Frances Neel Cheney
Frances Neel Cheney | |
|---|---|
| Born | Frances Neel August 19, 1906 Washington, D.C., United States |
| Died | May 5, 1996 (aged 89) |
| Occupations |
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| Spouse | Brainard Cheney |
Frances Neel Cheney (August 19, 1906 – May 5, 1996)
Early life and education
Frances Neel Cheney was born on August 19, 1906 in Washington, D.C. to Thomas Meeks Neel, a mechanical engineer, and Carrie Tucker Neel, the niece of the confederate soldier, Sam Davis.[1] The family moved frequently: first to Fitzgerald, Georgia from 1911 to 1913, then to Pittsburgh for the next six years where Cheney attended Wilkinsburg Public Schools, and finally to Newberry, South Carolina, her father's birthplace, where she attended high school.[2] Cheney's father had an unsuccessful career in agriculture and died of pneumonia in February 1927.[3]
Cheney enrolled in Vanderbilt University, her father's alma mater, in the fall of 1924, with the intention to study social work. She managed the Tri-Delt sorority house.[4] At Vanderbilt, Cheney studied under Donald Davidson and John Crowe Ransom, members of the Fugitives literary movement. Ultimately, however, she graduated with her BA in sociology in 1928.[3]
During her junior year, she met her future husband, Brainard Cheney, who was then a young reporter for the Nashville Banner. The two married on June 21, 1928, one week after graduation.[4]
Career
Early career and graduate studies
Cheney's library career began during her sophomore year at Vanderbilt as a part-time student assistant at the main library in Kirkland Hall. After graduating, she worked in a series of librarian positions at Vanderbilt: in the Chemistry Library in 1928, the Circulation Department in 1929, and finally the Reference Department in 1930, where she remained for the next seven years.[1] During this time, she studied part-time at George Peabody College for Teachers and received her Bachelor of Science degree in library science from in 1934. She also took graduate courses in history, Latin paleography, and English literature.[2]
After briefly studying college and university library administration at the University of Chicago in the summer of 1936, she became the head reference librarian for the Joint University Libraries (JUL) which served Vanderbilt, George Peabody College, and Scarritt College for Christian Workers. She completed her graduate education at Columbia University, earning her Masters of Science in library science in 1940.[1]
In 1943, Cheney served as assistant to the Chair of Poetry in the Library of Congress, Allen Tate. Together, they published the bibliography Sixty American Poets, 1896-1944. She remained at the library of congress for another year as a bibliographer in the General Reference and Bibliography Division. In 1946, she returned to her position at the Joint University Libraries in Nashville.[1]
Library instruction
In 1946, Cheney was hired as an assistant professor at the Peabody Library School of the George Peabody College for Teachers. She served as the school's associate director beginning in 1960 until her retirement in 1975 as professor emeritus. From 1951 to 1952, she was a visiting professor at the Japan Library School of Keio University in Tokyo.[2]
Reviewer of reference books
Succeeding Louis Shores, Cheney contributed for the Wilson Library Bulletin as a reviewer of reference books from 1942 to 1972, writing the "Current Reference Books" column. To commemorate her thirty years of contributions, the Bulletin published a compilation of accolades from her peers and dubbed her the "Profession's Number-One Reference Reviewer".[5] She went on to review reference books for Reference Services Review and American Reference Books Annual. John David Marshall, who compiled a bibliography of Cheney's work in 1983, put her total at nearly 8000 reference books reviewed across all three publications.[6]
In 1971, Cheney published Fundamental Reference Sources, a popular textbook for reference instruction. She coauthored a second edition in 1980 with Wiley J. Williams.[7]
Personal life and politics
