I received an email last night telling me that Mary Jane Anderson had died.
When I first was elected to ALA Council, Mary Jane served as a wonderful and thoughtful mentor. She was very active on the PUBLIB discussion list, and served on the Resolutions Committee of Council. While we did not always agree on a topic, one of the wonderful things that Mary Jane did for me was to make me re-write my resolutions to: be grammatical; be clear about what I wanted to say; be clear about what ALA was to do. She was a great mentor!
I am convinced that I have been successful in ALA politics because of the early lessons I learned from Mary Jane. I've been thinking about her since Midwinter where I heard that her health was not good. I will miss her. I do miss her.
Karen Schneider has a wonderful post about Mary Jane and her response to criticism from John N. Berry III in a Library Journal editorial. Go read either the PUBLIB archive or Karen's post. Look at what Mary Jane says about the changes in how we communicate. I have to believe that if her physical health had not slowed her, she would have been blogging with us!
Rest in peace, my friend.
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