Josephine Adams Rathbone

{{Short description|American librarian, library educator and author}}

{{Hatnote|This article is about the American librarian Josephine Adams Rathbone; for the American physiologist with a similar name and overlapping lifetime, see Josephine Langworthy Rathbone.}}

{{Infobox officeholder

|name = Josephine Adams Rathbone

|image = File:Josephine_Adams_Rathbone_(left),_1931.jpg

|image_size =

|caption = Josephine Adams (right) pokes fun of the staid image of her respected instructor, Josephine Adams Rathbone (left). Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, 1931.

| office = President of the American Library Association

| term_start = 1931

| term_end = 1932

| predecessor = Adam Strohm

| successor = Harry Miller Lydenberg

|birth_name = Josephine Adams Rathbone

|birth_date = {{birth-date|September 10, 1864}}

|birth_place = New York, US

|death_date = {{death date and age|1941|5|17|1864|09|10}}

|nationality = American

|occupation = Librarian

| education = University of Michigan

}}

Josephine Adams Rathbone (September 10, 1864 – May 17, 1941) was a librarian, library educator, author, and president of the American Library Association in 1931–1932.James, Edward T., Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer. Notable American Women, 1607–1950; A Biographical Dictionary, Vol. III, pp. 118–119. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971. She was born in Jamestown, New York. She began her studies at the University of Michigan from 1887 to 1891, then moved to New York where she graduated from the New York State Library School in 1893 earning a B.L.S.{{cite journal|last1=Shirley|first1=Wayne|title=Josephine Adams Rathbone|journal=Wilson Library Bulletin|date=November 1959|volume=34|issue=3|pages=199–204}}

After working for two years as an assistant cataloger at the Pratt Institute Free Library she was appointed "chief instructor" at the Pratt Institute Library School in 1895 under Mary Wright Plummer.Brand, Barbara B. [https://books.google.com/books?id=fcT2xjeOEQoC&dq=margaret%20healy%20pratt&pg=PA251 "Pratt Institute Library School: The Perils of Professionalization."] In Suzanne Hildenbrand (Ed.), Reclaiming the American Library Past: Writing the Women In, pp. 251–278. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 1996. When Plummer went to the New York Public Library to establish its Training Class in 1911, Rathbone was appointed vice-director of the Pratt Institute school, a position she held until she retired in 1938.

Rathbone was active in state and local professional associations serving as secretary of the New York State Library Association and president of the New York Library Club.New York Library Club. http://nylibraryclub.org/ In 1931–1932 she was president of the American Library Association (ALA).