[7] Mary Wright Plummer, who was a graduate of Melvil Dewey’s class of 1888 from Columbia University, led it.

[8] In 1911 when Plummer left to direct the Training School at New York Public Library, Josephine Adams Rathbone was appointed vice-director.

Notable alumni from this early period include Anne Carroll Moore, who was a student of Mary Wright Plummer, and became a faculty member and the first children’s librarian at New York Public Library, serving in that position for 35 years (1906–1941).

[3][9][10] Another notable student from this period is Mary Elizabeth Wood, who promoted the development of libraries in China and established the first program in that country to train librarians.

[3] Notable figures from the twentieth century include Nasser Sharify, who worked to develop the field of international librarianship as dean and professor from 1968 to 1987.

“This action went far beyond a mere change in nomenclature,” Dean Sharify wrote in his 1978 history of the school.

In need of more space for computer labs, GSLIS moved from the library on the Brooklyn campus to its own building, the Information Science Center (ISC), in 1974.