Obituaries
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Karl Sanford Kabelac, 79, who held several positions in the special collections department at University of Rochester’s (N.Y.) Rush Rees Library between 1968 and 1998, died October 22. During his career and in retirement, Kabelac published articles and compiled several bibliographies and indexes on local history and served as chair of the Rochester Regional Library Council’s Local History Committee.
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Margaret “Margo” L. Crist, retired director of W. E. B. Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, died December 15. As director, she installed the first public computers for internet research at the library. Prior to joining UMass, she served as assistant director of libraries at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, assistant director of Boston Public Library (BPL), regional administrator for the Central and Western Massachusetts Resource Sharing Network, and research and branch librarian at BPL’s Charlestown branch. Crist served on many committees across the Association of Research Libraries and ALA and was previously on ALA’s Executive Board.
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Jane (Han-Jun) Cheng, 89, senior East Asian catalog librarian at Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City for 28 years until her 2010 retirement, died November 5. She had also served as a librarian at Upper Arlington (Ohio) Public Library and taught Mandarin as an adjunct instructor at University of Missouri–Kansas City.
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Jean L. Connor, 102, who served as reference librarian for several public libraries and as an administrator in library development for the New York State Education Department, died November 9. She received a citation for reference librarianship from the American Library Association’s (ALA) Reference and Adult Services division. Connor also published two books of poetry, A Cartography of Peace and A Hinge of Joy.
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Kenya S. Flash, 41, who was librarian for political science, global affairs, government information, and the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration program at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, died December 24. She previously worked as an academic librarian at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Flash was active in the residency program of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Diversity Alliance.
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Lorrita E. Ford, 72, who retired as director of library and learning services at the College of San Mateo in California in 2016, died September 19. She had also worked at Oakland (Calif.) Public Library’s Dimond branch and Diablo Valley College in Contra Costa County, California.
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Patricia “Pat” E. Gallagher, 67, who served as a librarian with the National Library of Medicine before her 2021 retirement, died December 1. She also worked for 15 years as a user services librarian at New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) and was elected by her peers as a NYAM fellow. She was active in the professional group Librarians, Archivists, and Museum Professionals in the History of Health Sciences.
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Mandy Havert, 51, graduate outreach and research services librarian at University of Notre Dame’s (Ind.) Hesburgh Libraries, died October 21. She had worked at Hesburgh in various positions for 24 years and developed the popular Thesis and Dissertation Camps program for graduate students. She also served in leadership and committee roles at ALA, ACRL, the Academic Libraries of Indiana, the Indiana Library Federation, and the American Educational Research Association, and served as a volunteer for the Westville (Ind.) Education Initiative.
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William L. Joyce, 79, Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair for Special Collections and head of special collections at Penn State University in University Park from 2000 to 2010, died June 6. He had previously worked at University of Michigan’s Clements Library in Ann Arbor; the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts; New York Public Library; and Princeton (N.J.) University Library. Joyce also served on the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board (1994–1998). In retirement, he created the Organization of American Historians’ John Higham Research Fellowship to support graduate students writing dissertations in American history and the William L. and Carol B. Joyce Historical Collections and Labor Archives Program Endowment at Penn State University Libraries.
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Bruce D. Bonta, 80, head of reference at Penn State University’s Pattee Library in University Park for several decades, died September 27. He had also worked at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and Colby College Libraries in Waterville, Maine. Bonta coedited The Role of the American Academic Library in International Programs, which led to committee work for the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and wrote Peaceful Peoples: An Annotated Bibliography. As an independent peace scholar, he produced several literature surveys and founded the Peaceful Societies website now maintained by University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s Department of Peace and Conflict Studies.
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William “Bill” J. Studer, 85, director of Ohio State University (OSU) Libraries for 22 years until his 1999 retirement, died October 14. Under his leadership, OSU added significantly to its archives and special collections. He advocated for the renovation of the Thompson Library, a project the university committed to at his retirement and completed in 2009. Studer was also a founder of the network of academic libraries that became OhioLINK.
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Saul Amdursky, 76, longtime director of Kalamazoo (Mich.) Public Library (KPL), died July 30. He oversaw the renovation of all KPL branches in the 1990s. Amdursky later served at libraries in British Columbia and Iowa.