Obituaries
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November 25 Sylvia Royt, a retired former ALA staff member, died. She was employed from 1969 to 1984 in ALA Publishing. Her last position was that of rights and permissions editor.
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October 29 Catherine Romanelli, 87, former director of Sachem Public Library in Holbrook, New York, died.
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November 14 Dena Epstein, 96, former assistant music librarian at the University of Chicago, died. Epstein documented the history of black American music, including the African origin of the banjo. She was president of the Music Library Association from 1977 to 1979.
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December 1 Lorna Donley, 53, librarian and former archival specialist at the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago, died. Donley was a member of the post-punk band DA! in the early 1980s.
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November 22 Ardath A. Danford, 83, former director of the Toledo–Lucas County (Ohio) Public Library, died.
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October 19 Miriam “Mimi” Chapman, librarian at the Ypsilanti (Mich.) District Library, died. In her 33 years of service at the library, she served as an adult services librarian, branch manager, interim director, and head of acquisitions.
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Edward Supplee Terry Jr., 77, former head science librarian for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a decades-long stalwart of Baltimore’s Arena Players, died July 1 of leukemia.
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Francis X. Scannell, 95, former Michigan State Librarian, died on June 17. At the time of his appointment in 1968, Scannell was the head of Michigan State University’s reference department. He also worked as head of reader services at the Michigan State Library (Library of Michigan) from 1953 to 1965. Scannell led the state library through major changes, including significant austerity measures due to cuts in federal and state funding and a controversial new reorganization of library services around the state into a system of regional cooperatives. Scannell resigned as Michigan’s State Librarian in 1983, having worked at the state library for a total of 27 years.
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William C. Highfill, 77, dean of libraries at Auburn University from 1973 to 1995, died July 10. Highfill led Auburn University Libraries through a period of unprecedented expansion. Under his guidance the library collection tripled in size and the Ralph Brown Draughon Library more than doubled in size through an expansion completed in 1991. He was a founding member of the Network of Alabama Academic Libraries and the Southeastern Library Network. In addition, he served in leadership roles within ALA and several other professional organizations. Prior to Auburn he served as the director of libraries at East Texas State University.
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Lorna Daniells, 94, died June 11. Daniells was a prominent research librarian who worked at Harvard Business School (HBS)’s Baker Library from 1946 until her retirement in 1985. During her nearly 40 years at HBS, she served as chair of the library’s reference department from 1970 to 1974, head of the department from 1974 to 1979, and as bibliographer from 1979 to 1985. In 1978, Daniells published a book titled Business Information Sources, which for many years was the leading comprehensive financial information source guide for universities and business leaders across the country.
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Toni Benson, 50, local history librarian at the Van Buren District Library in Decatur, Michigan, died July 5 of cancer.
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Thomas Adner Souter Jr., 82, who retired as associate director of libraries of Virginia Tech in 1995, died May 6. Professor emeritus of library science at Troy (Ala.) University Library, Souter began his library career at Florida State University and went on to serve as assistant director for general services at Indiana University Libraries in Bloomington and head librarian at New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell.