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Carol June Bradley, a national award-winning UB librarian emerita, noted author and a distinguished member of her profession who educated a generation of music librarians, died July 27 in Millard Fillmore Hospital. She was 74.
Bradley was the associate director of the UB Music Library from 1967 until she retired in 1999. She also was an adjunct professor of information and library studies who co-directed the university’s double master’s degree program in music librarianship with fellow music librarian and frequent co-author James B. Coover.
She and Coover, a close friend with whom she shared an office for 35 years, were responsible for the development of UB’s large and diverse music research collection to support its newly expanded Department of Music. Bradley also founded the UB Libraries’ Music Librarianship Archive.
A native of Huntington, Pa., Bradley graduated from Lebanon Valley College and received a master’s degree from Western Reserve University and a Ph.D. in library science from Florida State University.
Musicologist James Cassaro, a UB alumnus who heads the Theodore M. Finney Music Library at the University of Pittsburgh, says Bradley will be remembered “not only for her vast contributions to the field of music librarianship, but for her close attention to detail, her rigorous approach to research and, most important, her passion for her work and for her students.”
Throughout her stellar career, Bradley held many library positions in addition to those at UB. She was the librarian of the Drinker Library of Choral Music at the Free Library of Philadelphia (1957-59), the music librarian of the U.S. Military Academy (1959-60) and music cataloger at Vassar College (1960-67).
Bradley was an active member of the Music Library Association (MLA), which awarded her the MLA Citation, its highest award, in 2001.
In 2003, the MLA also established the Carol June Bradley Award for Historical Research in Music Librarianship, an annual award to support the kinds of studies for which Bradley was recognized: “the history of music libraries or special collections, biographies of music librarians, studies of specific aspects of music librarianship and studies of music library patrons' activities.”
A memorial service will be held at a time to be announced. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the SPCA of Erie County, Food Bank of Buffalo or the Erie County Botanical Gardens.
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