John F. Harvey ’43

John F. Harvey ’43 died November 29, 2009. John grew up in Maryville, Missouri, and graduated from Maryville High, where he was a member of the student council, band, orchestra, chorus and glee club. At Dartmouth he majored in English and was a member of the Marching Band. John was a member of the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1943 and after his discharge studied to become a librarian, earning a B.S. at the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. During an extraordinary career he taught or consulted at many institutions, including Al-Zahra Women’s University in Tehran, Iran, as well as the University of Tehran and two colleges in Nicosia, Cyprus. In the 1970s, for the World Health Organization he prepared reports to guide the development of the university health science libraries in Iran and prepared a similar plan for Jakarta’s national health science library. In the States John taught at Hofstra University, the University of New Mexico and Drexel University—where he was dean and professor at its college of information studies. He was a member of many prestigious organizations, wrote innumerable articles and edited or authored nine books. He also wrote numerous book reviews.
John and his wife, Velda, from whom he was divorced, had two sons, who survive him.