Marcia Croker Noyes

Marcia Crocker Noyes (1869 - 1946) was a librarian at The Maryland State Medical Society from 1896 to 1946, and was a founding and presiding member of the Medical Library Association.

Early life and education

Marcia Crocker Noyes was born in December 1869 in Saratoga Springs, New York. She was the youngest of four children born to Levi and Catherine Noyes. She studied at Hunter College in New York, and considered becoming a dress designer or an artist, despite disapproval from her parents.

Career

Noyes began her career as a librarian after moving to Baltimore, Maryland to live with her sister, Kitty Noyes Marshall. She took a position as a relief worker on a salary of $15 a month at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, led by Dr. Bernard Steiner, where she continued to work for three years. During this time, she proved herself to be an efficient employee and was promoted into a supervisory role.

In 1896, Sir William Osler, MD became the President of The Maryland State Medical Society and required an "intelligent, dedicated, full-time medical librarian" to meet the increased demand for medical library services and oversee a steadily growing collection of 7,000 volumes. Because of her exemplary work at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Dr. Steiner recommended Noyes for the position, declaring her "a woman of executive talents." Noyes was later selected as the new librarian and received an annual salary of $200.

In her new role as a medical librarian, Noyes learned on the job by attending all Faculty functions. She also served as Sir William's understudy and developed a long-lasting friendship with him; she claimed to be "infected with his mission to improve the medical library and by so doing to improve the quality of medical practice."

In her first year, Noyes developed a book classification system for medical books, based on the index medicus, and called it the ''Classification for Medical Literature.'' The system uses the alphabet with capital letters for the major divisions of medicine and lower-case ones for the sub-sections. "The system has not been revised since Miss Noyes' death, and it is now out of date, but the Noyes' Classification is still used at the Medical and Chirurgical Library for all original historical material." Friends from the Enoch Pratt Free Library were hired to help catalogue in the evenings at the modest rate of 25¢ an hour. In fact, due to the library's meagre budget, Noyes was only able to hire one full-time assistant during the first ten years of her employment - Gustave Orville Caution.

In 1904, the library was reorganized, and Noyes assumed the role of Secretary. However, she would not be formally appointed to the position of Executive Secretary until 1925.

Within ten years, the library required a larger building, and plans, spearheaded by Noyes and Sir William before his move to Oxford, were made to build a headquarters building, mainly to house the library's growing collection of medical books and journals.

New headquarters

Noyes was instrumental in the design and building of the new headquarters. She travelled to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston to look at their medical society buildings, and eventually, the Philadelphia architectural firm, Ellicott & Emmart was selected to design and build the new faculty building. Every detail of the building held her imprimatur, from the graceful staircase, to the light-filled reading room, and all of the myriad details of the millwork, marble tesserae, and especially, the four-story cast-iron stacks. She was on-site inspecting the progress of the building which was built in less than one year at a cost of $90,000.

Among the features of the new building was a fourth-floor apartment created for Noyes to her specifications, including a room for her maid. She moved into her new apartment in 1909, and often referred to it as the first true penthouse in Baltimore; given it had a garden and rooftop terrace. This apartment helped allow her to be on 24-hour duty for 50 years.

By the time of her retirement in 1946, the library collection had grown to more than 65,000 volumes from medical and specialty societies around the world. Journals were traded regularly, and physicians anticipated the arrival of each new issue. The library was also now financially secure, with invested funds totaling $90,000.

MLA

Parallel to her career, Noyes was also involved in the Medical Library Association (MLA), as one of eight founding members and later Association President. On May 2, 1898, the eight charter members gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to form the MLA, determining the Association's objective to "foster medical libraries and promote the exchange of medical literature."

One of the earliest mandates of the MLA was the ''Exchange'', a distribution and trade service for those who had duplicates or little-used books in their collections. Initially, the ''Exchange'' was run out of the Philadelphia medical society, but in 1900 it was moved to Baltimore and Noyes oversaw it. Several hundred periodicals and journals were received and sent each month, a huge amount of work for a tiny staff. In 1904, the Faculty had run out of room to manage the ''Exchange'', so it was moved to the Medical Society of the County of Kings (Brooklyn, New York). But without Noyes's excellent administrative skills, it foundered and in 1908, the MLA asked Noyes to take charge once again. In 1909, when the new Faculty building opened, there was enough room to run the ''Exchange'' and with the help of MLA Treasurer, noted bibliophile and close friend, Dr. John Ruhräh, it once again became successful.

Additionally, Noyes and Dr. Ruhräh combined forces to revive the ''Bulletin of the Medical Library Association'', which had all but ceased publication in 1908, taking the ''Exchange'' with it. This duo maintained editorial control from 1911 until 1926. In 1933, Noyes was elected the first woman and the first non-physician (or the "first unmedicated member") to preside over the Association.

Noyes wanted to write the history of the MLA once she retired from full-time work at the Faculty, but her health was beginning to fail. She had an increasingly painful back condition that required her to wear a brace and had suffered a serious burn on her shoulder, possibly from her summers spent running a summer camp, Camp Seyon (Noyes spelled backwards), for young ladies in the Adirondack Mountains.

On April 24, 1946, a reception was planned to honour Noyes's 50 years at the Faculty, despite her request that the physicians wait until November, the actual date of her 50 years. The Faculty went ahead and hosted the reception on the earlier planned date due to her deteriorating health. More than 250 physicians attended the celebration and many speeches were given. She was presented with a suitcase, a sum of money to use for travelling, and her favourite painting which she had persuaded the Library committee to purchase many years earlier.

The painting was of Dr. John Philip Smith, a founder of the Medical College in Winchester, Virginia. It was painted by Edward Caledon Smith, a Virginia painter who had been a student of the painter Thomas Sully. She adored this painting and vowed, jokingly, to take it with her wherever she went.

Noyes died on November 24, 1946, and left the painting to the Faculty in her will. Her funeral was held by her request in the Faculty's Osler Hall, named for her dear friend. More than 60 physicians served as her pallbearers, and she was buried at Baltimore's Green Mount Cemetery.

Legacy

In 1947, the MLA established the Marcia C. Noyes Award to honour her lasting, outstanding contributions to medical librarianship. It is awarded yearly, and presented at the Annual Meeting to a librarian who shows distinguished service and leadership in health sciences librarianship. Awardees receive an engraved sterling silver bowl. Additionally, in 2014, awardees receive a bouquet of flowers to further remember Noyes; much evidence exists for this tradition, as we know that the physicians, especially Drs. Osler and Ruhräh, frequently gave her bouquets of flowers. Noyes also cultivated flower gardens at the Faculty and decorated the rooms with her work.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Noyes, Marcia
American librarians
American women librarians
1869 births
1946 deaths
People from Baltimore
People from Saratoga Springs, New York
Hunter College alumni