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October 6, 2008

Kenneth F. McPherson, husband, father

Daily Record Online Oct. 2, 2008

Kenneth F. McPherson, former director of Morris County Library from 1967 to 1986, died peacefully at the Mid Coast Senior Health Center in Brunswick, Maine, on Sept. 18, 2008.

He graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1947, and the McGill Graduate School of Library Science in 1949.

He started his career at the Brooklyn Public Library in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he became the director of personnel. He moved to New Jersey, in 1954 to be the assistant director and later the director of the Bloomfield Public Library, in Bloomfield. In 1967, he became the director of the Morris County Library, in Whippany. He retired in 1986. He worked as a library consultant in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, assisting boards of trustees in their plans to build new libraries. Several of his buildings won national awards. He was a life member of the American Library Association and an honorary member of the New Jersey Library Association. He oversaw the expansion of the Bloomfield Library and the move to the Morris County Library's new building, in Whippany. He introduced the sharing of resources in Morris County Libraries, and computerization of member libraries.

He was active in and an Honorary Member of the New Jersey Library Association, and served as its treasurer and president and served on many committees for the American Library Association, of which he was a life member.

He moved to Mendham Township in 1968, and to Phippsburg, Maine, in 1991, where he and his wife built a home on the Kennebec River. He was a trustee of the Patten Free Library in Bath, Maine, and a volunteer at the Totman Library in Phippsburg, Maine, and had been active in local affairs.

He was an addictive golfer and was a member of the Glen Ridge Country Club; the Mendham Golf & Tennis Club, of which he served as president and governor for many years; and the Bath Country Club in Bath, Maine. He spent many summers at Lac Tremblant Nord, Quebec, where he was a member of Gray Rocks Golf Club in St. Jovite and the Mont Tremblant Golf & Beach Club.

He is survived by his wife, Beryl Reid, whom he married in Westmont, Quebec, in 1951; and daughter, Caelie, and her husband, Derek Smith, of Woolwich, Maine.

Contributions in his memory to the Patten Free Library, 33 Summer Street, Bath, ME 04530, will be gratefully acknowledged by the family.

Posted by tumulty at October 6, 2008 11:00 AM

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