author
Ernest Cushing Richardson
1860–1939
A pioneering American librarian and scholar, he spent his career pushing libraries toward better cataloging, stronger research collections, and wider access to knowledge. His work at Princeton and later with the Library of Congress helped shape modern library practice.
1 Audiobook
The Beginnings of Libraries
by Ernest Cushing Richardson
About the author
Born in Woburn, Massachusetts, in 1860, Ernest Cushing Richardson became known as an American librarian, theologian, and scholar whose ideas reached far beyond the reading room. He studied at Amherst and Hartford Theological Seminary, then built an early career that combined scholarship, teaching, and library work.
Richardson served at Hartford Theological Seminary before moving to Princeton, where he was university librarian from 1890 to 1925 and also taught bibliography. He became especially respected for experimenting with cataloging and classification methods and for arguing that researchers needed better-organized, more accessible collections.
Later, he worked as a consultant to the Library of Congress. He died in 1939, but his reputation endured: later library historians remembered him as an important early voice in American librarianship, especially for his efforts to improve how libraries describe, organize, and share their materials.