Kathryn Luther Henderson (July 12, 1923 - August 18, 2022)
Professor Kathryn Luther Henderson was born in rural Champaign County, Illinois on the family farm purchased by her paternal grandparents. She earned all her college degrees at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: an AB in history and English in 1944, a BS in library science in 1948, and an MS in library science in 1951. She was a founding member and first national secretary of Beta Phi Mu, the international honor society for library and information studies. Following work as a serials cataloger at the University of Illinois from 1950-1953 and as circulation librarian (1953-1956) and head cataloger (1956-1965) at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, she returned to Urbana to join the faculty of the Graduate School of Library Science where she taught until Fall 2010. The courses Cataloging and Classification I and II were her primary focus for many years, but she subsequently developed a course on Technical Services Functions and developed and team-taught a course on Preserving Information Resources with her husband William T. Henderson, the University's Preservation Librarian. While over the course of her career she made numerous research and service contributions, her most valuable legacy is the hundreds of students whom she taught. Students were inspired by her example to be enthusiastic about librarianship and to strive for excellence in their work just as she sought excellence in teaching.
Awards:
University of Illinois Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching 1991
Beta Phi Mu Award 1993
Library School Alumni Association Distinguished Alumnus Award 1993
ALISE Excellence in Teaching Award 1995
Selected publications:
Henderson, K. L., ed. (1970). MARC uses and users: Papers presented at the 1970 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing. University of Illinois.
Henderson, K. L., ed. (1975). Major classification systems: The Dewey Centennial; Papers presented at the Allerton Park Institute, November 9-12, 1975. University of Illinois.
Henderson, K. L. (1976) "Treated with a degree of uniformity and common sense: Descriptive cataloging in the United States, 1876-1975," Library Trends 25(1), 227-271.
Henderson, K. L., & Henderson, W. T , eds. (1981). Conserving and preserving library materials: Papers presented at the Allerton Park Institute, November 15-18, 1981. University of Illinois.
Henderson, K. L. (1987). "Some persistent issues in the education of catalogers and classifiers," Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 7(4), 5-26.
Henderson, K. L., & Henderson, W. T, eds. (1988). Conserving and preserving materials in nonbook formats: Papers presented at the Allerton Park Institute, November 6-9, 1988. University of Illinois.
Henderson, K. L., & Henderson, W. T. (2008). "Unraveling the 'secrets of the craft': Mentoring as a device for demystifying technical services for students," Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 45(3), 39-59.
More information:
Kathryn Luther Henderson papers, University of Illinois Archives
Tribute
Festschrift: Smith, L.C., & Carter, R. C., eds. (1996). Technical Services Management, 1965-1990: A quarter century of change and a look to the future: Festschrift for Kathryn Luther Henderson. Haworth Press.
By Linda C. Smith, Professor Emerita, School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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Brett Spencer
Reference Librarian
Thun Library, Penn State Berks
He/Him/His
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