Sydney B. Mitchell
| Sydney Bancroft Mitchell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 24, 1878 Montreal, Canada |
| Died | September 22, 1951 (aged 73) |
Sydney Bancroft Mitchell (June 24, 1878 – September 22, 1951) was a Canadian librarian, teacher and gardener, though he spent most of his career in the United States. He was named one of the one hundred most important leaders in Library Science by the American Libraries journal in 1999.
Sydney Mitchell was much more than a librarian and more than the founder of one of the first Masters in Library Science degree programs in the early part of the twentieth century. His love of his hobby, gardening, motivated him to advocate the importance of not focusing only on one’s career. He is remembered in the field of horticulture just as much as in the profession of librarianship.
Mitchell was born in Montreal, Canada in 1878. His degrees included a Bachelor of Arts and a master's degree in Literature from McGill University. He received an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Occidental College. He studied Library Science at the New York State Library School.
Mitchell remained fluent in both French and English, having spent his boyhood in a predominantly French Canadian neighbourhood. Mitchell’s boyhood is discussed in great detail in his memoirs, which unfinished at his death, was published posthumously by his wife and his close personal friend, Lawrence Clark Powell, who wrote the preface.
His memoir features stories of the neighborhood and fellow playmates, vividly describing the life of a normal boy in the streets of the nonindustrial age (born 1878) and fail to describe the difficulties that might have haunted him, having been born with a physical disability which at times caused him to spend long periods of time hospitalized and be categorized as crippled. Reportedly, never dropping into a self-pitying mode, he did not appear to have ever have seen himself as disabled. .
Among his accomplishments was holding both the Presidency of the California Library Association (1938–1939) and the California Horticultural Society (1933–1945). During those early years in the development of the first master's degree in librarianship at the University of California, Berkeley, it is estimated that he earned more income from practice of his hobby and authoring of several volumes on the topic, than he did in his prestigious university appointment in librarianship.
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