Born April 1, 1882 in West Bainbridge, New York, Effie Almira Keith held various positions in the Northwestern University Library from 1916 through 1949. During the course of her tenure, she most notably held the position of Acting University Librarian between the terms of Theodore Koch and Jens Nyholm (1941-1944), but she also held the position of head cataloguer (1916-1921), Assistant University Librarian (1921-1941, 1944-1947), and Special Consultant in Cataloguing (1947-1949).
During her Acting Librarianship, she ably steered the library through the manpower shortages caused by World War II, negotiated the consolidation of three different departmental libraries into the library of the newly constructed Technological Institute, and secured the purchase of the Franz Boas Collection, which provided the foundation of the Africana collection. After Jens Nyholm took over the Head Librarian position, she returned to her position of Assistant Librarian, retiring in 1947. However, Nyholm immediately called her out of retirement to appoint her as a special consultant in cataloguing to take advantage of her expertise in bibliographic cataloguing. She retired from this position in 1949, only to begin another appointment as Assistant University Librarian, this time at neighboring Seabury-Western Theology Seminary, a position she held for seventeen years until her final retirement at the age of eighty-five. She passed away two years later on February 7, 1969.
From the guide to the Records of the Acting Librarian Effie Keith (1882-1969), 1933-2004, (Northwestern University Archives)
