In Memoriam Joan S. Zenan, AHIP, FMLA, 1940 – 2025

Submitted by: Carol Jenkins

Joan and I met on an escalator during the 1976 MLA annual meeting in Minneapolis. We’d been put in touch by a mutual friend in Anchorage, Alaska, knowing that Joan had recently accepted a position as Life and Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Nevada in Reno (UNR). Thus began a friendship of half a century.

Joan’s career in medical libraries flourished in Reno. Within a year she was director of the Savitt Medical Library in Reno and later also director of the IT Department at UNR. Joan served in these capacities at UNR until her retirement in 2004. In 1980-81 she spent a year at Columbia University after winning an NLM/CLR Health Sciences Library Management Internship there with Rachel Goldwyn.

MLA and AAHSL were the threads that helped bind our friendship. Her contributions to MLA include serving on the Board of Directors, as Treasurer, Proceedings Editor, and chair of numerous committees. She and I co-chaired the planning committee for the 1987 annual MLA meeting in Portland. She was an AHIP Distinguished Member and was made an MLA Fellow in 2001. Joan was also one of the first generation of officers in AAHSLD (now AAHSL), serving as secretary/treasurer in 1983 and as president in 1988-89. She was an early participant in joint legislative activities of the two associations.

Joan visited my family in Chapel Hill; and at Joan’s family ranch near Mt. Lassen, we occasionally gathered with families and friends (often from UCLA, her alma mater). Joan will be lovingly remembered as a true friend and colleague whose wisdom, positive outlook, determination, loyalty, and humor influenced me and many others over the years.

Read Joan’s oral history on MLANET.