Africana Studies

Mrs.  Mary P. Key,  February 27, 1929 - January 4, 2010

Mrs. Mary P. Key was a University Libraries Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University. Before retiring from the Agriculture Library in 1998, she served as the first chair of the University Libraries’ Diversity Committee, which oversaw the implementation of the Diversity Residency Program (from 1989-1998). She was the second African American Librarian to head a department at The Ohio State University Libraries.  She received her MLS from Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University). Mrs. Key passed away on January 4, 2010, at the age of 80, but her legacy lives on with this important initiative.

The Mary P. Key Residency Program, initiated in 1989, is designed to assist recent library graduates in making a successful transition to academic research librarianship and provides the opportunity for hands-on experience in University Libraries' areas, including public services, digital initiatives, and administration.

The Ohio State University has a strong commitment to diversity and is actively seeking to increase such diversity by encouraging all interested applicants to apply. The University Libraries' Mary P. Key Diversity Residency Program is one component of the Libraries' commitment to diversity and is intended to increase the diversity of librarians at The Ohio State University and to further the development of unrepresented librarians.

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Hammer, Joshua. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016.

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Jackson, Andrew P, Julius Jefferson, and Akilah Nosakhere. The 21st-Century Black Librarian in America: Issues and Challenges. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2012.

Johnson, Eboni A. Librarian As Mentor: Grow, Discover, Inspire. Santa Barbara: Mission Bell Media, 2017.

Josey, E.J. The Black Librarian in America. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1970.

Josey, E.J. The Black Librarian in America Revisited. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1994.

Josey, E.J. Libraries, Coalitions, & the Public Good. New York: Neal-Schuman, 1987.

Josey, E.J. What Black Librarians Are Saying. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1972.

Josey, E.J. and Ismael Abdullahi. E.J. Josey: An Activist Librarian. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1992.

Josey, E.J. and Marva L. DeLoach. Handbook of Black Librarianship, Second edition. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2000.

Neely, Teresa Y. and Khafre K. Abif. In Our Own Voices: The Changing Face of Librarianship. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.

Phinazee, Annette L. The Black Librarian in the Southeast: Reminiscences, Activities, Challenges: Papers Presented for a Colloquium. Durham: The School, 1980.

Robbins, Louise S. The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.

Sims-Wood, Janet L. Dorothy Porter Wesley at Howard University: Building a Legacy of Black History. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014.

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Smallwood, Carol. Librarians As Community Partners: An Outreach Handbook. Chicago: American Library Association, 2010.

Smith, Jessie C. Epic Lives: One Hundred Black Women Who Made a Difference. Detroit: Visible Ink, 1993.

Tucker, John M. Untold Stories: Civil Rights, Libraries and Black Librarianship. Urbana: University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 1998. 

Valdés, Vanessa K. Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2017.

Whitmire, Ethelene. Regina Anderson Andrews, Harlem Renaissance Librarian. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015.

Leta Hendricks June 2020