Sydney B. Mitchell

Sydney Bancroft Mitchell (June 24, 1878 – September 22, 1951) was a Canadian librarian, teacher and gardener, though he spent most of his career in the United States. He was named one of the one hundred most important leaders in Library Science by the American Libraries journal in 1999.

Sydney Mitchell was much more than a librarian and more than the founder of one of the first Masters in Library Science degree programs in the early part of the twentieth century. His love of his hobby, gardening, motivated him to advocate the importance of not focusing only on one’s career. He is remembered in the field of horticulture just as much as in the profession of librarianship.