American Library Association's Glossary of Library Terms with a Selection of Terms in Related Fields - Prepared under the Direction of the Committee on Library Terminology of the A.L.A.
(This glossary includes technical terms used in American l...)
This glossary includes technical terms used in American libraries except those purely or largely, of local significance; some terms not in current use but of historical interest; and selected terms in several fields more or less closely related to library work, with which librarians come in contact in connection with books and the history of books, as archives, bibliography, printing and publishing, paper, binding, illustration and prints. Foreign terms with a few exceptions have been omitted.
She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the eldest of the five children (four daughters and one son) of Jacob Aaron and Rosa (Maas) Flexner. Her paternal grandparents, Moritz and Esther (Abraham) Flexner, orthodox Jews born in Bohemia and the Rhineland respectively, had come to the United States in the 1850's and settled in Louisville. Three of Jennie's uncles were to make outstanding contributions to American life: Abraham as educator and foundation administrator; Bernard [Supp. 3] in law and jurisprudence; and Simon as physician and scientist. Jennie's father, a druggist who did much to further his brothers' education, later studied medicine and became a practicing physician in Louisville.
Education
Miss Flexner attended local schools. Recognizing the need for professional training, she spent a year (1908 - 09) at the library school of Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and then returned to her Louisville post.
Career
Since lack of money prevented her going to college she became a secretary (1903 - 04), but she found the work uncongenial and in 1905 joined the staff of the Free Public Library of Louisville.
Recognizing the need for professional training, she spent a year (1908 - 09) at the library school of Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and then returned to her Louisville post.
In 1912 she became head of the circulation department, a position she held until 1928. During these years she served first as instructor in and later as supervisor of a training course for librarians. At the beginning of the twentieth century the American public library was undergoing a transition from the passive role of custodian of books to the more active one of trying to bring book and reader together and thus serve as a means of popular education.
In 1926, at the request of the American Library Association, which was trying to fix standards and curricula for library schools, she took a leave of absence to study methods used in libraries of different sizes. The resulting book, Circulation Work in Public Libraries (1927), which emphasized the crucial function of the circulation librarian, for many years remained a basic text.
In 1928 Jennie Flexner was invited to join the staff of the New York Public Library to inaugurate a readers' advisory service which would help adults carry forward their postschool education through programs of systematic reading. She remained there for the rest of her life.
She tried especially to reach foreign-born readers, members of minority groups, and those who sought "wider horizons of an occupational and personal sort. " Some clients asked for help in locating an interest, others came hoping to find in books respite from personal problems and emotional stress.
As head of the Readers' Adviser's Office of the New York Public Library, Flexner was particularly responsive to social crises.
During the depression years of the early 1930's many of her clients were either unemployed men in search of vocational guidance and technical books or young people of college age who lacked the means for a formal education.
As the public need for educational assistance began to exceed the budgetary capacity of a city in depression, Flexner increased her work among groups and compiled book lists for mass distribution.
She lectured, for example, to unemployed adults attending continuation schools and compiled bibliographies for use on radio programs such as "Town Meeting of the Air. " During the late 1930's Flexner and her trained assistants gave increasing attention to the exiles coming to New York as refugees from European dictatorships.
She was particularly concerned with the needs of displaced intellectuals, librarians, and physicians. Besides helping them find appropriate aid, she worked with the National Refugee Service to produce "Interpreting America, " a book list designed to assist in their adjustment to life in the United States.
Her long-standing interest in Negro problems continued, and in the early 1940's she began to give concentrated attention to filling the reading needs of Harlem residents in such areas as "housing, recreation, social work, women and their status, labor and unemployment, education, [and] crime. " Miss Flexner advised on the selection of books for hospitals, schools, welfare organizations, trade unions, political clubs, and government agencies.
In addition to numerous articles and books for librarians, she wrote for the layman Making Books Work: A Guide to the Use of Libraries (1943). Flexner's work at the New York Public Library was cut short when she died of a heart ailment at her home in New York City at the age of sixty-two.
She was buried at Adath Israel Cemetery in Louisville.
Her paternal grandparents, Moritz and Esther (Abraham) Flexner, orthodox Jews born in Bohemia and the Rhineland respectively, had come to the United States in the 1850's and settled in Louisville.
Membership
She was a member of the Board of Education for Librarianship (1927 - 32) of the American Library Association, and served as secretary of the American Association for Adult Education and as president of the New York Library Club.
Personality
Enthusiastic, generous, and friendly, she worked with both individuals and groups.
Connections
Jennie did not marry but was part of a distinguished family, including uncles Abraham Flexner, founder of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, known for his studies and surveys of medical colleges, and Simon Flexner, known as a scientific director of the Rockefeller Foundation and eminent bacteriologist.