford.
Mumford spent 16 years with the New York Public Library. Starting as a reference assistant, he soon rose to take on more administrative duties. Advancing from reference to general administrative assistant, he then became chief of the cataloguing division. After a short loan to the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and 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...
where he overhauled their processing department, he returned to take up duties as the chief of preparations and ended up as the coordinator of general public services before he left in 1945 to join the Cleveland Public Library
Cleveland Public Library
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869 and is located in Cleveland, Ohio. It operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 28 branches throughout the city, a mobile library, a Public Administration Library in City Hall, and a library for the blind and physically...
system (CPL).
Mumford spent five years as assistant director of the CPL and became director in 1950. He was director until 1954 when he took on the helm of Librarian of Congress. His time spent at the CPL can be marked by improved growth (financially and physically) and increased public awareness and support.
In addition to his duties at the NYPL and CPS, Mumford joined the American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
in 1932 and became increasingly active in the association. His efforts with various ALA committees and his work with the Film Council of America and the Great Books Foundation
Great Books Foundation
The Great Books Foundation, incorporated in the state of Illinois and based in Chicago, is an independent, nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to help people think and share ideas. Toward this end, the Foundation publishes collections of classic and modern literature as part of a...
led to his nomination and selection as President of the American Library Association in 1954. His inaugural address to ALA clearly speaks of his commitment to Library Service:
"The task ahead is to offer the opportunity for continuing education through life, to enlarge the means of access to books through an ever-broadening pattern of facilities and services. The task ahead is to provide the materials and resources of education for better living, to help people to become more proficient in their chosen fields of work, balanced and enriched in their private lives, to the end that they may bring their skills and humanity to the service of society as a whole."
"We should not lose sight of the fact that maintaining man’s right to knowledge and freedom to choose his reading is an empty achievement if we do not make available to him the material from which he can select and choose…Freedom to read is an academic right, important as a principle, but meaningless in effect unless library resources are made available to those who lack them."
Mumford spent a year as ALA President and during this time helped to streamline management of the association and oversaw the establishment of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for substantial and lasting contributions to literature for children.
Two months after Mumford’s inauguration as president of the ALA, he began his 20 year tenure as the first professionally trained Librarian of Congress. Mumford was nominated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
on April 22, 1954 and was confirmed by the Senate on July 29, 1954. He was sworn into office using the 1782 Aiken Bible (the first complete bible printed in English in the independent United States) and officially began his first day on September 1, 1954.
The years prior to Mumford’s appointment reveal hampered library relationships with the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
; appropriations were down and Congress felt that the Library of Congress was no longer serving its needs. In addition, new information and technology were placing ever-growing demands on the services of the library.
As Librarian of Congress, Mumford was able to use his oratorical skills to repair vital relationships, rebuild Congressional confidence in the library and gain much needed appropriations to improve functions and programming. During the first ten years of his appointment appropriations more than doubled, the case for more space (a new building) was developed and put before the Joint Committee on the Library, work was started in the development of cataloging in publication and research was completed on machine-readable cataloging systems; Public Law 480 was established and helped bring about international cataloging standards.
In his personal life, Mumford’s wife, Permelia died in 1961. Mumford later married Mrs. Betsy Perrin Fox on November 28, 1969.
During his second ten year term, Mumford saw much of his effort and many of the programs he had implemented come to fruition. The most notable being the construction of the James Madison Memorial Building
James Madison Memorial Building
The James Madison Memorial Building is one of three buildings that make up the Library of Congress and is part of the United States Capitol Complex. The building was constructed from 1971 to 1976, and serves as the official memorial to President James Madison...
that started in 1971 and continued after Mumford’s retirement in 1974. It was finally completed in 1980. Other achievements include a ninefold total increase in appropriations, the establishment of the National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging (NPAC), completion and distribution of the Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC
MARC standards
MARC, MAchine-Readable Cataloging, is a data format and set of related standards used by libraries to encode and share information about books and other material they collect...
) system, an increase in services for handicapped readers, expansion of legislative research into the more dedicated Congressional Research Service
Congressional Research Service
The Congressional Research Service , known as "Congress's think tank", is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works exclusively and directly for Members of Congress, their Committees and staff on a...
, final publication of the Pre-1956 National Union Catalog
National Union Catalog
The National Union Catalog is a printed catalog of books catalogued by the Library of Congress and other American and Canadian libraries, issued serially beginning in the 1950s. It is not related to the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections...
, completion of the Presidential Papers Program, development of preservation programs and the establishment of the Preservation Research Laboratory, the expansion of motion picture programs, the addition of an African section and a Children’s Book section, development of National Referral Center for Science and Technology, the establishment of the American Revolution Bicentennial Office and the development of the Affirmative Action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
Plan that provided for equality, training and scholarship of Library of Congress staff.
Lawrence Quincy Mumford died on August 15, 1982 in Washington, D.C.
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. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....