printable versionEdward Colby, university’s first music librarian, dead at 94
Edward Colby
Edward Colby, the first music librarian at Stanford and co-founder of the Archive of Recorded Sound, died Sept. 22 at his home in San Jose. He was 94.
Colby joined the Stanford staff in 1949, a year after the Department of Music was founded, and retired in 1978. During his tenure, the music library grew from a collection of about 800 books and scores and a small number of 78 rpm recordings to a research collection that could support graduate-level programs. The Archive of Recorded Sound, a collection of historically important recordings, which Colby founded in 1958 with alumnus William R. Moran, is now the largest such collection in the western United States.
Colby was born in Oakland on July 5, 1912. He attended the University of California-Berkeley, where he graduated in 1935 with a bachelor's degree in music composition. After his graduation, Colby began working at the Oakland Public Library and joined the library's music department staff in 1938.
Colby joined the Army in 1941 and worked as an Army librarian as well as in Army intelligence in China, where he also served as a church organist for a Chinese Christian church and played in a pick-up marching band for the opening of a section of the Burma Road.
After his return to Oakland, a paper Colby delivered at a 1948 conference attracted the attention of Music Department faculty, who hired him to become the university's music librarian. In addition to his work as librarian, Colby taught a graduate course in music bibliography at Stanford. He earned a master's degree in music from Stanford in 1956.
Colby's "vision of collection development and public services directed Stanford into the forefront of music libraries," said Garrett Bowles, who worked with Colby at Stanford as assistant music librarian. "He was a quintessential reference librarian, always polite and diligent in assisting his patrons," Bowles said.
On his retirement from Stanford, Colby was cited as "a pioneer in the scholarly use of sound recordings" and a "leader in the preservation of every form of recording medium." A Campus Report article about his retirement noted that no list of achievements could begin to describe the special quality of his generous service to the university.
Colby is survived by his wife, Helen, of San Jose; and two daughters, Lisa Christiansen of San Jose and Jeanne Colby of Mountain View.
No services will be held at his request. Colby's family has suggested that memorial gifts be made to the Archive of Recorded Sound or to support the Music Department's outreach to K-12 education.
Donations to the Archive of Recorded Sound should be made to the Memorial Fund of the Stanford University Libraries with a note that the gift is in memory of Edward Colby and sent to Kelly Morris, Green Library, Stanford, CA 94305-6004. Donations to the Music Department's K-12 outreach may be sent to Mario Champagne, Braun Music Center, Room 101E, Stanford, CA 94305-3076.