Obituaries
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Olga Nadia Pobutsky, a librarian for many years in the Detroit Public Library system, died March 19.
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Elaine Ciarkowski, 84, director of the Medical Library and Information Resource Center at the Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale from 1991 to her retirement in 1997, died January 20. From 1970 to 1990, she served as assistant librarian for user services at Harvard University’s Francis Countway Library of Medicine in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Helen Naomi Taliaferro, 92, who served as chief of the Reader Services Division at the Air University Library at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, from 1982 until her 1994 retirement, died February 23. She had previously worked for many years as command librarian for the United States Air Force Military Airlift Command at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. After her retirement, she made significant donations to library school scholarships, ultimately establishing a scholarship endowment fund at Texas Woman’s University, her alma mater, in 2008.
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December 12 Grace S. Rand, 94, former librarian at Hernwood Elementary School in Randallstown, Maryland, died.
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November 28 Iona Rabjohns, 90, former chief of language and literature at Detroit Public Library, died.
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December 2 Frances (Fran) H. Pletz, 93, former executive director of the Michigan Library Association (MLA), died. In 1978, MLA established the Frances H. Pletz Award in honor of her exemplary library service to teens in the state.
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January 26 Edith B. Nettleton, 105, former director of the Guilford (Conn.) Free Library, died. She retired in 1978 after 44 years as the library’s first director, but continued to volunteer for another 36 years until December 2013, developing historical and digital archives for the library’s Historical Room collection. The room was named the Edith B. Nettleton Historical Room in her honor 10 years ago.
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December 18 Dorothy S. Myers, 87, former chief librarian at the Page branch of the San Francisco Public Library, died.
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December 30 Christopher Maloney, 45, director of the Ocean City (N.J.) Free Public Library, died.
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December 31 Alice Gene “Aggie” Lewis, 84, former director of the Daviess County (Ky.) Public Library, died.
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December 20 Ann Koopman, 58, librarian at the Scott Memorial Library at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, died.
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December 24 Sara Jaffarian, 98, former coordinator of instructional materials and services for the Lexington (Mass.) Public Schools, died. She previously served as librarian for the Quincy (Mass.) Public Schools, director of libraries at Greensboro (N.C.) Public Schools, and supervisor of libraries for the Seattle Public Schools. ALA’s namesake award recognizes her endowment to honor exemplary humanities programming in school libraries.