 james hadley billington (born june 1, 1929) is an american academic. he is the 13th librarian of the united states congress. ==biography== ===early years=== born in bryn mawr, pennsylvania, billington was educated in the public schools of the philadelphia area. he was class valedictorian at both lower merion high school and princeton university, where he graduated with highest honors in 1950. three years later, he earned his doctorate from balliol college, oxford, where he was a rhodes scholar. following service with the u.s. army and in the office of national estimates, he taught history at harvard university from 1957 to 1962 and subsequently at princeton university, where he was a professor of history from 1964 to 1974. ===career=== from 1973 to 1987, billington was director of the woodrow wilson international center for scholars, the nationâs official memorial in washington, d.c. to americaâs 28th president. as director, he founded the kennan institute for advanced russian studies at the center and seven other new programs as well as the wilson quarterly. billington was sworn in as the librarian of congress on september 14, 1987. he is the 13th person to hold the position since the library of congress was established in 1800. his appointment was unanimously confirmed by the senate.http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/r42072.pdf billington has championed the libraryâs american memory national digital library (ndl) program, which makes freely available on-line over 24 million american historical itemshttp://www.loc.gov/about/librarianoffice/ from the collections of the library and other research institutions. these unique american memory materials and the libraryâs other internet services, which include the congressional database, thomas, the on-line card catalog, exhibitions, information from the u.s. copyright office and a web site for children and families called americaâs library, handled more than 2.6 billion transactions last year. billington created the libraryâs first national private-sector advisory group, the james madison council, whose members have supported the ndl program, many other library outreach programs, and acquisitions for the libraryâs collections. in 200
1929_births Alumni_of_Balliol_College,_Oxford American_Rhodes_Scholars Commandeurs_of_the_Ordre_des_Arts_et_des_Lettres Fellows_of_the_American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Sciences Foreign_Members_of_the_Russian_Academy_of_Sciences Guggenheim_Fellows Harvard_University_faculty Historians_of_Russia Knight_Commanders_of_the_Order_of_Merit_of_the_Federal_Republic_of_Germany Librarians_of_Congress Living_people People_from_Philadelphia,_Pennsylvania Presidential_Citizens_Medal_recipients Princeton_University_alumni Princeton_University_faculty Recipients_of_the_Grand_Order_of_Mugunghwa_(South_Korea) Recipients_of_the_Order_of_Merit_of_the_Italian_Republic Recipients_of_the_Order_of_the_Southern_Cross