Thomas Dousa, U of Chicago

Cammeron Girvin joined the Library of Congress as a library technician in the Southeast Europe Section in April 2017. He holds a BA in Linguistics and Slavic Studies from the University of Virginia and a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Berkeley, which he earned in 2016. Cammeron’s academic interests are grounded in linguistics and folklore, primarily South Slavic. At Berkeley, he completed a designated emphasis program in Folklore and worked as a student librarian in the Slavic Library. He also served as project design coordinator for the Bulgarian Dialectology as Living Tradition database project, with which he maintains a consulting position. Cammeron is currently editor of the online journal of the Bulgarian Studies Association. In his new position at the Library of Congress, he is responsible for cataloging and acquisitions for the South Slavic countries. (Cammeron Girvin, Library of Congress)

Diana Greene retired from her position at New York University’s Bobst Library in June 2017, where she had served as Slavic Studies Librarian for the last 21 years. Diane came to the Bobst Library with a BA from Vassar; an MA and PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Columbia, and an MLIS from the University of Rhode Island. Prior to her appointment at the Bobst Library, she taught English in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Virginia and Manhattan College, as well as women’s studies at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh. As a librarian, Diana was active both as a subject specialist in Slavic studies and as an original cataloger contributing to the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, as well as on various committees for AAASS and the Association for Women in Slavic Studies. Throughout her career, Diana has maintained a strong research interest in Russian literature with a particular focus on Russian women writers. She is the author or co-author of three books on Russian literature – Insidious Intent: An Interpretation of Fedor Sologub’s The Petty Demon (1986), Women Writers in Russian Literature, with Toby Clyman (1994), and Reinventing Romantic Poetry: Russian Women Poets of the Mid-Nineteenth Century (2004; Russian edition, 2008) – as well as articles on various phases of the subject and an online registry of Slavic women writers in translation available at the website of the Association for Women in Slavic Studies. Her current research is focused on 19th century Russian women’s novels. (Diana Greene, NYU)

Inna Gudanets, Metadata Specialist and Slavic Catalog Librarian, retired from Stanford University Library in April 2016. Inna was born in Karaganda (Kazakhstan), the middle child in the family of a Soviet military officer. When she was nine years old, her family moved to Minsk, Belarus. Inna was a straight-A student, loved to read, and often wrote poetry and short stories. She also loved the arts and learning new languages. After graduating from high school in Minsk she had to decide whether to pursue a writing career, become a librarian or to be a linguist. Her love for books won, and she applied to the Department of Library Science and Bibliography of the Minsk Pedagogical University. After graduation Inna worked as a Cataloging Librarian at the Minsk Public Library and later at the Belarus National Library. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Inna, her husband, and their three children decided to immigrate to the United States. On November 19th, 1990, she started her first job as a Library Specialist in the Preservation Department at the Stanford University Libraries. Six months later, she was appointed as the Slavic Catalog Librarian at Stanford University Libraries, a position she held for 26 years. During these years Inna contributed significantly to the profession, being an invaluable member of the Stanford Cataloging Department, and serving on different committees for the AAASS (later ASEEES), ACRL SEES and ALA. Inna was one of the best Slavic catalogers in the country, and her expertise and willingness to help were always much appreciated by both her peers and supervisors. She loved what she did: as she put it: “I consider myself very fortunate to have worked at Stanford and to do what I loved, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I had the greatest colleagues and met many wonderful people and made many of the dearest friends across the country and abroad. I was always active in librarianship and Slavic librarianship throughout the years. I have no regrets in becoming a librarian. I will cherish great memories for the rest of my life.” In retirement, Inna is spending more time with her three children and five grandchildren, but she also stays in touch with her colleagues, and is sincerely interested in what is going on in the profession. (Larisa Walsh, Chicago)

Tara E. Murray became Librarian for German and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the Penn State University Libraries in the beginning of 2018. Tara holds a BA in German Studies from Bard College and an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to taking on her current position, she served as information core director at the Population Research Institute at Penn State (2001-2010) and Director of Information Services and librarian for the American Philatelic Society in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania (2010-2017), where she managed the 85,000-volume American Philatelic Research Library. A member of the editorial committee of the Journal of Library Administration, she has published a number of articles on special library management and on the American Philatelic Society’s archives. (Tara E. Murray, Penn State)

Kenneth Nyirady was appointed as Head of the European Reading Room, Library of Congress, in March 2018. Ken has served since 1990 in the European Division as a reference specialist. Previous to that, he worked from 1983 to 1990 in the Library’s Federal Research Division, first as a translator of Hungarian- and Russian-language materials, then as a research analyst, using the Library’s collections to write studies for executive-branch agencies. He earned a BA, cum laude, in History and Secondary Education from Atlantic Union College; an MA in Russian History from State University of New York at Binghamton; and an MPhil from Columbia in Uralic Studies. Ken serves as the recommending officer for Hungarian and related languages in Russia (e.g., Komi) and assists with Russian-language acquisitions. He has received numerous awards at the Library, including for his work on a team testing the Voyager Integrated Library System before it first went online in 1999, for chairing working groups on Web archiving, and as the European Division’s Webmaster. Ken has authored numerous articles or chapters concerning the Library’s Hungarian collections and other topics, and has given numerous presentations, especially at conferences of the American Hungarian Educators’ Association and the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies. His responsibilities will concern both reference and collections maintenance. (Grant G. Harris, Library of Congress)

