Obituaries
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Michael D. Toman, 73, adult services librarian at South Pasadena (Calif.) Public Library from 1995 until his 2015 retirement, died September 2.
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Betty-Carol Sellen, 89, who held positions at the City University of New York (CUNY) Brooklyn College Library from 1964 until her retirement in 1990, died November 26. She had previously served at Brooklyn Public Library from 1959 to 1960 and University of Washington Law Library in Seattle from 1960 to 1963. She was a founder of ALA’s Social Responsibilities Round Table and its Feminist Task Force, chaired the Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship, and helped organize an ALA preconference on the Status of Women in Librarianship in 1974. In 1990, Sellen received the ALA Equality Award. Her numerous publications included The Librarian’s Cookbook and What Else You Can Do with a Library Degree.
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George Needham, 68, retired director of Delaware County (Ohio) District Library, died November 28. Needham also served as state librarian of Michigan, executive director of ALA’s Public Library Association, vice president of OCLC, and director of Fairfield County (Ohio) District Library. He received the Ohio Library Council’s Hall of Fame Librarian award in 2022.
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Carole J. McCollough, 86, retired associate professor and dean of the library and information science program at Wayne State University in Detroit, died December 1. With the Children’s Defense Fund, McCollough conducted workshops for college interns training to run summer literacy (Freedom School) programs. She was chair of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Task Force from 2000 to 2004, chaired the Coretta Scott King Book Award jury six times, and coedited two editions of The Coretta Scott King Awards, including the 50th anniversary edition published in 2019. McCollough also served on the boards of Southfield (Mich.) Public Library and Langston Hughes Library in Clinton, Tennessee.
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James Kyed, 86, retired librarian at Harvard University Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund Records Center for the New England region, died November 30. Kyed had previously worked at the engineering libraries at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge for 20 years—including 13 years as head librarian—and Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. In retirement, he was a trustee for Truro Public Library in North Truro, Massachusetts, and chair of its endowment fund.
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Beatrice Johnson, 96, the first Black librarian in the School District of Philadelphia, died August 21. She began as a teacher at Martha Washington Elementary School and later earned an MLS from Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1972. She served as librarian until her retirement in 1993.
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Adonna “Donna” Fleming, retired GIS map science librarian and head of the math and geology libraries at University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL), died November 25. Prior to joining UNL, she had been a librarian at Washington State University in Pullman and University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. She researched and published extensively in the geology and library science fields, receiving the Best Paper Award from the Geoscience Information Society in 2013.
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Ronald Blazek, 87, professor emeritus at Florida State University School of Information in Tallahassee, died December 8. Blazek wrote dozens of articles and reviews, and authored or coauthored 10 books, including widely used textbooks on the humanities and US history. Blazek received the 1986 Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award, and several of his books appeared on Choice Outstanding Academic Titles lists.
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Ellen Altman, 87, a retired faculty member of the library schools at University of Kentucky in Lexington, University of Toronto in Ontario, and Indiana University Bloomington, died September 14. Altman was director of the library school at University of Arizona in Tucson from 1979 to 1985. She served as feature editor of Public Libraries from 1993 to 1999 and coauthored eight books, including Assessing Service Quality, which won the Highsmith Library Literature Award in 1999. She also served as ALA councilor from 1980 to 1984, and held numerous ALA committee assignments.
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David E. Williamson, 78, who served on the Marion (Ohio) Public Library Board of Trustees for 38 years, died October 3.
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Susan Patron, 75, a children’s book author and longtime librarian at Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL), died October 24. Patron’s novel The Higher Power of Lucky won the Newbery Medal in 2007. She joined LAPL as a children’s librarian in 1972 and rose through the ranks before retiring in 2007 as senior children’s librarian and juvenile materials collection development manager. While at LAPL, she launched STORY: Seniors Taking the Opportunity to Reach Youth, a program that recruited older adults to learn storytelling techniques. She was an active ALA member, serving on several children’s book award committees, among others. She was also a member of the board of advisors for Los Angeles PBS affiliate KCET-TV’s Storytime.
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Hazel T. Nimmo, 98, a retired English teacher and former head librarian at Camden (N.J.) High School, died June 12. She led the school’s library for more than two decades until her 1987 retirement.