Wood, Mary Elizabeth (1861-1931)
       librarian and missionary
   (pronounced in Chinese: shu di-hua)
 the Queen of Modern Library Movement in China

 

Wood, Mary Elizabeth (1861-1931), librarian and missionary
from Encyclopedia Britannica, Women in American history

Born in Elba, New York, on August 22, 1861, Mary Wood grew up and attended public schools in nearby Batavia, where she was later librarian of the Richmond Library (1889-99). In 1899 she traveled to Wu-ch'ang, China, to visit a brother who was a missionary there. At his suggestion Wood prolonged her visit to take charge of an elementary English class in the small, missionary-run Boone School. By 1904, when she received formal appointment as a lay missionary, the school had grown to include a collegiate department. Wood began slowly to build a much-needed library from donations. The building ultimately opened in 1910.

On subsequent furloughs in the United States, Wood studied library science at the Pratt Institute and Simmons College. In order to extend the Boone School library's usefulness she established branches at several locations in Wu-ch'ang and in Han-k'ou (Hankow), and eventually she organized a system of traveling libraries that brought books in both Chinese and English to a wide area. Beginning in 1915 she sent Chinese students to the United States for training in librarianship, and in 1920 she opened a library school in Boone College. Before the college was closed by the Communist regime in 1949, the library school had graduated nearly 500 librarians, many of whom went on to advanced training in the United States.

In 1923 Wood circulated a petition among Chinese leaders asking that a portion of the $6 million still unassigned from the U.S. indemnity imposed after the Boxer Rebellion be allocated to the development of public libraries in China. In 1924 she traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby personally for the cause. Congress passed a bill remitting funds (eventually nearly $12 million) for the development of "educational and other cultural activities" under the guidance of the China Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Culture. The foundation allotted sums for the establishment of the National Library in Peking and for scholarships and expenses at the Boone Library School. Wood devoted her remaining time to building up a permanent endowment for the school under control of a U.S.-based board (later known as the Mary Elizabeth Wood Foundation). Wood died in Wu-ch'ang, China, on May 1, 1931.
 
 

The Mary Elizabeth Wood Foundation Scholarship:

Mary Elizabeth Wood (1862-1931) was an American professional librarian from Boston, who went to teach at the Boone College in Wuchang, China in the 1920s, and who later founded the Boone Library School in that city, the first library school in China. The Scholarship she established, is awarded annually to library and information science students from mainland China and Taiwan. Applicants must be citizens of the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China who are currently enrolled as fulltime students in the M.L.S. or Ph.D. programs at an ALA-accredited library school in the United States, and who must be willing to return to their home countries after completing their studies. Students who have completed their first year of study or who are engaged in dissertation writing will be given first consideration. A letter of application, in lieu of an application form, should be accompanied by a resume, an official transcript from the applicant's school, a letter from the school certifying the applicant's full-time status, and two letters of recommendation from the faculty who are most familiar with the applicant's current school work. All application materials should be sent to:

Eugene W. Wu, Librarian
Harvard-Yenching Library
Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
 
 
 

The Changing Face of Youth Services in China

from American Libraries, October 1998
By Leonard Kniffel
http://www.ala.org/alonline/news/china.html
The nation's first library school was, in fact, founded by an American, Mary Elizabeth Wood, in 1920.
 
 

http://www.uschinasc.org/mag51/mag5103c.htm

Samuel T. Y. Seng, "Miss Mary Elizabeth Wood: The Queen of The Modern Library Movement In China," ???????????????, 1931,3(3): 8-13;

Cheng Huanwen, "Miss Mary Elizabeth Wood: from An American Librarian to the Queen of the Modern Library Movement in China," ?????????????,??????????????, ??????????????, 2000,1: 85-101.