Nancy E. Gwinn

Nancy E. Gwinn (August 19, 1945 – April 29, 2024) was an American librarian and administrator. She was the director of the Smithsonian Libraries, the world's largest museum library system, from 1997 until her retirement in 2020. Gwinn died on April 29, 2024, at the age of 78.

Education and career Nancy Gwinn was born in Sheridan, Wyoming on August 19, 1945. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967 from the University of Wyoming; after graduating, she attended the University of Oxford on a Fulbright scholarship. In 1997 she became director of the Smithsonian Libraries, where she led 130 research and curatorial staff in preserving cultural history. During her tenure, Gwinn expanded outreach, bolstered the Libraries' rare book and electronic collections, and created the first Libraries Advisory Board to assist with fundraising. Under her leadership, the Smithsonian Libraries initiated and became the lead partner in establishing the Biodiversity Heritage Library, an international consortium of natural history and botanical libraries dedicated to digitizing and providing open access to works from their collections.

The University of Wyoming awarded her an honorary doctorate degree in 2013.

Since 2003 Gwinn and her husband, Library of Congress Historian John Y. Cole, have maintained endowments to support the internships of library and information science students at the Smithsonian Libraries and at the University of Michigan School of Information. and the Library of Congress Center for the Book.

Selected publications Gwinn was the author of several books on library and historical subjects, including Preservation Microfilming for which the Society of American Archivists awarded her the 1988 Waldo Gifford Leland Award.

Gwinn, Nancy E., and Johanna G. Wellheiser. 2011. Preparing for the Worst, Planning for the Best: Protecting Our Cultural Heritage from Disaster: Proceedings of a Special IFLA Conference Held in Berlin in July 2003. Berlin: K.G. Saur. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110931440. Smithsonian Institution, Mary Augusta Thomas, Nancy E. Gwinn, Michael Dirda, and Storrs L. Olson. 2002. An Odyssey in Print: Adventures in the Smithsonian Libraries. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Gwinn, Nancy E., Lisa L. Fox, and Association of Research Libraries. 1996. Preservation Microfilming : A Guide for Librarians and Archivists. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. Gwinn, Nancy E. 1989. The Smithsonian Institution Libraries: A Foot in Three Camps. [Chicago, Ill.]: American Library Association. Gwinn, Nancy E., United States Federal Library Committee, and Library of Congress. 1984. Federal Information Policies: Emerging Issues on Managing Information Resources. Washington: Library of Congress.