Ethel WEISS

OBITUARY ETHEL WEISS AUSTER Died suddenly but peacefully on Friday July 1, 2005 in Toronto. Mourned by her son, David L. Auster, his wife, Janis J. H. Auster, of New York City, and David's father, Henry Auster, of Toronto as well as by her many relatives, friends and colleagues. The funeral service took place at Benjamin Memorial, 2401 Steeles, at 11 a.m. Monday, July 4; shiva followed interment Monday 2 to 8 p.m. and also Tuesday 5 to 9 p.m. in her home at 61 St Clair Street West, Apartment 609, and was attended by family and friends who could be informed in time and who were within reach. Donations in her memory may be made to the Mount Sinai Hospital Foundation. Professor Auster, AB, MLS, Ed.D. was born in Montreal June 4, 1942. She graduated from Outremont High School in 1959, attended McGill University 1959-1960, when she got married and lived in Cambridge, England for two years, studying and doing volunteer work. She completed her undergraduate education at Boston University and went on to Simmons College, also in Boston, for her Masters degree. Her first professional job was as librarian at Brookline High School in Brookline, Massachusetts. In 1969, after the birth of her son, she returned to Canada with her husband, settling in Toronto, and soon resumed her working life as research librarian at the Toronto Board of Education, and then as librarian at OISE/University of Toronto, where in due course she began studies for a doctorate. As she was completing her research and dissertation, she was appointed Assistant Professor of Library Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She returned to the University of Toronto after a year and a half as Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Library Science, and took part in the process of transforming that institution into what is now the Faculty of Information Studies (FIS). She dies at the peak of a distinguished career, having published three books on her own and two more as co-author. With these books and many scholarly articles she made a major impact in her special field of change and organizational behaviour affecting libraries, librarians, and library users. She was esteemed highly within her profession, and this June in Calgary she received from the Canadian Association of College and University Libraries the Miles Blackwell Award as Outstanding Academic Librarian. As well as through the fruits of her research, which constitute a notable contribution to Canadian and international scholarship, she served her faculty and university in many capacities and was twice elected to the Governing Council of the University of Toronto. But the administrative time that she most enjoyed was her fifteen years as Chair of Doctoral Studies at FIS. In that position, she was able to work closely with research students, many of whom were inspired by her sense of fair play and regard for others as much as by her exacting scholarly standards. A brave, forthright and committed mentor and colleague, she developed many of her working relationships into friendships that she prized dearly. The university flag over Simcoe Hall was lowered Monday, July 4, in her honour. Published in the Montreal Gazette on 7/6/2005