Anna Harriet Heyer died 12 August 2002 in Fort Worth, Texas, shortly before her 93d birthday. (Notes for Notes).

Martin, Morris

Anna Harriet Heyer died 12 August 2002 in Fort Worth, Texas, shortly before her 93d birthday. She came to Denton at the invitation of Wilfrid C. Ban in the fail of 1940 to create the music library at what is now the University of North Texas. Having received the finest education and training available, both in music and in library science (B.M. in piano and B.A. in mathematics, Texas Christian University; B.S. in library science, University of Illinois; M.S. in library service, Columbia University; M.M. in musicology, University of Michigan), she was uniquely equipped for the task. The next summer she also started teaching a course in music librarianship which continues to be offered every other year.

Dynamic and single-minded, strict but unfailingly polite to her fellow workers (even to administrators whose instructions she was sometimes unlikely to carry out), she was also a person who enjoyed life to the fullest, both inside and outside the profession. She was always willing to take advice from those she respected: on collection development, bibliographic projects, teaching, and even cataloging.

She was charmingly naive about the importance of what she did. Even when her book Historical Sets, Collected Editions, and Monuments of Music (3d ed., Chicago: American Library Association, 1980), almost immediately better known as "Heyer," appeared in its various editions through the years, she found it difficult to think of it or herself as "important." She saw the book as a job that needed doing, so she proceeded to do it. This is an admirable quality seldom seen today.

When she retired from North Texas in 1965, she went back home to Fort Worth to become a "consultant" in music library materials at Texas Christian University. What she did there was catalog another few thousand items and run the music library for fourteen years. She always enjoyed traveling, and during her "retirement" took many trips, often to music libraries. She leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of librarians and collections, good friends and good times, and the indispensable book.

She is remembered by a host of friends who enjoyed countless social events and concerts, meals and cocktail parties, study groups and professional meetings, and limitless conversations with her. Many of us were fortunate enough to receive the immaculately produced needlework Christmas cards she worked on, in her systematic way, for two years at a time in order to get enough done in the time allotted.

During the last years of her life she remained incredibly active and optimistic. Even with a lingering serious ankle injury, she enjoyed visits away from her house, going to concerts and club activities, keeping up with the profession and its personalities, always remembering to ask about people and their families, and being proud of the activities of the library she created. She also left us the example of a professional life lived to the fullest.

During her last visit here (to see Dean Bain for the first time in fifty years), she spent the entire day (nearly sixteen hours) learning about all the current reference, acquisition, and cataloging practices and tools of the trade, being absolutely rejuvenated by them. By midafternoon, the cane was in my office and there was no notice of any physical impairment. By the time we got back to Fort Worth at midnight, we almost forgot the cane because it was in the backseat.

I will remember her as I first met her in 1961, because she was the same then as she was when she left us and, I suspect, when she came here in 1940.