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The first African American to head a branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL), Regina Andrews led an extraordinary life. Allied with W. E. B. Du Bois, Andrews fought for promotion and equal pay against entrenched sexism and racism and battled institutional restrictions confining African American librarians to only a few neighborhoods within New York City. Andrews also played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance, supporting writers and intellectuals with dedicated workspace at her 135th Street Branch Library. After hours she cohosted a legendary salon that drew the likes of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Her work as an actress and playwright helped establish the Harlem Experimental Theater, where she wrote plays about lynching, passing, and the Underground Railroad. Ethelene Whitmire's new biography offers the first full-length study of Andrews' activism and pioneering work with the NYPL. Whitmire's portrait of her sustained efforts to break down barriers reveals Andrews's legacy and places her within the NYPL's larger history.

This article explores Black women's librarian networks in early twentieth-century Chicago, inspired by Mary Niles Maack's (1945–2023) groundbreaking research on women's history in librarianship and her historical methodology. To this end, the article first evaluates Maack's primary methodologies employed in her historical inquiries and examines their efficacy. Four key characteristics of Maack's approach are identified: placing librarianship within \"a larger context,\" employing latitude and longitude comparisons, embracing theories beyond the library and information sciences field, and adopting a critical and feminist perspective. The article then demonstrates the extension of these methodologies by examining the collective presence of Black women librarians in early twentieth-century Chicago. This overview not only demonstrates Maack's methodologies in practice but also highlights their effectiveness in reading the nuanced contributions and experiences of Black women in librarianship. The text explores the often-overlooked networks of Black women librarians, drawing from the concepts of \"a veritable miracle\" and \"reconciliation,\" and asserts the significance of Maack's methodologies for broader historical investigations and their utility in uncovering underrepresented narratives in the history of librarianship.

Purpose This paper aims to explore the extent of use of social media by Pakistani female librarians for professional development and their perception of its usefulness. The paper also attempts to find out social characteristics that influence the use of social media among female librarians for career and professional development (PD). Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through an online survey (using self-administered structured questionnaire) from 102 female librarians in Pakistan regarding usage frequency, perception, choice of librarianship as a profession and perceived benefits of social media. The list of participants was obtained from the Directory of Pakistani Library Professionals compiled by Sada-e-Librarian (a non-profit LIS professional organization). Data collections also include online interviews through Facebook chat with 20 key informants selected from the participants of the questionnaire survey. Findings The study reveals that the majority of Pakistani female librarians is well aware of social media and uses it frequently. They are found to make extensive use of social media for PD and perceive social media as a useful tool for PD. However, social media is judged to be less helpful in acquiring technical skills. The study found a number of factors affecting the use of social media for PD among female librarians in Pakistan. These factors include social characteristics such as privacy, parent’s years of schooling, marital status and family support. Originality/value This study is among the first attempts to discover social characteristics, the use of social media and its relationship with PD among female librarians in Pakistan.

Literary history and libraries’ progress are evident of women professionals’ contributions. Since the beginning, women professionals’ roles and responsibilities in different capacities have been quite phenomenal. The present study highlights the contributions published in the Journal of Documentation for the period 2015-2019. It attempts to study the variations existing in research output from a gender perspective and a brief review of women professionals’ journey and job-related aspects from traditional to contemporary times. The information is collected from the Journal of Documentation (JoD). The study focuses on the year-wise distribution of articles and authors, collaboration patterns among the gender, authorship pattern, geographical distribution, the annual growth rate of female contributors, and average productivity of male and female authors per article. The findings revealed that the annual growth rate of the female contributors was 28.6 in 2019. The male author’s average productivity per article is 1.23, and 1.12 is the female contributors’ average productivity per paper. The study is beneficial in understanding the women’s contributions in international journals, and it has also revealed that the publication gap is not huge. Still, it is minimal except in a few circumstances.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the opinions and attributes about Nigerian women librarians breaking the glass ceiling that prevents them from reaching management positions in their respective libraries.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive survey research design was used for the study. Questionnaire was used as the instrument of data collection. The population of the study was 147 librarians at the university libraries of the six federal universities in South-west, Nigeria. Purposive and census sampling techniques were used for the study.FindingsIt was found that the opinions about women librarians occupying management positions in the libraries are negative. Women librarians do not have the required attributes and capability for management positions despite the fact that the extent of their preparedness for management positions is high. The study revealed that there is significant relationship between gender attributes and managerial capability.Originality/valueIt was recommended that there should be abandoning of organisational stereotype that characterises the opinions of librarians which make them think that women librarians are not fit for management positions. Women librarians should develop the attributes and capability that can qualify them for management positions in libraries.

Librarianship has long been recognised as a numerically female-dominated occupation. Despite demonstrating a standard pattern of a sex-segregated labour force, it has suffered neglect in historical studies of women's work. This article positions Australia's librarians in the history of white-collar public service workers, and librarianship as illustrative of important themes of twentieth-century women's labour history. For smart, educated, ambitious women, librarianship offered professional standing, economic security and opportunity for advancement. Strategies of overt discrimination, however, deliberately kept women librarians out of senior administrative positions and confined them to the lower-paying jobs. Librarians in state and municipal libraries worked under public service regulations that established a dual labour market of wages and conditions for clerical and professional workers. Key decisions between 1918 and 1922 explicitly advantaged men in recruitment, wages and promotion, denying women similar opportunities. Studying the history of women librarians sheds new light on the meaning of professional workers' struggle for equal pay.