"Norman D. Stevens is arguably the world's greatest collector of librariana. " --Larry T. Nix-The Library History Buff.
Norman D. Stevens (1932-2018)
"Norman D. Stevens is arguably the world's greatest collector of librariana. "
Larry T. Nix-The Library History Buff.
Norman D. Stevens, 86, of Storrs, former director of University Libraries, died on Dec. 15, 2018.
Born (1931) and raised in Nashua, New Hampshire, Stevens began his library career in 1949. He worked at the Library of Congress while attending American University part-time.
He received his bachelor's degree in government from the University of New Hampshire in 1954, and spent a year at Victoria University College in New Zealand as a Fulbright Scholar.
He received a master's in library service from Rutgers University in 1957, and received their first Ph.D. in Library Service in 1961. In 1989, he received the university's Distinguished Alumni Award.
Dr. Stevens worked at Rutgers University Library from 1955 to 1957 and was acting director of Howard University Libraries in Washington, D.C., from 1961 to 1963. He was a member of the administrative staff of the Rutgers University Libraries from 1963 to 1968.
He started at the University of Connecticut in 1968, where he held various administrative positions before being appointed as director of University Libraries. He was honored as director of University Libraries, emeritus in 1994, upon his retirement. He served as acting director of the newly created Thomas J. Dodd Research Center until 1995.
Stevens was an early advocate of computer technology in libraries for data management, shared cataloging, and research applications.
He served on the board of the New England Library Information Network and was president of the board from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. He was a member and chair of the board of the Connecticut Library Information Network during its formative years and oversaw the UConn Libraries participation in OCLC: Online Computer Library Center.
He participated in planning and implementing UConn's Homer Babbidge Library from 1975 to 1978, the largest new university research library building in the nation at that time. He also oversaw the renovation of that building in the 1990s. He directed the planning and construction of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and the Music Library and also was involved in the early planning to improve library facilities at the University's regional campuses.
Stevens, as administrator, was active in establishing and developing the Northeast Children's Literature Collection in the Dodd Research Center, now among the nation's major collections of books, original art, and manuscripts from distinguished children's authors and illustrators. He was an active member of the American Book Collectors of Children's Literature, and served as president.
As a member of the University Libraries Exhibits Committee, Norman organized dozens of art exhibitions in both the Babbidge Library and the Dodd Center, continuing to volunteer into his retirement.
In the mid-1950s, he and a colleague established the prestigious Molesworth Institute, a fictional organization devoted exclusively to the promotion of library humor. As Molesworth director, he wrote many satirical articles on aspects of librarianship, and the Institute's Library Humor Archives are housed with his personal papers in the University Archives at the Dodd Research Center. (Stevens, Norman D. "The Molesworth Institute." ALA Bulletin 57 (January 1963): 75–76.) Stevens is now director, in perpetuity, of the Molesworth Institute at the University of the Great Beyond.
Stevens assembled a collection of thousands of postcards, commemoratives, souvenirs, and artifacts relating to the history of librarians, library collections, and library architecture, which are housed in the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal, and wrote A Guide to Collecting Librariana, the first book on the subject.
His voluminous collection of children's literature about books, reading, librarians, and libraries is part of the Northeast Children's Literature Collection at UConn.
He also collected crafts, inspired in part by the activities of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. Since the 1970s, he supported awards and donated objects to the league's permanent collection. Stevens's hand-carved 9" wooden spoon collection and related documentation will become part of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
Initiated in 2005, the spoon collection illustrates his special ability to discover and support the work of creative people. It required him to identify and contact hundreds of talented artisans from around the globe, enlisting them in the creation of a unique and beautiful collection, forging lasting friendships along the way.
Selected Publications
Stevens, Norman D. "The Fully Electronic Academic Library®." College & Research Libraries 67, no. 1 (January 2006): 5–14.
Stevens, Norman D. "The Last Librarian." American Libraries 32, no. 10 (October 2001): 60–64.
Stevens, Norman D., ed. Postcards in the Library: Invaluable Visual Resources. New York: Haworth Press, 1995. (Simultaneously issued as Popular Culture in Libraries 3, no. 2.)
Stevens, Norman D. "Our Image in the 1980s." Library Trends 36, no. 4 (Spring 1988): 825–51.
Stevens, Norman D. A Guide to Collecting Librariana. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1986. (Bibliographic contributions by Valerie Burnham Oliver.)
Stevens, Norman D., and Peter Gellatly. Archives of Library Research from the Molesworth Institute. New York: Haworth Press, 1985.
Stevens, Norman D. "In Search of Library Humor." American Libraries 16, no. 4 (April 1985): 252–55.
Stevens, Norman D. Communication Throughout Libraries. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1983. (The Library Administration Series.)
Stevens, Norman D. "Library Networks and Resource Sharing in the United States: An Historical Perspective." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 31, no. 6 (November 1980): 403–12.
Ellsworth, Dianne J., and Norman D. Stevens, eds. Landmarks of Library Literature, 1876–1976. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1976.
Stevens, Norman D. "A Computer Analysis of Library Postcards (CALP)." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 25, no. 5 (September–October 1974): 332–35.
Stevens, Norman D., ed. Library Humor: A Bibliothecal Miscellany to 1970. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1971.
Stevens, Norman D. "Three Early Academic Library Surveys." College & Research Libraries 30, no. 6 (November 1969): 498–503.
Stevens, Norman D. A Comparative Study of Three Systems of Information Retrieval. New Brunswick, NJ: Graduate School of Library Service, Rutgers, The State University, 1961.
Stevens was a prolific contributor to library literature for over sixty years. His hundreds of articles and reviews covered topics such as library administration, communication, information retrieval, and (most notably) satirical library humor written under the auspices of the fictional Molesworth Institute, which he co-founded in the mid-1950s. No single exhaustive public bibliography of the shorter works exists, but many are preserved in the Norman D. Stevens Papers and the Molesworth Institute Library Humor Archives at the University of Connecticut's Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.
Sources
Norman D. Stevens Papers UConn Archives & Special Collections. 33.6 Linear Feet.
In Memoriam Norman Stevens, Longtime Director of University Libraries - UConn Today
Director of University Libraries, Emeritus Norman D. Stevens.
Larry T. Nix. The Norman D. Stevens Collection of Library Architecture. The Library History Buff.
Molesworth Institute - Wikipedia
Norman D. Sevens Wikipedia
ubmitted by Kathleen de la Peña McCook
In honor of the Sesquicentennial (150th Anniversary of ALA) in 2026, the Library History Round Table is hosting Librarians We Have Lost, Sesquicentennial Memories -1976-2026. This collage of tributes seeks to honor librarians who died between 1976-2026. The tributes are published to ALA Connect, a digital memorial on LHRT News & Notes, and ALA's institutional repository (ALAIR).
We invite tributes from anyone about any library worker who passed away between 1976-2026. To submit a tribute, please use the form at https://lhrt.news/librarians-we-have-lost-sesquicentennial-memories-1976-2026-2/
For questions or comments, please reach out to Dr. Kathleen McCook (kmccook@usf.edu) or Brett Spencer (dbs21@psu.edu).
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Brett Spencer
Reference Librarian
Thun Library, Penn State Berks
He/Him/His
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