Library of Congress appoints Chief for European Division

…Acquires archives of Bob Adelman

http://www.gatewaymail.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Grant-Harris-of-the-Library-of-Congress..jpg

 

By ‘Femi SHODUNKE

US:  THE world’s largest library, Library of Congress, has appointed Grant Harris as its chief of the European Division.

Harris, who has 33 years of library experience with expertise in Eastern and Western European history, culture, politics and languages, is stepping into the position to exert his wealth of expertise.

GatewayMail learnt that the new chief has served with distinction as the head of the European Reading Room since 2008 and as supervisor of collections management for the division in the Library that has been offering access to the creative record of the United States – and extensive materials from around the world – both on site and online.

According to a release on the Library’s website, the Director of Collections and Services in the Library Services division, Helena Zinkham, said: “Grant Harris, an internationally known librarian, brings outstanding experience to this position.”

Similarly, Zinkham added: “The European Division will continue to thrive because of his extensive knowledge of the Library’s European collections in all formats and his wide network of U.S. and foreign scholars and institutions.”
GatewayMail gathered that Harris holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, a Master of Arts degree in International Communications with a Postgraduate Certificate in Translation (Russian-English) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, and a Master of Library Sciences degree at the Catholic University of America.

Harris, whose foreign-language expertise includes Russian, French, Romanian and Albanian, joined the Library in 1983 as a consultant for the European Division, and the next year became a reference librarian in the same division, eventually taking on recommending duties for Albania, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania, French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland, and backup for the former U.S.S.R.
Harris, who was honored by the Romanian Minister of Foreign Relations for promoting cultural relations with Romania, it was further learnt, was the acting head of the European Reading Room intermittently from 1989 through 1995, and has since 2009 performed liaison duties for the Library with Russia, and coordinated relations between the Library of Congress and the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Meanwhile, the Library has announced the acquisition of the archives of Bob Adelman, one of the best-known photographers of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, who obtained a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and a master’s in philosophy from Columbia University and studied law at Harvard.

GatewayMail gathered that the collection, containing 575,000 high-quality images, was given to the Library as a gift from an anonymous donor.

The materials, which represent a wide range of images by Adelman, who studied photography under Alexey Brodovitch, the famed art director of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, covering the latter half of the 20th century, it was also learnt, will be housed in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division.

Adelman, who lived between 1930 and 2016 and whose works – of the 575,000 images, 50,000 are prints and the rest, negatives and slides – photographed many of the important leaders and events of the Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King and the March on Washington, has also photographed people, events and other social issues of the day (1960-2000), including pop artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and short-story writer and poet Raymond Carver.

• For any reaction or to contact GatewayMail newspaper, Toronto, Canada email us at: info@gatewaymail.org, whatsapp or text message: +2348033186252 (no calls).