The St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) is mourn­ing the loss of Dr Al­ma Jor­dan, Cam­pus Li­brar­i­an of its main li­brary from 1960 to 1989, serv­ing al­so as Uni­ver­si­ty Li­brar­i­an from 1982 to her re­tire­ment in 1989.

Dr Jor­dan grad­u­at­ed with ho­n­ours with a BA in Span­ish from Lon­don Uni­ver­si­ty and held a Doc­tor­ate in Li­brary Sci­ence from Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from UWI:

The St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI) mourns the pass­ing of Dr Al­ma Jor­dan, Cam­pus Li­brar­i­an of its main li­brary from 1960 to 1989, serv­ing al­so as Uni­ver­si­ty Li­brar­i­an from 1982 to her re­tire­ment in 1989. In­deed, as part of this Cam­pus’s 50th An­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions in 2010, the main li­brary was re­named the Al­ma Jor­dan Li­brary in her ho­n­our and in recog­ni­tion of her con­tri­bu­tions to this coun­try and the re­gion.

Dr Jor­dan grad­u­at­ed with ho­n­ours with a BA in Span­ish from Lon­don Uni­ver­si­ty and held a Doc­tor­ate in Li­brary Sci­ence from Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. She wrote ex­ten­sive­ly on Caribbean li­brar­i­an­ship and rec-om­mend­ed archival work for The UWI cam­pus­es.

She al­so served as part of a body re­spon­si­ble for for-mu­lat­ing plans for the cre­ation of the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (NALIS) and was a foun­da­tion mem­ber of the na­tion­al li­brary as­so­ci­a­tion and first pres­i­dent (1969-70) of the As­so-cia­tion of Caribbean Uni­ver­si­ty Re­search and In­sti­tu­tion­al Li­braries (ACURIL).

In 1989, the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­sent­ed her with the Hum­ming­bird Medal (Gold).

Cam­pus Li­brar­i­an Mr. Frank Sood­een re­flect­ed that the staff at the Al­ma Jor­dan Li­brary had been faith-ful in main­tain­ing and de­vel­op­ing Dr. Jor­dan’s vi­sion, ideals, and core val­ues.

“I con­tin­ue to re­spect and be in awe of the pas­sion, ded­i­cat­ed du­ty, and en­er­gy of Dr. Jor­dan, who would have worked tire­less­ly, for ex­am­ple, to en­sure that the Li­brary build­ing was con­struct­ed in the 1960’s when she her­self was a young woman in her thir­ties, demon­strat­ing that pi­o­neer­ing spir­it that we would do well in the present to em­u­late.

She has been a lead­ing light in the pro­fes­sion of Li­brar­i­an­ship through­out the Caribbean and an in­spi-ra­tion to all of us who had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­act or work with her dur­ing her ca­reer.”