Deaths: Lisa Zhao

Lisa Zhao

Lisa Zhao, a longtime faculty member at the UIC Library, died March 22 of cancer. She was 66.

Zhao was an internationally recognized librarian who served as president of the Chinese American Librarians Association from 2013 to 2014, until she became ill with a brain tumor.

She came to the U.S. in 1986 as a master’s student at UIC and began her work at the library as a student.

She received her master’s from the department of mass communication and theater at UIC in 1988, then a master’s in library and information science from the Urbana campus in 1997. She received a bachelor’s in wireless telecommunication engineering in China.

She was named associate professor and catalog librarian at the UIC Library in 1990.

“I know I speak for all her coworkers when I say how much we miss her,” said Gwen Gregory, resource acquisition and management librarian. “Lisa’s colleagues relied on her expertise in many areas.”

Zhao published professional articles in English and Chinese on topics such as user privacy, library law and cataloging. She mentored international students, presented at conferences in the United States and China and developed innovative procedures that improved the catalog system within the library, Gregory said.

“Her legacy at UIC is our library’s catalog database, which provides access to our collections to people around the world,” she said. “She spent many years creating, editing and improving catalog records.”

Zhao is remembered as a caring and giving colleague, Gregory said. “However much you like your work, it’s the people that you meet in it who really matter,” Gregory said. “Everyone who worked with Lisa remembers her with great affection.”

She is survived by her husband, Xiayang Zhang, and son, Alan Zhang.

Services have been held.