Luther Harris Evans

Luther Harris Evans (1902-1981) was Librarian of Congress and third Director-General of UNESCO.

Luther Harris Evans

Life

Luther Harris Evans was born on October 13, 1902 in Sayersville, Texas. He received an BA (1923) and MA (1924) from the University of Texas at Austin and an PhD from Stanford University in 1927, all in political science.

Evans taught political science at New York University, Dartmouth College, and Princeton University from 1927 until 1935. From 1935 to 1939 he organized and directed the Historical Records Survey for the Works Project Administration. After that, the Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish, appointed him head of the Legislative Reference Service and later Chief Assistant Librarian of Congress. After MacLeish resigned, president Harry S. Truman appointed Evans as Librarian of Congress, a position he held from 1945 to 1953.

Evans was Director-General of UNESCO from 1953 to 1958. From 1962, he was director of international and legal collections at the Columbia University Libraries until his retirement in 1971. He died on December 23, 1981 in San Antonio, Texas.

Contributions

As Librarian of Congress Evans opposed censorship of the library's holdings and greatly expanded the library's collection. He helped draft the Universal Copyright Convention in 1952 Evans helped organize the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and served as its third Director-General.

Publications

Google Scholar lists numerous publications. [1] Maurel (2013) also lists numerous items by and about Evans. [2]

• The job of the Librarian of Congress. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1945.
• "The Library of Congress and Its Service to Science and Technology." College & Research Libraries 8, no. 3 (1947): 315-321. [3]
• "Research libraries in the war period, 1939-45." The Library Quarterly 17, no. 4 (1947): 241-262.
• "Bibliography by cooperation." Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 37, no. 3 (1949): 197-212. [4]
• "UNESCO work and method illustrated by the library programs." The Library Quarterly 24, no. 2 (1954): 92-100.
• "UNESCO and Libraries." ALA Bulletin 49, no. 9 (1955): 492-494.
• Reminiscences of Luther Harris Evans: oral history, 1965. Columbia University, New York, Oral History Project. [5]

Offices

• American Documentation Institute. President, 1950-52.

Awards

• American Library Association. Honorary Membership, 1972.

Further reading

• Cole, John Y. "Evans, Luther Harris (1902-1981)." Supplement to the Dictionary of American library biography. Ed. by Wayne A. Wiegand. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1990, pp 22-26.
• Sittig, W. J. (1976). "Luther Evans: Man for a new age." Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 33 (1976): 251-267.
• "Luther H. Evans." Wikipedia [6]
• Maurel, Chloé. "Evans, Luther Harris." In: IO BIO, Biographical Dictionary of Secretaries-General of International Organizations, edited by Bob Reinalda, Kent J. Kille and Jaci Eisenberg. 2013. [7]

Papers

• Columbia University Libraries, New York, NY: Luther Harris Evans papers, 1952-1970. [8]
• Stanford University, Hoover Institution Archives. Collection 81121. Evans (Luther Harris) conference summaries. [9]
• Library of Congress. Luther Harris Evans papers, 1918-1981. [10]