William S. Dix, Princeton Librarian

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of William Shepherd Dix (1910-1978), Princeton University Librarian (1953-1975).  Dix was serving as President of the American Library Association when I attended my first ALA Conference in Atlantic City, NJ in 1969.  It was a volatile and exciting time in ALA with lots of calls for change. Dix was credited with calming the troubled waters within ALA during this period. Unlike some of the previous library notables highlighted in this blog, there is a considerable amount of information about Dix on the Internet. His papers are located at the Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton and they have a nice biographical sketch along with a photograph of Dix which is shown here. Dix is included in the Supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Libraries Unlimited, 1990). There is also a nice entry in the World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services (ALA Editions, 1993). All of the information about Dix leads to the conclusion that he was one of the most highly regarded librarians of his generation.