Harold McIver Leich ’67

Harold McIver Leich ’67 passed away in his sleep at home on November 26, 2024. Hal came to the College from Bethesda, Maryland, majored in anthropology, and was active in Episcopal Youth. After graduating cum laude he completed master’s degrees from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana in linguistics (1971) and library science (1972). From 1975 to 1987 Hal served as associate professor of library administration and as Slavic acquisitions librarian at the University of Illinois before joining the Library of Congress, where he worked for 32 years as the Russian area specialist. Hal was a fluent speaker of Russian and Spanish and had a reading knowledge of French, Latin, Romanian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Hungarian, Old Church Slavic, German, and Modern Greek. He authored more than 50 publications; edited four collections of essays, including Libraries in Open Societies (2002); received the 2019 Committee on Libraries and Information Resources Distinguished Service Award; and met twice with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and once with Russian president Boris Yeltsin, among other Russian cultural and governmental figures. Hal is survived by brother Jeffrey ’71 and his wife, Martha; nephew Alexander; and niece Emily.