Hana Pyro retired from her position as Slavic Librarian at the Harvard College Library at the end of May 2017. A native of Prague, Hana studied Russian literature and language with a minor in art at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. Her studies were interrupted by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, in the wake of which her family immigrated to the United States. She earned an MA in Slavic languages and literatures from Harvard University, where she also worked in the Widener Library as a student worker. After a hiatus to raise her family, she returned to the Slavic Division of the Widener Library in 1983 as a library assistant. She obtained her MLS from Simmons College in 1990 and shortly thereafter became cataloger in the Slavic Division. In 2003, she was promoted to Slavic Librarian, a position that involved collection building, cataloging, and public service. Over the course of her tenure in this position, Hana was responsible for collecting materials in Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, and Macedonian, as well as in her native Czech and Slovak. In her valedictory message to Slavlibs, she reminisced about her career in the following terms: “Like the FFUK, my alma mater in 1960’s Prague, the genius loci of Widener Library is a feeling that will stay with me forever -- the Widener Library, where I worked on the first machine-readable shelf list as a student over 34 years ago, where I cataloged my first books in Russian, struggled to find vendors in the war-torn states of former Yugoslavia, and where I finally began building the South Slavic, Czech and Slovak collections.” (Hana Pyro, Harvard)

Alla Roylance took up the position of Russian and Slavic Studies Librarian at NYU’s Bobst Library in March 2018. A native of Russia, Alla holds a master’s degree in journalism from Saint Petersburg State University and an MLIS and advanced certificate in archives from the Pratt Institute in New York. Before coming to NYU, she was at the Brooklyn Public Library, where she worked as a librarian at the Multilingual Center (1995-2013) and at the Brooklyn Collection, a special collection/archive dedicated to the history of Brooklyn (from 2013). During her time at the BPL, Alla also curated ten seasons (2007-2017) of Russian-language and film programs for the public. Fluent in Polish as well as her native Russian, she has contributed translations of Polish texts to various publications. Her interests include the cultural history of Soviet emigration and the history of political dissent. (Alla Roylance, NYU)

In Memoriam

Joseph D. Dwyer, longtime Slavic bibliographer and curator at the Hoover Institution passed away in Asheville, North Carolina, on July 14, 2017. Dwyer was born in Chicago Heights, Illinois, on April 4, 1942 and grew up in North Minneapolis, attending St. Anne’s Catholic School and North High School. He studied at the University of Minnesota, earning his BA in Russian and geography in 1964, followed two years later by an MA in library science and Soviet studies. Very early Joe evinced a great ability and passion to master foreign languages. He learned German from his live-in grandmother. He also picked up a little Polish and other foreign words with the help of childhood friends from immigrant families. While in a Roman Catholic high school in Minneapolis he completed coursework in Latin, Spanish, German, and French, in addition to studying Persian with the help of an Iranian immigrant-friend whom he taught English. During his university studies, besides Russian, he enrolled in an intensive Chinese summer course at the University of Southern California. Later, while already working, he took classes in Lithuanian, Latvian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Bulgarian, as well as Persian. After completing his studies at the University of Minnesota, Dwyer accepted a position as a cataloger in the library of St. Cloud State College in Minnesota. A year later Dwyer moved to the University of Pennsylvania, where he accepted the position of Slavic bibliographer. After three years in Pennsylvania, Joseph Dwyer took a year’s leave to help organize and direct the American-style library at Pahlavi University in Shiraz, Iran. He returned to Pennsylvania in 1971, only to move again two years later to a curatorial appointment at the newly founded Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) at the University of Minnesota. He remained at the IHRC for five years, until recruited by the Hoover Institution in 1978. At Hoover he was, successively, Slavic bibliographer, deputy curator of the Soviet and East European Collection, and curator of the Russian Collection, after succeeding Robert Conquest in 2002. He retired in 2007, and moved to Asheville, North Carolina, to be closer to his family. During his many years at Hoover, Dwyer traveled and lectured extensively within his curatorial region as well as developed important émigré contacts in the United States and Western Europe, which resulted in the acquisition of many important East European and Soviet-Russian archival collections and ephemeral publications. It was through Joseph Dwyer’s efforts that Hoover’s outstanding collections of East European and Russian underground and independent publications began. He represented the Hoover Institution on various regional, national, and international Slavic and East European cooperative project committees and advisory boards. As an editor, compiler, or author, Dwyer published more than fifty articles, guides to collections, chapters, book reviews, and notes in the Slavic and East European library and archival field. Among his book-length publications, Russia, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: A Survey of Holdings at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, which completed the work began by Witold Sworakowski, was the most important guide to the subject for many years after its 1980 release by the Hoover Press. A tribute to Joseph Dwyer’s extensive knowledge, intellectual flexibility, and collegiality was his participation in Hoover’s flagship publication, Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, in which he covered Iranian affairs in consecutive volumes for 1981 through 1984. (Maciej Siekierski, Hoover Institution; Edward Kasinec, Columbia)

