Marilyn Sullivan

Marilyn B. Sullivan (nee Gorman) died April 5, 2022 in Los Alamos, New Mexico. She was born in 1931 in Havre, Montana to Charles and Alice Wright Gorman. She was married in 1954 to James F. Sullivan, deceased, and is survived by three children Matthew, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Eileen (Patrick Lyford), Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Andrew (Mahnaz), Beacon, New York,  six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1953 and holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her early professional years were spent in the publishing business in Milwaukee as an editor at Square D Company; editor at Olsen Publishing Company, a publisher of dairy trade publications; and as a copywriter for WTMJ Radio and TV. After receiving a degree in Library and Information Studies, she turned to medical writing and medical librarianship and served as reference and Associate Librarian at Marquette Medical School, later the Medical College of Wisconsin, and as Chief Librarian of the Health Sciences Library of the University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Medicine until retiring in 1997. 

Internationally she served as director of Kuwait University School of Medicine Library, Kuwait in the 1980s and received a Fulbright Teaching Grant in the Department of Archives and Librarianship at Cairo University, Egypt 1992-1993. She was a consultant to the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College Library in Moshi, Tanzania and was Director of Ross University School of Medicine Library in Portsmouth, Commonwealth of Dominica, West Indies 2003-2010. She has written widely on medical libraries and international medical librarianship and taught medical bibliography at several medical schools and the University of Missouri, Columbia Library and Information Science Program. She was a member of the Medical Library Association and chair of its International Cooperation Section and a member of the American Medical Writers’ Association for many years.

In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Doctors Without Borders, Music Maker Foundation, or Rocky Boy School District, Box Elder, Montana.