Mudge, Isadore Gilbert (1875–1957)

US librarian and bibliographer. Mudge is credited with virtually creating modern US academic and reference library services. She edited four editions of the Guide to Reference Works (1917, 1923, 1929, 1936), reviewed reference works for the Library Journal, and wrote numerous articles, book reviews, and scholarly bibliographies.

Mudge was born in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from Cornell, she took a degree in library science at the leading school, the New York State Library School in Albany, New York (1900). She was a librarian at the University of Illinois: Urbana and Bryn Mawr, and after a trip to Europe in 1907–08, she held part-time posts until she became the head reference librarian at Columbia University (1911–41). Over the years she also taught at the library schools of Simmons College (1910–11), the New York Public Library, and Columbia University (1926–42).