Mark Kulikowski, professor of history at the State University of New York, Oswego, died at the age of 63 on January 14, 2018. Mark did his undergraduate studies at State University at Binghamton and went on to earn a doctorate at the same institution in 1982 with a dissertation on Rasputin. In that same year, he began teaching at SUNY, Oswego, where he would remain for the remainder of his career. His specialty was Russian and Eastern European history: he was, by all accounts, a well-liked and popular teacher. Throughout his career, Mark was especially interested in bibliography and libraries. As a student, he was a regular visitor to the UIUC Summer Research Lab. In 1989, he published a major bibliography of Slavic mythology and, for almost 25 years, volunteered as a contributing editor to the American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies (ABSEES), as well as contributing numerous book reviews and bibliographic articles to journals such as Solanus and SEEIR on subjects of interest to him, such as the Russian emigration and Polish-American studies. At Oswego, Mark sat on the Campus-Wide Library Committee for a number of years. He also collected rare books and émigré publications, many of which he donated to a number of American research libraries including the Library of Congress, the University of Chicago Library, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Mark will be greatly missed as a colleague and friend, and his passing is a loss for the study and bibliography of the Russian emigration and for the libraries to which he so generously donated materials. (Harold M. Leich, Library of Congress)

David Dean Oberhelman, W.P. Professor of Library Service at the Edmon Low Library at Oklahoma State University, passed away in Stillwater, Oklahoma on January 25, 2018. Born in Lubbock, Texas on June 1, 1965, David did his undergraduate studies in English at Rice University, graduating summa cum laude in 1987; earned a doctorate in English from the UC, Irvine in 1993; and went on to receive an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh in 1997. He worked at the Edmon Low Library from 1999. An active member of the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Modern Language Association, Mythopoeic Society, and the Popular Culture Association, he wrote over one hundred scholarly publications on literary and library themes, and was a frequent presenter at library conferences. Among his many activities within ALA, he was most recently the Co-Chair of the ACRL European Studies Section (ESS) 2018 Conference Planning Committee with Joseph Lenkart. (Kristen Totenleben, University of Rochester)

Helen Smirensky, longtime cataloger at the State University of New York (SUNY) Albany and the State Library of New York, died on December 10, 2017. Helen was born on November 3, 1933 in Prague, the daughter of Michael and Elizabeth Kefeli. Her family left Czechoslovakia shortly before the Communist takeover in 1948 and lived in several displaced persons camps in Germany before coming to the United States under the sponsorship of the Tolstoy Foundation in November 1949, settling in Nyack, New York. Helen attended Barnard College, earning an undergraduate degree in Russian Regional Studies in 1957. After working as a librarian for a number of years, she earned an MLS in 1985 from SUNY Albany’s School of Library Science, where she was also inducted into the Beta Phi Mu International Library and Information Studies Honor Society. She worked as a cataloger at SUNY Albany and at the New York State Library, serving as the latter institution’s representative to the CONSER Operations Committee for many years. Helen retired as senior librarian in 1996. Helen’s favorite hobbies were reading and knitting afghans, many of which she donated to charities. She was married for fifty-nine years to Alvian Smirensky, an archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church: a devoted couple, they died within hours of each other and are buried together at New Skete Monastery. (Carol H. Jewell)

Jiří Vacek, literary historian, librarian, and Slavic scholar died in Prague on June 17, 2017. Dr. Vacek was born on September 29, 1939 in Havlíčkův Brod and was a graduate of the University of Russian Language and Literature in Prague, where he specialized in Russian language translation studies. He later took a special librarian retraining course. Most of his professional career was associated with the Slavonic Library in Prague, a section of the National Library of the Czech Republic. He worked in the Slavonic Library from 1964 until shortly before his death, serving as director from 1978 to 1992. During his long career, Dr. Vacek became a respected authority on the history of Slavistics and Slavic literatures. He was well-known among scholars for his expertise in East Slavic literatures, and Russian and Ukrainian emigration to Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1945. This interest was undoubtedly motivated, inter alia, by his friendship with some remarkable figures of this wave of emigration. For some time, for instance, he shared his office with Ivan Savitsky, son of the famous thinker Petr Nikolaevich Savitsky. He enjoyed a long friendship with the writer Konstantin Aleksandrovich Chkheidze, whose texts he translated into Czech, and maintained long-term correspondence with many others. Dr. Vacek was renowned for his phenomenal memory and deep knowledge of the Slavonic Library's holdings, and his recent memoirs, Slovanská knihovna, můj osud [The Slavonic Library, My Destiny] (Praha, 2016), presents a unique account of the story of the Slavonic Library over the past half century. He also had a profound knowledge of the history of Czech literature and culture. Throughout his life, he was devoted to studying the fates of forgotten representatives of science and culture from his native region of Havlíčkův Brod and the town of Polná on the border of Bohemia and Moravia. Vacek’s private library and the extensive collection of his correspondence have been deposited in the Slavonic Library. (Lukáš Babka, National Library of the Czech Republic)