Charles C. Colby III, 1923–2002

Charles Clifton Colby III, who died on January 3, 2002, was born in Newark, New Jersey, on November 2, 1923, yet most of his professional career was spent in the Boston area—initially at the old Boston Medical Library (BML) and later in the Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard. He also spent brief interludes in Washington, DC, and in Columbia, Missouri.

Charles earned his bachelor of arts degree in biology in bits and pieces while serving in the U.S. Army and was granted a Harvard degree. He entered medical school at Harvard in 1945 but, after a year, decided medicine was not the career for him and that librarianship would be his life's calling. He attended Simmons College, where he received his library degree and then became a subject cataloger at the Army Medical Library (now the National Library of Medicine). While there, he worked with Frank Bradway Rogers on a revision of the preliminary version of the library's book classification, subsequently published in 1951 [1].

Returning to Boston in 1949, he served as reference librarian at the BML under the legendary James F. Ballard. The following year, on a leave of absence, he undertook a study of the post-war state of German medical libraries. This study culminated in a report, delivered as a paper in 1951 and later published [2].

Appointed director of the medical library at the University of Missouri in 1954, Charles moved to Columbia but returned to Boston as director of the BML in April 1956. In 1958, talks began that brought about the agreement between the BML and the Harvard Medical Library to merge the collections and services of the two libraries in a new building. This agreement was signed in 1960 and implemented in 1965 with the opening of the Countway Library [3]. Charles then became associate librarian for BML services in the merged library and served with its first director, the late Ralph T. Esterquest. They had worked on planning the new building and, later, they, with Harold Bloomquist, developed the plan that led to the Countway's becoming the nation's first regional medical library [4]. Charles's service to the Medical Library Association (MLA) included serving as business manager for the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association and as representative to the Council of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) [5]. He was chair of the Program Subcommittee for the 1966 annual meeting, the then-equivalent of today's national program committee with fellow members Frederick Kilgour and Irwin Pizer [6]. His final task on behalf of MLA was to write the presidential profile of Jacqueline Bastille in 1992 [7].

Charles was a fine fellow—amiable and jovial, always willing to talk and listen—and a wonderful raconteur. He had a booming voice and a sparkle in his eye and showed the merriment of his disposition by his laughter. His signature garment was a bow tie—either the symbol of the physician he might have been or the musician that he truly was. He played the piano with great skill and entertained many by tickling the ivories in his home as well as at MLA meetings. He loved listening to music of all kinds and amassed a collection of over 5,000 phonograph records, whose weight posed a threat to the floors of his home in Newton! And he liked to dance. He delighted in convivial company and fine dining. At MLA meetings, he would meet with like-minded colleagues and seek out the best establishment in town to engage these delights.

The light of his life was his wife, Jackie, and he of hers; she survives him. A fellow librarian, she and Charles met while in high school and married in 1945. Together they had three children, who in turn produced eight grandchildren (they include a set of quadruplets). Given to good works, Charles and Jackie volunteered many hours in retirement—he playing the piano pro bono at charitable and civic events, she helping feed the hungry through various programs.

Though frail when I saw him last, in the summer of 2001, he still had a sense of humor and an interest in all that was going on, even if the timbre of his voice and the sound of his mirth were not what they once were. I am glad he came my way and I his, and I know there are others who feel the same.