Dickinson, Asa Don, 1876-1960

Asa Don Dickinson, (1876-1960), Brooklyn College's first Chief Librarian, was born in Detroit, Michigan, and educated at the Brooklyn Latin School. In 1894, he became a student at Columbia Law School, but left after two years due to poor health. Thereafter he had thoughts of becoming a librarian, particularly after he heard that Andrew Carnegie, the philanthropist who established over 2,500 public libraries, was about to fund some additional ones in New York City. He enrolled at the New York State Library School in Albany, and also began to compile a list of the books he believed to be most noteworthy. Thus began his lifelong bibliographic hobby that resulted in Mr. Dickinson's "best books" series. Dickinson's first position was at the Montague Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. This is where he soon took the initiative to organize a department for the blind, something that had not been attempted before in a public library. In fact, Mr. Dickinson made such a good case for the blind at a meeting of the American Library Association in 1906 that he was soon installed as chairman of the newly formed Committee on Service to the Blind. Mr. Dickinson held many different positions at public libraries and in academic universities. He worked at the Brooklyn Public Library, in Brooklyn, New York; at the Union College Library in Schenectady, New York; Leavenworth (Kansas) Free Public Library; Washington State College Library, in Pullman, Washington; at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; at the Brooklyn College Library in Brooklyn, New York and at the University of Punjab in Lahore, India. In 1912, a friend, Russell Doubleday, asked Dickinson to join Doubleday, Page and Company as a editor. He agreed. Dickinson edited historical books, biographies, and anthologies, primarily for young adults. He was the author or editor of such popular books like Booth Tarkinton, Children's Books of Christmas Stories, Europe at War, The Kaiser, Wild Flowers, and The Doubleday Encyclopedia. While taking a year off in 1916 to go to India, Dickinson continued to complie his "best books' series" such as One Thousand Best Books and the Best Books of Our Times. In 1915, Asa Don Dickinson took a year off and traveled to India to teach at the University of the Punjab in Lahore. Although his pupils were most attentive, even during the long three-to four hour classes, there were no textbooks and most of what was discussed in class was memorized. Surprisingly, many of his students had the ability and the apitude to repeat, nearly verbatim, entire pages of text. Dickinson's "souvenier of a great adventure," His Panjab Library Primer, was written in 1916 especially for the students that he taught at Punjab University. He wrote this small primer during a short three-week stay in Gulmarg, a remote area of the Himalayas. Even today in India and in Pakistan, Mr. Dickinson's Panjab Library Primer is still considered important during the development and modernization of the Indian library system. From 1931-1944, Asa Don Dickson was Brooklyn College's Chief Librarian. He helped design the library building and admitted he was exacting in the particulars; lighting fixtures were designed "specifically for each indivual room to provide the proper illumination, " the building itself was economically furnished for students' needs without any wood carving, lounges, or tapestries on the walls it was not to be viewed as a country club." From the lighting fixtures to the steel cabinets housing library card catalogs, from the glass-topped tables to the seven tiers of stacks, Dickinson saw the library "... as the very essence of the college itself, the very heart of the university." Dickinson built the library collection to 90,000, with an annual circulation of 600,000. In one of his letters to the college president, Dickinson complained about the possibility of building a new high school next to the library because "..it would impede the possibility of a library expansion..no college can become great while its library remains small." The "Dickinson Room" at the Brooklyn College Library was established in his honor to house the library's archives and distinctive special collections.

From the description of The Papers of Asa Don Dickinson, 193?-195? 193?-194? (Brooklyn College). WorldCat record id: 435531245

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