25 Librarians at the Library of Congress

The librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the president of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years. The librarian of Congress appoints the U.S. poet laureate and awards the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

Henriette Davidson Avram was a computer programmer and systems analyst who developed the MARC format, the international data standard for bibliographic and holdings information in libraries. Avram's development of the MARC format in the late 1960s and early 1970s at the Library of Congress had a revolutionizing effect on the practice of librarianship, making possible the automation of many library functions and the sharing of bibliographic information electronically between libraries using pre-existing cataloging standards.

William Warner Bishop was an American librarian who is credited and remembered for his work organizing and cataloging the Vatican Archives, his time served working with the American Library Association, as well as his support of academic libraries. He has the honor of being named one of the most influential librarians in American history.

Charles Harvey Brown was an American librarian and leader in the American Library Association. He received a bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University in 1897 and a master's degree in 1899. He went on to receive a second bachelor's degree in Library Science at the New York State Library School in 1901. He later received a Literary Doctorate from Wesleyan University in 1937. He began working at Wesleyan University from 1897 to 1899 and then worked for the Library of Congress from 1901 to 1903. Brown worked for the John Crerar Library from 1903 to 1909 and the Brooklyn Public Library from 1909 to 1919.

Leonard C. Bruno was the Science Manuscript Historian and subject specialist in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. Amongst his books are reference guides to the library's collections in the history of science. After more than forty years of service at the Library of Congress he retired in June 2012.

Verner Warren Clapp was a librarian and writer.

Peter Force was an American politician, newspaper editor, printer, archivist, and early American historian. He was twice elected the twelfth Mayor of Washington D.C. During his lifetime he amassed an invaluable and vast collection of books, manuscripts, original maps and other archival material from statesmen, and American and British military officers of the American Revolution. Force's collection is considered to be among the most extensive. Force served in the Washington militia as a lieutenant during the War of 1812. Politically, he was a member of the Whig Party, and supporter of John Quincy Adams. He is mostly noted for editing and publishing a massive collection of historical documents, books and maps in several volumes involving the American colonies and the American Revolution which was ultimately purchased by the Library of Congress for a large sum. Force founded a political journal and other publications and was president of a premier national science society, and the Typographical Society which was largely charged with the task of communicating political affairs to the general public. Force served on the committee that approved the Geographical Department for the Library of Congress. During the international political unrest caused by the American Civil War, Force was sent to Europe by the Lincoln Administration to stabilize diplomatic relations with France and England.

Frederick Richmond Goff was an American rare book librarian and specialist in incunabula.

James Christian Meinich Hanson was a Norwegian born, American librarian.

Carla Diane Hayden is an American librarian and the 14th Librarian of Congress. Hayden is the first woman and the first African American to hold the post. She is the first professional librarian appointed to the post in over 60 years.

John Howard Hickcox Sr., a nineteenth-century librarian and bookseller, is best known for his efforts to organize and index federal government publications. He published United States Government Publications; a Monthly Catalogue, also known as Hickcox's Monthly Catalogue, from 1885 to 1894 in order to alert people to the availability of recent government publications—a function which the government was not performing. His catalog was the predecessor of the Monthly Catalog, of which he was the first compiler.

Arthur William Hummel Sr. was an American Christian missionary to China, head of the Asian Division of the Library of Congress, noted Sinologist, and editor of Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, a biographical dictionary. He was the first president of the Association for Asian Studies, in 1948.

Julius C. Jefferson Jr. is an American librarian and is a section head of the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress. He was elected president of the American Library Association in April 2019.

John Pendleton Kennedy was the first State Librarian for the Commonwealth of Virginia. He also served as the first President of the Virginia Library Association, which was organized in the first State Library building in Capitol Square on December 6, 1905.

Robert Woodrow Levering was a U.S. Representative from Ohio, son-in-law of Usher L. Burdick and brother-in-law of Quentin N. Burdick.

Seymour Lubetzky was a major cataloging theorist and a prominent librarian.

David Mao is an American law librarian. Mao served as acting Librarian of Congress from September 30, 2015, until the confirmation of Carla Hayden in 2016. He is the first Asian-American to hold the position.

Charles Martel was an American librarian responsible for the creation of the Library of Congress Classification; he is often considered to be one of the most influential librarians in American library history.

David Chambers Mearns was a librarian and scholar of Abraham Lincoln. He held multiple positions at the Library of Congress over 58 years of service, including director of the reference department, chief of the manuscript division, and Chair of American History. Mearns wrote the first authoritative book on the Library's collection of Lincoln's papers, along with twelve other books. Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish described Mearns as "the rarest treasure in the Library of Congress".

Herman Henry Bernard Meyer was an American librarian. Meyer attended the Pratt Institute Library School. He worked in several positions at the Library of Congress, including the Head of the Newspaper and Periodical Division (1907), the Chief Bibliographer (1914-1920), and the Head of the Legislative Reference Service (1921-1935) and initiated the Library's services for the blind.

Daniel Alexander Payne Murray (1852-1925) was an American bibliographer, author, politician, and historian. He also worked as an assistant librarian at the Library of Congress.

Roberta Ivy Shaffer is an American librarian and attorney and is the former Director of the Law Library of Congress.

John Sherrod was an American meteorologist and information scientist.

Barbara Ann Barnett Tillett is a librarian and library scholar known for her work on authority control and bibliographic data modeling.

Dr. Chi Wang is co-chair of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation. The foundation supports various activities through its Committee for U.S. Libraries and Museum Exchange. He is also a professor of U.S.-China relations and modern China at Georgetown University. Prior to his current positions, Dr. Wang was the head of the Chinese Section at Library of Congress (LC), had worked in the field of librarianship for forty-eight years before retiring from LC in October 2004.