A death

Jan Merrill-Oldham died peacefully at her home in Cambridge,
Massachusetts on October 5, 2011. Jan was an inspiring colleague,
mentor, and friend to so many of us in preservation and
conservation. She will be deeply missed. Below is an excerpt from
her obituary.

As the Malloy-Rabinowitz Preservation Librarian at Harvard
University, Jan directed the Weissman Preservation Center in the
Harvard University Library and the Preservation and Imaging Services
Department in the Harvard College Library from November 1995 to
February 2010. She created and administered a comprehensive program
to preserve and enhance access to the 16.5 million volumes and
extensive special collections and archives held in Harvard's more
than 70 libraries.

Jan became interested in the preservation of library collections
while working in the bindery at the University of Connecticut
Library. In 1979, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship
at the Yale University Library allowed Jan to undertake formal
training in library and archives preservation. She went on to earn a
Masters in Library Science from the University of Rhode Island and
to establish the University of Connecticut Libraries' Preservation
Department.

Over the course of 30 years, Jan became a recognized national and
international leader in the field of library and archives
preservation. Eager to learn and insatiably curious, she was an
extraordinary teacher, mentor, author and administrator. Early on,
her vision for libraries led her to move beyond the work of simply
preserving collections to reformatting them for access via the
Internet. Jan exercised her formidable powers of persuasion with
university administrators, commercial suppliers, and by serving on
key committees within the American Library Association (ALA), the
Association of Research Libraries, the Council on Library and
Information Resources, the National Information Standards
Organization and many others. She authored and edited more than 40
publications.

Jan's powerful influence within her profession was widely
recognized. In 2011, the Association of Collections and Technical
Services (ALCTS) and the Preservation and Reformatting Section
(PARS) of ALA created a professional development grant in her honor.
She also received the ALA/ALCTS Ross Atkinson Lifetime Achievement
Award (2011), the ALA/PARS Banks Harris Award (1994), a University
of Connecticut Distinguished Service Award (1994) and the ALA/PARS
Esther Piercy Award (1990).

Jan was one of those rare people who not only changed her profession
but also the lives of the many family members, friends and
colleagues who came to love and respect her. She is survived by her
husband Peter Merrill-Oldham of Cambridge, her mother and father,
Alice Cecarelli Merrill and James Hershy Merrill of Milford, CT, and
her brother James Wallace Merrill of West Haven, CT.

Donations in Jan's memory may be made to the Circle of Caring at
Hospice of the Good Shepherd

    <URL:http://www.hospicegoodshepherd.org>

Brenda Bernier
Acting Head
Weissman Preservation Center
Harvard University Library
90 Mt. Auburn Street
Cambridge MA 02138


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 25:18
                  Distributed: Friday, October 7, 2011
                       Message Id: cdl-25-18-001
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