John Y. Cole

John Y. Cole (born July 30, 1940) is an American librarian, historian, and an author. He was the founding director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress and in 2016 became the first official historian of the Library of Congress.

Education and career

John Young Cole was born in Ellensburg, Washington, July 30, 1940. He graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1962, going on to earn a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Washington School of Librarianship the following year. He later earned a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 1966 and a Ph.D. from George Washington University in American civilization in 1971.

Cole was hired at the Library of Congress in 1966 as an administrative assistant. He also worked in the Library's Congressional Research Service and in the Reference Department as a collection development librarian.

Cole opened the Young Readers Center to encourage reading by young people, and created the Library of Congress Literacy Awards, providing recognition and financial prizes for organizations that promote increased literacy.

The role that John Cole played in promoting the study of the history of the book is documented in the essay, “The Center for the Book and the History of the Book.”

In 2016, Cole was named the first Historian of the Library of Congress. The position is dedicated to research and documentation of the history of the Library of Congress. and the 2000 Joseph W. Lippincott Award, presented by the American Library Association for distinguished service to librarianship. The Lippincott Award statement praised Cole for having "exposed the American people to the power of the written word through dozens of national reading and library promotion projects including the landmark Read More About It series on CBS Television." They also fund an endowment for supporting the operations of the technical services of the University of Wyoming Libraries.

Selected bibliography

Libraries and Scholarly Communication in the United States: The Historical Dimension, ed. Phyllis Dain and John Y. Cole (New York:Greenwood Press, 1990).