The Joseph W. Lippincott Award was established in 1938 by publisher Joseph Wharton Lippincott and is now awarded by the American Library Association.
It is presented annually to a librarian for distinguished service to the profession of librarianship, such service to include outstanding participation in the activities of the professional library association, notable published professional writing, or other significant activity on behalf of the profession and its aims.
It is named for its founder, publisher Joseph Wharton Lippincott, past president and chairman of the board of J. B. Lippincott Company. His son, Joseph Wharton Lippincott, Jr., who also led the Philadelphia publishing company and was a chair of National Library Week, regularly attended the annual conference of the American Library Association to present the award. It is now presented by his grandson, Joseph Wharton Lippincott III, who was the fifth generation of the Lippincott family at J. B. Lippincott Company and led its successors, Lippincott-Raven Publishers and Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
Joseph W. Lippincott Award American Library Association.