R. Thomas Lange died at the age of seventy-six on November 14, 2012, and the Medical Library Association lost an innovative leader of the profession. He was a medical librarian who could honestly say that his career was entirely focused on developing academic health sciences libraries. After graduating with a master's of library science from Peabody College in 1970, he was hired to develop the new health sciences library facility at the Southern College of Optometry in Memphis, Tennessee.