10 Famous Librarians Who Changed History

10 Famous Librarians Who Changed History

Have you ever wondered the past life or secret dreams of your local librarian as they helped you find research paper resources and swiped the bar code on your books? As it turns out, a lot of world leaders, famous authors and legendary philosophers and scholars had careers as librarians.

1. Ben Franklin

Ben Franklin didn’t sit behind a circulation desk and help college kids find research materials, but he is still a legitimate librarian. In 1731, Franklin and his philosophy group Junto1又名the Leather Apron Club，富兰克林于1727年在费城创立的一个小团体，致力于实验和探索知识。organized the “Articles of Agreement,” which set up the nation’s first library. Their library, called The Library Company, was first meant to benefit only the members of Junto, so that they could share books on the issues they discussed during meetings. It was organized as a subscription library, and members of Junto paid a small fee to retrieve books. Over time, The Library Company granted access to members of the Second Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention and others.

当本地图书馆员帮你查找研究论文资料、扫描图书条形码时，你有没有想过他们有着怎样的过去，或者拥有哪些不为人知的梦想？事实上，许多世界领袖、著名作家以及大名鼎鼎的哲学家和学者都曾做过图书馆员。

1. 本·富兰克林

虽然本·富兰克林从没有坐在借还书柜台后面，帮助大学生搜索研究资料，但他仍是一位名副其实的图书馆员。1731年，富兰克林和他的哲学社团——讲读社——起草了一份“协议书”，创立了全国第一家图书馆，即“图书馆公司”。起初，图书馆只对讲读社成员开放，方便大家分享与聚会探讨问题相关的书籍。图书馆实行会员制，讲读社成员需缴纳小额费用来借阅书籍。后来，图书馆公司对第二次大陆会议、制宪会议等成员敞开了大门。

2. David Hume

Scotsman David Hume contributed greatly to 18th century philosophy and economics, writing important works like Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and A Treatise on Human Nature. He was an anti-Mercantilist, and according to The New School2位于美国纽约市的高等教育机构。, Hume “was also one of the better articulators3articulator 提出或表达某种看法的人。此处根据语境转译为“代言人”。of the Quantity Theory and the neutrality of money.” In 1752, Hume became a librarian at the Advocate’s Library in Edinburgh, where he wrote his famous History of England.

3. J. Edgar Hoover

As the legendary director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover led domestic investigations from 1924–1972, as head of the Bureau of Investigation4简称BOI，美国联邦调查局（FBI）的前身。and when he founded the FBI in 1935. In his early life, however, Hoover went to night school at George Washington University and supported himself by working at the Library of Congress. There, he was a messenger, cataloguer and clerk. In 1919, Hoover left the Library of Congress and worked as a special assistant to the Attorney General.

2. 大卫·休谟

苏格兰人大卫·休谟对18世纪的哲学和经济学作出了巨大贡献，撰写了诸如《自然宗教对话录》和《人性论》等数部重要著作。他反对重商主义，据新学院记载，休谟“还是货币数量论及货币中性论的优秀代言人之一”。1752年，休谟在爱丁堡的提倡者图书馆担任馆长，并在那里完成了著名的《英格兰史》一书。

3. J.埃德加·胡佛

作为美国联邦调查局具有传奇色彩的最高掌权者，1924至1972年间，J.埃德加·胡佛一直领导国内案件的调查工作,在1935年创立联邦调查局时就是调查局局长。不过，早年在乔治·华盛顿大学夜校读书时，胡佛曾在国会图书馆打工以维持生计，任职图书馆信使、编目员及管理员。1919年，胡佛辞去国会图书馆的工作，摇身变成了司法部长的特别助理。

4. Jacob Grimm

Grimms’ Fairy Tales was first published in 1812, but the stories, including “Hansel and Gretel,”“Cinderella,” and “Snow White,” are still classic children’s stories constantly reinvented as5be reinvented as 改造成，改为。plays, Disney movies and more. Jacob Grimm worked as a librarian in Kasel, after graduating with a law degree. During this time, Jacob and his brother Wilhelm collected German folk tales from ordinary citizens in hopes of uniting area kingdoms on the basis of sharing a similar culture.

5. Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges is an Argentine writer who made significant contributions to fantasy literature in the 20th century. He shared the International Publishers’ Formentor Prize with Samuel Beckett6（1906—1989），法国著名作家，原籍爱尔兰，诺贝尔文学奖获得者，代表作《等待戈多》。and was a municipal librarian from 1939–1946 in Argentina, before getting fired by the Peron regime. One of his most famous short stories, The Library of Babel, depicts the universe as a huge library.

