Mary Niles Maack (1945-2023)

Professor Maack was known for her scholarship on international comparative librarianship, the history of the book and women’s history. She achieved her life’s goal of becoming a tenured professor at the University of Minnesota and then UCLA, and continued teaching and writing well into retirement. She loved France and did notable work there, serving as a Fulbright Professor at the French National Library School in Villeurbanne and winning multiple competitive grants to do research at the Bibliotheque Nationale, one of her favorite places.

Across her career, Mary had the opportunity to lecture or consult in fourteen countries, including Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, France, Canada, Russia and Germany. She published important books on the history of libraries and archives in Senegal (Libraries in Senegal), women in librarianship (Aspirations in Mentoring in an Academic Environment) and women’s history (Anne Morgan: Photography, Philanthropy and Advocacy). She wrote numerous articles and essays, co-edited the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, and played important roles in the Library History Roundtable of the American Library Association, the International Federation of Library Associations, and as head of the California Center for the Book.

Read about Mary Maack’s life here.