McBirney, Ruth, 1918-1991.

Librarian, of Boise, Idaho.

Ruth Campbell McBirney was born in Boise, Idaho, on January 16, 1918, the daughter of James F. and Bertha Campbell McBirney. She graduated from Boise High School in 1935, attended Boise Junior College for one year, and entered Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, in the fall of 1936. She was awarded an A.B. degree from Whitman College in May 1939, graduating with a major in French. She was a soloist with the college glee club. In 1940 she received a bachelor's degree in library science from the University of Washington and returned to Boise where she worked for two years as a librarian at Boise Public Library and Boise Junior College.

In 1942 Miss McBirney went to New York, where she worked for the Music Library at Columbia University. In 1947 she went to France to become reference librarian for the American Library in Paris. She later was appointed head librarian. Ruth McBirney returned to Boise, Idaho, in1954 and became head librarian at Boise Junior College. During her twenty-three years in that post, Boise Junior College became a four-year college and, in 1974, Boise State University. As head librarian, Miss McBirney oversaw the construction of a new library building and built the collection from one of 20,000 volumes to one containing 300,000 volumes.

Miss McBirney retired from Boise State University in 1977. She was a member of Mu Phi Epsilon, the national music honorary, and of the First Presbyterian Church of Boise. She served as president of the Idaho Library Association and the Soroptimist Club of Boise. Ruth McBirney died in Boise, Idaho, on March 20, 1991.

Source: Based on her obituary which appeared in the Idaho Statesman of March 22, 1991, and on information from her contract file in the Boise State University Archives.