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{{Short description|American librarian and scholar (1945–2023)}}
{{Infobox person
|name        = Mary Niles Maack
|image       = MaryNilesMack.png
|caption     = Maack in the 1970s
|birth_date  = December, 1945
|birth_place = [[Paris, Illinois]]
|death_date  = {{death date and age|2023|1|23|1945|12}}
|death_place =
|other_names =
|known_for   =
|occupation  = librarian, scholar
}}
'''Mary Niles Maack''' (December 1945 – January 23, 2023) was an American [[librarian]] and scholar known for her work on comparative librarianship and the [[History of books|history of the book]].
==Early life and education==
Maack was born in [[Paris, Illinois]] in 1945 to Augustus and Lillie Niles.<ref name="obit">{{cite news |title=MARY MAACK OBITUARY |url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/latimes/name/mary-maack-obituary?id=41466871 |access-date=9 May 2023 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=February 5, 2023}}</ref> She graduated with a degree in history from the [[University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign]] and earned her master's degree and Doctorate of Library Science from [[Columbia University]].<ref name="obit" />
==Career==
Maack did her doctoral research in [[West Africa]] which resulted in her first book, ''Libraries in Senegal''.<ref name="UCLA">{{cite web | title=Mary Niles Maack Home Page | website=pages.gseis.ucla.edu | url=https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/maack/ | access-date=2023-05-09}}</ref> She worked at [[New York Public Library]].<ref name="ency">{{cite book |editor1-last=Bates |editor1-first=Marcia J. |editor2-last=Maack |editor2-first=Mary Niles |title=Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences |date=2009 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=084939712X |page=xii |edition=3rd}}</ref>
She was a tenured professor at the [[University of Minnesota]] for ten years and later at UCLA in the Department of Information Studies beginning in 1986.<ref name="obit" /><ref name="UCLA" /> She served as a [[Fulbright Program|Fulbright]] Professor at the French National Library School (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Bibliothèques) in [[Villeurbanne]] from 1982 to 1983 and received grants to do research at the [[Bibliothèque nationale de France|Bibliothèque Nationale]].<ref name="obit" /> She lectured and consulted internationally in North America, Europe, and Africa.<ref name="obit" />
She was the head of the head of the California Center for the Book and the author of a collection of essays about [[John Y. Cole]], the founding director of the Center for the Book at the [[Library of Congress]].<ref name="CRL">{{cite journal |last1=Ring |first1=Richard |title=Book review: The Library of Congress and the Center for the Book: Historical Essays in Honor of John Y. Cole |journal=College and Research Libraries |date=2012 |volume=73 |issue=5 |pages=514–516 |url=https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/16261/17707 |access-date=9 May 2023}}</ref>
Maack's work often focused on gender issues. Her research on the decrease of women faculty in LIS programs in the United States raised awareness of the tension between technological change and the historical role of women in librarianship.<ref name="gender">{{cite book |editor1-last=Misa |editor1-first=Thomas J. |title=Gender codes : why women are leaving computing |date=2010 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=9780470597194 |page=149 |url=https://archive.org/details/gendercodeswhywo0000unse/page/148/mode/2up |access-date=9 May 2023}}</ref> She wrote in 2002 that she felt that "library feminism is alive and... feminist librarians are still engaged in the struggle for equalization in one profession."<ref name="transfo">{{cite book |editor1-last=Wilkinson |editor1-first=Carroll Wetzel |editor2-last=Bruch |editor2-first=Courtney |title=Transforming information literacy programs : intersecting frontiers of self, library culture, and campus community |date=2012 |publisher=Association of College and Research Libraries |location=Chicago IL |isbn=9780838986035 |page=102 |url=https://archive.org/details/transforminginfo0000unse_q4n9/page/102/mode/2up |access-date=9 May 2023}}</ref> Her published papers, ''Women in Library Education: Down the Up Staircase'' and ''Toward a History of Women in Librarianship: A Critical Analysis with Suggestions for Further Research'' examined the relationship between feminization and professionalism within librarianship.<ref name="Maack">{{cite book | last=Maack | first=Mary Niles | title=Professional and White-Collar Employments | chapter=Toward a History of Women in Librarianship: A Critical Analysis with Suggestions for Further Research | publisher=DE GRUYTER SAUR | date=1993-12-31 | doi=10.1515/9783110976380.472 | pages=472–493}}</ref><ref name="Maack2">{{cite web | last=Maack | first=Mary Niles | title=Women in Library Education: Down the Up Staircase | publisher=Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | date=1986 | issn=0024-2594 | url=http://hdl.handle.net/2142/7440 | access-date=2023-05-09}}</ref>
==Honors and awards==
Maack won the [[Justin Winsor Prize (library)|Justin Winsor Prize]] of the [[American Library Association]] Library History Round Table in 1981 and the Jesse Shera Award of the ALA Library Research Round Table in 1992.<ref name="ency" /> The UCLA Department of Information Studies awarded her the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2005.<ref name="ency" />
==Publications==
* ''Libraries in Senegal: continuity and change in an emerging nation'' (1981) {{ISBN|0838903215}}
* ''Feminization Of Librarianship In France: A Silent Revolution'' (1987) {{ISBN|0669063681}}
* Maack, Mary Niles and Joanne Ellen Passet. (1994). ''Aspirations and Mentoring in an Academic Environment : Women Faculty in Library and Information Science.'' Westport Conn: Greenwood Press.{{ISBN|0313278369}}
*Maack, Mary Niles. 1994. “The Public Library Inquiry: Reminiscences, Reflections, and Research.” ''Libraries & Culture'' 29: 1–132.
*Maack, M. N. (2000). International dimensions of library history: Leadership and scholarship, 1978-1998. ''Libraries & Culture'', 35(1),
* “The Lady and the Antelope: [[Suzanne Briet]]’s Contribution to the French Documentation Movement.” ''Library Trends'' 52, no. 4 (2004): 719–47.
*“American Bookwomen in Paris during the 1920s.” (2005) ''Libraries & Culture'' 40 (3): 399–415.
*“‘I Cannot Get Along Without the Books I Find Here’: The American Library in Paris During the War, Occupation, and Liberation, 1939-1945.” ''Library Trends'' 55, no. 3 (2007): 490–512. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2007.0013.
* ''Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences'' (ed. 2009) {{ISBN|084939712X}}
* ''The Library of Congress and the Center for the Book: Historical Essays in Honor of John Y. Cole'' (ed. 2011) {{ISBN|9780844495255}}
* ''Anne Morgan: Photography, Philanthropy and Advocacy'' (2016) {{ISBN|0692566023}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
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[[Category:1945 births]]
[[Category:2023 deaths]]
[[Category:American librarians]]
[[Category:People from Paris, Illinois]]
[[Category:Historians of libraries]]
[[Category:Library science scholars]]