Cornelia Marvin Pierce (then Cornelia Marvin) served as head of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission Summer School of Library Training during the summers of 1897 and 1898. In 1899 she became a full-time employee of the Wisconsin Library Commission as library instructor and director of the Summer School of Library Training. It was due largely to the success of the summer training sessions that the Commission established a permanent library school that is now the School of Library and Information Studies of the University of Wisconsin – Madison. In 1905 she left Wisconsin to become the first secretary of the Oregon Library Commission which became the Oregon State Library in 1913. She served as Oregon State Librarian until 1928. She married Walter M. Pierce in 1928. She is listed in the Dictionary of American Library Biography. She was included on the National Advocacy Honor Roll by the American Library Association in 2000 for her contribution as an advocate for library services in the 20th century.  Pierce was inducted into the Wisconsin Library Hall of Fame on October 25, 2012.

Further reading: Brisley, Melissa Ann. "Cornelia Marvin Pierce: Pioneer In Library Extension" The Library Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 3, April 1968: 125-153.