4. 雅各布·格林

《格林童话》首次出版于1812年，而书中的故事，包括“汉塞尔与格莱特”“灰姑娘”“白雪公主”，仍是儿童故事中的经典，不断被改编成舞台剧、迪士尼电影等。获得法律学位之后，雅各布·格林在卡塞尔做了一名图书馆员。任职期间，雅各布和弟弟威廉一起在普通民众中搜集德国民间故事，希望能在共享相似文化的基础上实现国家的统一。

5. 豪尔赫·路易斯·博尔赫斯

豪尔赫·路易斯·博尔赫斯是阿根廷作家，对20世纪的奇幻文学有着重大的贡献。他与塞缪尔·贝克特共享了“福门托国际出版奖”。1939至1946年间，博尔赫斯任职阿根廷市立图书馆馆长，在庇隆上台后被革职。在其最著名的一篇短篇小说《巴别图书馆》中，他把宇宙描绘成一个巨大的图书馆。

6. Lewis Carroll

The author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll’s real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Dodgson grew up in Cheshire and Yorkshire, England, and after graduating from Oxford with a B.A. in mathematics, he became a sub-librarian at Christ Church there. He left that position in 1857 to become a Mathematical Lecturer. Dodgson first told the story of Alice Adventures in Wonderland to the three daughters of the Dean of Christ Church, in 1862. The book was published three years later and continues to be a popular and significant work of fiction today.

7. Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, the first chairman of the People’s Republic of China, was a librarian. In 1918, Mao lived in Peking, China as a young man, and he was an assistant librarian at Peking University. The chief librarian at Peking University was a Marxist, and succeeded in converting Mao to7convert ... to 使改变（观点、信仰等）。communism.

8. Marcel Proust

At once one of the most celebrated and obscure novelists and critics of all time, Marcel Proust once decided to go to school to become a librarian. The French writer was born in 1871, and his most famous work, In Search of Lost Time is still studied today.

6. 刘易斯·卡罗尔

《爱丽丝漫游奇境记》及《爱丽丝镜中奇遇记》的作者刘易斯·卡罗尔本名查尔斯·路德维奇·道奇森。道奇森在英格兰的柴郡和约克郡长大。从牛津大学获得数学学士学位之后，他在本校的基督堂学院做了图书馆助理馆员，又于1857年辞职，成为一名数学讲师。1862年，道奇森给院长的三个女儿首次讲述了《爱丽丝漫游奇境记》的故事。三年之后，此书出版，直到现在仍然是广受欢迎的重要小说作品。

7. 毛泽东

中华人民共和国的第一任主席毛泽东曾经当过图书馆员。1918年，青年毛泽东住在北京，任职北京大学图书馆助理馆员。时任北大图书馆馆长（李大钊）是一位马克思主义者，在他的引导下，毛泽东走上了共产主义的道路。

8. 马塞尔·普鲁斯特

马塞尔·普鲁斯特是史上最著名且作品最难理解的小说家兼评论家之一。他曾立志去学校做一名图书馆员。这位法国作家出生于1871年，其最著名的作品《追忆似水年华》至今仍有人研究。

9. Melvil Dewey

Founder of the Dewey Decimal System, Melvil Dewey was born in New York in 1851. While a student at Amherst College, he worked in the school library to support his living expenses and stayed on as a librarian after graduation. After experimenting with different cataloging and organization methods for library collections, Amherst College published his work A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library. Dewey has been named the “Father of Modern Librarianship” and even helped created the American Library Association in 1876.

10. Pope Pius XI, or Achille Ratti

Pope Pius XI served from 1922–1939, during which time he established the feast of Christ the King and spoke out against8speak out against公然反对；公开抨击。social justice crimes and unethical financial corruption practices. Before he became pope, Ratti was a librarian and scholar, and at the Vatican, Pope Pius XI famously reorganized the archives. ■

9. 麦尔威·杜威

麦尔威·杜威1851年出生于纽约，是杜威十进制系统的创始人。在阿默斯特学院读书时，他在学校图书馆打工赚取生活费，毕业后留下来做了一名图书馆员。对图书馆藏书进行多次不同的编目及排列试验之后，阿默斯特学院出版了杜威的著作，名为《图书馆图书和小册子排架编目适用的分类法和主题索引》。杜威被誉为“现代图书馆学之父”，1876年还帮助创立了美国图书馆协会。

10. 教皇庇护十一世（原名阿希尔·拉提）

教皇庇护十一世于1922至1939年在位，其间创设了“圣王基督节”，公开反对损害社会公义的犯罪活动和违反道德的金融腐败行为。成为教皇前，拉提是图书馆馆长兼学者；在梵蒂冈，教皇庇护十一世因重新整理档案而闻名。 □

（译者曾获2015年第六届“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛三等奖）

改写历史的10位著名图书馆员

译/刘丽丽