Mildred Leona Batchelder

1901 - 1998

Librarian & Association Executive


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Mildred Leona Batchelder
 Born September 7, 1901, in Lynn, Massachusetts, Mildred Leona Batchelder was a champion of library service to youth at both the national and international level. Two years after receiving her B.A. from Mt. Holyoke College, she also received a Bachelor's degree in library science from New York State Library School in Albany. She worked for twelve years as a children's librarian but then in 1936 she joined the headquarters staff of the American Library Association. Within just two years, she was promoted to Chief of the School and Children's Library Division. Over the next twenty-eight years she would hold a number of different leadership positions within the Association. It was under her direction that the divisional journal Top of the News (currently called the Journal of Youth Services in Libraries) was first published. Another legacy of her leadership was an increased emphasis on translating and exchanging quality children's books with other countries.

Photograph from World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services (Tarbox, 1993, p. 105).

Awards
  • Received Grolier Award, American Library Association, 1966
  • Mildred L. Batchelder Award established in her honor, 1966
  • Received Constance Lindsay Skinner Award of the Women's National Book Association, 1967
Bibliography
  • American Library Assocition. (2002). The Mildred L. Batchelder Award. Retrieved May 4, 2002, from http://www.ala.org/alsc/batch.html.
  • 100 of the most important leaders we had in the 20th century. (1999, December). American Libraries, 30 (11), 38-48.
  • Tarbox, R. (1993). Batchelder, Mildred Leona. In World encyclopedia of library and information services (3rd ed., pp. 105-106). Chicago: American Library Association.

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Last Modified: May 5, 2002