Tribute to Jinny Nathans, AMS Archivist and Librarian

Jinny Nathans (Photo Source: Cambridge Rotary Club)

It is devastating to hear that Jinny Nathans passed away this past week due to COVID-19. From American Meteorological Society Executive Director Keith Seitter:

“I’m sorry to report that AMS staff lost one of its own to COVID-19. Longtime archivist and librarian Jinny Nathans died this past Sunday. Jinny had been on the AMS staff for 20 years and had retired just after the 100th Annual Meeting. She contributed to so many things, focusing on the Society’s library and archives, but also on the history of AMS and on the history and maintenance of our wonderful Headquarters buildings. Over the course of those 20 years with AMS, she interacted with hundreds of members in one way or another, so I felt I should get a message out to the broader membership with this sad news. She was a very special person and one who cared deeply about the Society and all we do. She will be greatly missed by many of us.”

I was one of those members who had numerous interactions with her over the years. I first met her in 2004 when she had invited me to the Atmospheric Science Librarians International meeting at the AMS Annual meeting. My talk was about how important librarians were to the research that I was conducting at that time. More than just fetching archival material for me, the librarians that I was working with were actively guiding my searches. I later published that talk as an article in the Bulletin of the AMS. One of the main points from that article was the following: “there is a wonderful feeling of comraderie [sic.] between the scientist and the librarian while on the trail of historical literature.” I received several emails from other scientists thanking me for writing that article or telling me their own stories about the importance of librarians in their own work. At that early point in my career, it seemed that I had received more interest in that article than any of my scientific articles!

Over the years, Jinny continued to be of great assistance to me. Perusing my email archives since 2014, I had at least 12 different occasions to interact with her. She helped me recover old BAMS articles that hadn’t been scanned in yet, secured permission to use a chapter from Eloquent Science in my Coursera online course, and helped Monthly Weather Review authors obtain permission to re-publish their articles in their PhD dissertations.

In our last exchange earlier this year, we discussed the AMS translation service (written up in her contribution to the 100th anniversary monograph), as I was hoping to find some translations of early articles written by members of the Bergen School of Meteorology, a result of two history projects that I’ve been working on. Although Jinny had retired from the AMS by then, I knew that she might have some special insight into my request as we had talked about the Bergen School at a different Atmospheric Science Librarians International meeting some years earlier.

In her last email to me in February, she mentioned a trip to England she planned to take, and I offered to show her around York if she made it here. She replied, “I’d love to get to York again. I still have–and treasure–my Eric Blood Axe T-shirt from when I was there ages ago.” I’ll cherish that mental image of Jinny sporting an image of a Viking king.

In tribute to her, I’ll close this essay with the final sentence in my 2004 article: “Finally, good librarians are a tremendous resource. Be sure to appreciate their important work to our community.” You will be missed, Jinny.

With all my respect,

Dave