Last Saturday, one of the great 20th-century leaders in librarianship died—Henriette D. Avram. Mrs. Avram was best known for her contributions to library automation and the development of the MARC format. Lesser known are her contributions to the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system. From 1984 until her retirement from the Library of Congress in 1991, Mrs. Avram served as the official LC representative on EPC. She or her LC alternate, Lucia Rather (director of cataloging at LC under Mrs. Avram), attended every EPC meeting and provided guidance on the development of the DDC. Among Mrs. Avram’s many awards are two ALA awards closely associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification--the Melvil Dewey Medal in 1981 for creative professional achievement of a high order, and the John Ames Humphry/OCLC/Forest Press Award of 1990 in recognition of contributions to international librarianship.
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