Quick Facts
PiscesBiography
James Christian Meinich Hanson (March 13, 1864 – November 8, 1943) was a Norwegian born, American librarian.
Jens Hanson was born at Sørheim in the Nordre Aurdal districtin Oppland, Norway. He was the sixth of eight children born to Gunnerius and Eleanore Adamine (Röberg) Hansen. When he was nine years old, his family sent him to the United States to attend the preparatory school of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Hanson graduated from Luther College in 1882 and went on to attend the Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis. He continued his education at Cornell University from 1889 to 1890.
In 1890, Hanson accepted an apprentice position at the Newberry Library in Chicago. In 1893, he became head of the cataloging department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison Library. Hanson was named chief of the cataloging division of the Library of Congress in 1897. At the Library of Congress he played a major role in developing its general catalog including the creation of what is now called the Library of Congress classification system. He also contributed to drafting the Anglo-American Code.
Hanson left the Library of Congress in 1910 to serve as the Associate Director of the University of Chicago Library. In 1928, he was knighted in the Royal Order of St Olav. He took a leave of absence from the University of Chicago in 1928 to work at the Vatican Library in Rome to assist in reorganizing their collection under a Carnegie Corporation grant. He died in 1943 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Publications
- Catalog rules : author and title entries (American Library Association, 1908)
- A comparative study of cataloging rules based on the Anglo-American code of 1908 (University of Chicago Press, 1939)
- A Norwegian bibliographer and his latest work. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, v.20, pt.1-2 (1926) p. 98-102
- The history of the university library of Christiania, 1811-1911. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, v.7, no. 1-2 ( 1912–13) p. 51-68
- The Anglo-American agreement on cataloging rules and its bearing on international cooperation in cataloging of books (Imprimeur des Académies de Belgique, 1908)