Lohf, Kenneth A. 1925-2002

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LOHF, Kenneth A. 1925-2002

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born January 14, 1925, in Milwaukee, WI; died from complications from a stroke May 9, 2002, in New York, NY. Librarian and author. Lohf was a longtime librarian of rare books at Columbia University. Before attending college he served in India as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Force. He then attended Northwestern University, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1949, followed by graduate work at Columbia University where he earned master's degrees in library science and English in 1952. Lohf became interested in collecting rare books while a graduate student and searching for books by Graham Greene for his master's thesis. He became an assistant librarian at Columbia in 1957, working in the rare book and manuscript library and becoming a librarian in 1967. During his tenure there, he doubled the library's collection of rare books and raised funds for a three million dollar renovation of the building before retiring in 1993. During his career Lohf published several scholarly books, including The Jack Harris Samuels Library (1974) and The Centenary of John Masefield's Birth (1978). He also edited a number of books and wrote poetry that was published in such collections as XXX for Time (1966), Seasons (1980), Arrivals (1987), Fictions (1990), Places (1992), Poets in a War (1995), The Book of Twelve (2000), and East West (2001).

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New York Times, May 18, 2002, p. B15.