Cheney and her husband, the novelist Brainard Cheney, maintained close friendships with many prominent figures of literature from the South, including Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon, and Flannery O'Connor. They were close with members of two Southern movements: the Fugitives and the Agrarians. According to biographers Dodge and Richardson, "Although the relationships between the Cheneys and the members of the Fugitives and the Agrarians was one of mutual influence, Cheney was not well known for her involvement in political controversy." Wiley J Williams, a colleague and friend of Cheney, noted that while the Cheneys were "radically conservative," many of their views differed from those of their more controversial friends, including their early acceptance of integration and their maintaining close associations with people from many different ethnic backgrounds.[1]
Death and legacy
Frances Neel Cheney died on May 5, 1996 in Nashville.[8] She had no children.[9]
Her work influenced figures in library science including William Katz, who claimed he "learned everything I know from Cheney, and a bit from [Louis] Shores." John V. Richardson lists Cheney's reference textbook, Fundamental Reference Sources; along with those by James Wyer, Louis Shores, Margaret Hutchins, and William Katz; as one of the standard texts in the history of reference education up to 1980.[7]
Memberships and honors
Leadership
- 1946-1947: president, Tennessee Library Association
- 1956–1961: served on Executive Board, American Library Association (ALA)
- 1956–1957: president, Association of American Library Schools (AALS)
- 1960–1961: president, Reference Service Division, ALA
- 1960–1962: president, Southeastern Library Association
- 1960–1962: president, Beta Phi Mu
- 1964–1965: president, Library Education Division, ALA[2]
Awards
- 1959: Good Teaching Award, Beta Phi Mu
- 1962: Isadore Gilbert Mudge Citation for Distinguished Contributions to Reference Librarianship, ALA
- 1966: honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.), Marquette University
- 1970: named first Outstanding Reference Librarian of the Year by the Southeastern Library Association
- 1971: Henry H. Hill Award for Excellence in Teaching, George Peabody College for Teachers
- 1972: Frances Neel Cheney Scholarship Fund is established at George Peabody College for Teachers
- 1976: awarded honorary life membership in the Southeastern Library Association
- 1976: Constance Lindsay Skinner Award, Women's National Book Association
- 1978: Honorary Membership, ALA
- 1980: Mary Utopia Rothrock Award, Southeastern library Association[2]
- 1992: Louis Shores–Oryx Press Award, Reference and Adult Services Division, ALA[8]
References
- ^ a b c d e Dodge, Robin; Richardson Jr., John V. (2003). "Cheney, Frances Neel (1906-1996)". In Davis Jr., Donald G. (ed.). Dictionary of American Library Biography, Second Supplement. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. pp. 47–49. ISBN 1563088681.
- ^ a b c d e Gleaves, Edwin S. (1983). "A Frances Neel Cheney Chronology". In Gleaves, Edwin S.; Tucker, John Mark (eds.). Reference Services and Library Education: Essays in Honor of Frances Neel Cheney. Lexington Books. pp. 19–22. ISBN 0669053201.
- ^ a b Gleaves, Edwin S. (1983). "Pleased to Teach and Yet Not Proud to Know: A Profile of the Life and Career of Frances Neel Cheney". In Gleaves, Edwin S.; Tucker, John Mark (eds.). Reference Services and Library Education: Essays in Honor of Frances Neel Cheney. Lexington Books. pp. 5–18. ISBN 0669053201.
- ^ a b Green, Etha (May–August 1963). "Our Frontispiece: Frances Neel Cheney". Bulletin of Bibliography. 24 (1): 1–3.
- ^ Eshelman, Wm. R. (ed.). "Friends Salute the Profession's Number-One Reference Reviewer". Wilson Library Bulletin. 47 (1): 86–88.
- ^ Marshall, John David (1983). "FNC in Print: A Bibliography of Works by and about Frances Neel Cheney". In Gleaves, Edwin S.; Tucker, John Mark (eds.). Reference Services and Library Education: Essays in Honor of Frances Neel Cheney. Lexington Books. pp. 267–291. ISBN 0669053201.
- ^ a b Richardson, John V. (1995). Knowledge-based systems for general reference work: applications, problems, and progress. Library and Information Science (1st ed.). Academic Press. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0-12-588460-0.
- ^ a b "Frances Neel Cheney Dies at Age 89". American Libraries. 27 (7): 16. August 1996. ISSN 0002-9769.
- ^ "Mass set for Frances N. Cheney, 89, Peabody professor emeritus". Nashville Banner. May 7, 1996. pp. B4. OCLC 9426483.
- ^ Parks, Martha (October 1956). "Designer of the New Look: Frances Neel Cheney". Tennessee Librarian: Quarterly Journal of the Tennessee Library Association. 9: 3–4. ISSN 0162-1564.
Further reading
- Stephens, C. Ralph, ed. (1986). The Correspondence of Flannery O'Connor and the Brainard Cheneys. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-0-87805-292-9.