Flexner, Jennie M. (1882–1944)

American librarian who directed the first readers' advisory service of the New York Public Library . Born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1882; died in 1944; one of five children of Jacob (a physician) and Rosa (Maas) Flexner; graduated from Western Reserve Library School.

Jennie Flexner entered the library system at the turn of the century, just as it was expanding under the favorable conditions of the Carnegie grants. Hired by the Louisville Free Public Library because she could type and was "a great reader," she realized before long that she would need training. Flexner graduated from the newly established Western Reserve Library School and then returned to Louisville, where she spent the next 16 years. Heading the circulation department from 1912 to 1928, she played a major role in the development of the library and its work within the community.

In 1928, she was invited to join the New York Public Library, where Flexner created and ran the institution's first readers' advisory service. This department was established to provide counseling and assistance for adult readers, including guiding them through the immense reference department and through the general collection that was dispersed through the 65 branches of the circulation department. The advisory service was opened in March 1929 in a makeshift office with a staff of two. Flexner developed and expanded the department over the next 15 years, until her death in 1944 at age 62. While aiding individual readers, Flexner also worked with community and national organizations. During the Depression, she assisted the Adjustment Service for the Unemployed, creating book lists to help the unemployed prepare for new jobs. Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, she joined with the National Refugee Service to provide books that would help immigrants master the language and culture of their adopted home. Her book list "Interpreting America" was used throughout the country. Flexner supplied reading lists to "Town Meeting of the Air" and other early educational radio programs and worked with the library's many discussion groups, including the original Great Books Group. She collaborated with the Book Mobilization Committee in preparing a list of 50 books that had helped the war effort, and chaired the Library Committee of the Council on Books in Wartime. Flexner also wrote a layman's guide to the use of libraries called Making Books Work. (1943).

Flexner's enthusiasm for connecting books with people was most apparent to those who had the opportunity to sit with her one-on-one. A frequent visitor to her office remarked: "I always came away from a talk with her feeling that I was a little brighter than I am. I may have trudged in, but I came out on tiptoe."

sources:

Pioneering Leaders in Librarianship. American Library Association, 1953.

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts