author
E. G. (Earl Gregg) Swem
1870–1965
A pioneering librarian and bibliographer, he helped turn William & Mary's library into a far larger and more open resource for students and researchers. He is best remembered for his deep work on Virginia history, especially the massive Virginia Historical Index.
1 Audiobook
A Selected Bibliography of Virginia, 1607-1699
by E. G. (Earl Gregg) Swem, John M. (John Melville) Jennings
About the author
Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1870, Earl Gregg Swem built a long career around books, archives, and historical research. He worked at the Iowa Masonic Library while still young, and later held positions at the Library of Congress and the Virginia State Library before becoming librarian at the College of William & Mary in 1920.
At William & Mary, Swem oversaw major growth in the library's collections and made the library more accessible by opening the stacks to students and the public and offering instruction in how to use the library. His name became permanently linked with the college when its main library was named in his honor.
Swem was also an important historian and bibliographer. His best-known achievement, the Virginia Historical Index, gathered an enormous amount of information from key historical journals and became a lasting reference work for anyone studying Virginia and its people. He died in 1965, leaving behind a reputation for careful scholarship and practical library leadership.