View source for Elva Bascom

{{Short description|American librarian}}
[[File:ElvaBascomb.png|thumb|alt=sepiatone headshot image of an older woman with glasses staring at the camera. She is wearing a neacklace|Elva Bascom]]
'''Elvira "Elva" Lucile Bascom''' (June 20, 1870 – November 5, 1944) was an American [[librarian]], best known for her work editing [[Booklist]] from 1909 to 1913 and for her work on book selection.
== Early life and career ==
Elva Bascom was born in [[Greene Township, Trumbull County, Ohio|Greensburg]], [[Ohio]], Bascom was the daughter of that city's postmaster, Reynolds Bascom (1833-1901), and Lucy F. Andrews Bascom (1834-1920). She attended [[Lake Erie College]] from 1886 to 1889 and [[Alleghany College]] (where she was a member of [[Kappa Alpha Theta]]) from 1890 to 1894, graduating in 1895. Bascom graduated from the Library School of the [[New York State Library]] in 1901.<ref>Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915, ed. John William Leonard, New York: The American Commonwealth Company, 1914, p. 81</ref> She worked at the New York State Library from 1901 to 1908; in 1905 she assisted Martha Wheeler of the Library School in preparing a publication on "Indexing", with an introduction by library director [[Melvil Dewey]].<ref>https://www.loc.gov/resource/dcmsiabooks.indexingprincipl00whee/?sp=5 Image of "Indexing" (see image 7 for introduction by Dewey mentioning Bascom)</ref>
Bascom took over as the editor of [[American Library Association]] publication ''Booklist'' in November 1909, moving to [[Madison, Wisconsin|Madison]], [[Wisconsin]] where the previous editor Katherine McDonald of the [[Wisconsin Library Association|Wisconsin Free Library Commission]] resided (although the publication's business office was in Boston). It has been said that she "was the first ''Booklist'' editor to achieve national recognition".<ref>Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Volume 38, Supplement 3, ed. Allen Kent, CRC Press, 1985, p. 54</ref> In 1912 Bascom published a new edition of the A. L. A. book catalog, a suggested holdings list for libraries. On leaving ''Booklist'' in 1913 she taught at the Wisconsin Library School. In 1918 she left a position as the head of the Book Selection and Study Club Department at the Wisconsin Free Library Commission and went to a temporary position as a library liaison at the [[United States Children's Bureau]].<ref>"Changes in Commission Staff", Wisconsin Library Bulletin, November 1918, p. 228</ref> In 1919 she moved to [[Austin, Texas|Austin]], [[Texas]] to run the new library science school at the [[University of Texas at Austin]].<ref>Library Journal, November 1919, p. 744.</ref> She served as president of the [[Texas Library Association]] 1922-1923.<ref>https://txla.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Past-Presidents-Conferences.pdf Listing of past TLA presidents</ref> The program was closed down in 1925, and from 1926 into the 1930s Bascom was affiliated with the Carnegie Library School in [[Pittsburgh]].<ref>American Library Association 50th Anniversary Conference, October 4–9, 1926, program, p. 24</ref><ref>Faculty Bulletin, Carnegie Institute of Technology, November 8, 1933, p. 3</ref> In 1937 Bascom returned to Ohio to work as the Sunday school librarian at the [[Church of the Covenant (Cleveland)|Church of the Covenant]] in Cleveland.<ref>"Elva Bascom", ''Wisconsin State Journal'' (Madison), November 14, 1944, p. 8</ref>
Bascom is buried in the Pioneer (or Greene) Cemetery, [[Greene Township, Trumbull County, Ohio]], with her parents and siblings. Of her siblings, several brothers died young and her sister Althea died shortly before her eighteenth birthday in 1885; only her older brother Harold Wales Bascom (1858-1939) lived into adulthood.
==Works==
* "Indexing: Principles, Rules, and Examples" - pamphlet, 1905 (with Martha Wheeler)
* "Selected books on nature study for schools and libraries" - pamphlet, 1910
* A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-1911, Class List: 3,000 Titles for a Popular Library, With Notes and Indexes, 1912
* "Book Selection" - pamphlet, 1915
* "Child Welfare: Selected List of Books and Pamphlets" - pamphlet, 1918
* "Poems of Pennsylvania" - article, Pennsylvania Library Notes, July 1934
* "Kappa Alpha Theta Leisure Hour Library; five hundred books..." - 1938
==References==
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[[Category:1870 births]]
[[Category:1944 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Trumbull County, Ohio]]
[[Category:Writers from Ohio]]
[[Category:Allegheny College alumni]]
[[Category:Lake Erie College alumni]]
[[Category:Librarians from Ohio]]
[[Category:American women librarians]]
[[Category:American Library Association people]]