Zella Allen Dixson

Zella Allen Dixson (August 10, 1858 – January 12, 1924) was an American writer, lecturer, librarian, and publisher. She was the longest-serving director and associate librarian of the University of Chicago Extension Division's library school.

Early life Zella Allen was born on August 10, 1858, in Zanesville, Ohio, to Josiah Buffet Allen and Mary Caroline Blandy Allen. In 1880, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College. She married Joseph Ehrman Dixson in 1881 and was soon after widowed in 1885. From there, she went on to the Baptist Union Theological Seminary.

Dixson went on to become the associate librarian, instructor, and director of the library school at the University of Chicago Extension Division—a program originally designed to teach the public how to use libraries. University President William Rainey Harper had initially asked Melvil Dewey to take the position, but Dewey turned it down. By 1900, Dixson had expanded the library school into a program that provided professional training for librarians.

Feud with Melvil Dewey and Katharine Sharp In 1900, Melvil Dewey wrote a letter to the president of the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper, stating that Dixson was incompetent as a librarian and as the program director of the library school. He also accused her of falsely claiming to be a graduate of the New York State Library School. Dixson responded by stating that she never claimed to have attended New York State Library School and that Dewey was only criticizing her work with the Extension Division because of the competition her program created with Katharine Sharp's library school at the University of Illinois in Urbana. The students, graduates, and employers of those who were enrolled in the Extension Division's library school also wrote to Harper defending both the program and Dixson's competence.

In 1902, Harper received a letter from the ALA's College and Reference Library Section criticizing the Extension Division's program and Dixson. Dixson responded by stating that each of their criticisms was false and accused Katharine Sharp and Melvil Dewey, who was a member of the ALA's College Section, of conspiring against her library school. She also warned Harper that, if he decided to close down the school, it would cost the university thousands of dollars in returned tuition and cause the library to lose its student workers. In October of that year, the library school was shut down with much protest from the students and the faculty. In 1906, she was given an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Shurtleff College, which is now part of Southern Illinois University. She retired from the University of Chicago in 1910 to spend more time working on her literary projects and the Wisteria Cottage Press, which she owned and operated. Dixson died on January 12, 1924, in Chicago. and the Chicago Library Club in 1886.

Dixson belonged to several clubs in Europe as well, most of them focusing on bookplates (also known as "ex-libris"). She was a member of the Ex Libris Society of London, Exlibris Verein zu Berlin (Ex-Libris Association of Berlin), Österreichische Ex-Libris-Gesellschaft (Austrian Ex-Libris Society) in Vienna, Société Française des Collectionneurs d'Ex-Libris (French Society of Ex-Libris Collectors) in Paris, and the Ex-Libris Club in Basel. Dixson was also an avid collector of bookplates and, in 1902, published a collection called Children's book-plates. She followed it up in 1903 with Concerning book-plates: a handbook for collectors.