Peter Hiatt was born Oct. 19, 1930 in New York City, the only child of Amos and Elizabeth Hope (Derry) Hiatt, and passed away in Port Townsend, Washington on Dec. 11, 2014. His mother was from the Boston area, and his father was from Seattle, and the president of his senior class (1922) at the University of Washington. Peter grew up in Summit New Jersey, and then majored in history at Colgate University in New York.
After graduating from Colgate in 1952, he served as a corporal and company clerk at Aberdeen Proving Ground Army Base in Maryland during the Korean War. After military service, he decided on a career in librarianship, and earned master’s (1957) and Ph.D. (1963) degrees at Rutgers University. He served as a branch head librarian in the Elizabeth, New Jersey Public Library System from 1957-59, and later as an instructor at Rutgers while working on his doctorate.
A unique position was created for him in 1963 in Indiana, the first ever cooperative hire between a state university (Indiana University) and a state agency (The Indiana State Library). For the Library, he served as a consultant, and ran many continuing education programs and workshops at libraries around the state; for the University, he served as an assistant, later an associate professor at the Graduate Library School on the main Bloomington campus. For his first two years there, he taught courses on the Bloomington campus, but also at several other regional campuses (Gary, Fort Wayne, etc.) each semester, in the school’s effort to test interest in course offerings in those places. Later, local faculty were hired.
Shortly after beginning this itinerant career, Peter became a flying professor, eventually earning his instrument rating, by purchasing a Ryan Navion, a single-engine, low-wing, retractable-gear aircraft. The Navion remained an important part of the family for another quarter-century.
In 1966, Linda Rae Smith, a student in the Graduate Library School, and fellow pilot, was assigned to Peter to be his graduate assistant. In August 1968, Linda, by then a university librarian, and Peter were married near her family home in Hamilton County, Ohio, and they took the Navion on a flying honeymoon up the St. Lawrence Seaway to Quebec, la ville.
In the fall of 1968, in addition to his consulting and university work, Peter received a federal research grant, and became the chief investigator of the Indiana Library Studies Project to study and recommend improvements in library service throughout Indiana in all types of libraries. The two-year project resulted in nineteen report volumes, authored or co-authored by Peter and other experts, and edited by Linda.
In 1970, Peter was hired to be the Library Program Director, facilitating education and continuing education opportunities for library personnel in the thirteen member western states at WICHE (Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education) headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. This large territory ensured that his flying and traveling career continued. Daughter Holly arrived in Boulder, and also a tempting offer from Washington State. He was recruited in 1974 to his father’s alma mater to head UW’s Graduate Library School (since evolved into the current iSchool).
Throughout his career, Peter believed publicly-supported libraries were agencies for social change, and believed strongly in the democratizing influences of their free services, and did what he could to protect them against economic and social shifts to fees for services. He was very active in professional library associations, editorial boards of professional journals, and other groups at national, state, and local levels. He served terms as President of the American Library Association’s Library Education Division, and as President of ALA’s Adult Services Division. In 1979, he was the recipient of the “Outstanding Service Award” from the Association of American Library Schools. He was the chief investigator of two research grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in the use of assessment centers for professional development: phase 1, from 1979-83, and phase 2, from 1990-92. He served two terms, from 1990-97, as a board member, and for a time as board president of the King County Library System’s Board of Trustees (by numerous measures, one of the nation’s busiest systems). Cheerful and witty by nature, he was a deeply-respected professional, and a generous mentor to many in his long career. Peter retired from the University of Washington in 1998 as Professor Emeritus.
Librarianship was his career, but classical music (in the broadest sense) was his passion from an early age. He declined to learn an instrument, not wanting to be limited in the repertoire he studied. He attended the Summit Music School in New Jersey during elementary school, then studied several summers, beginning in 1944, with Father Franz Wasner at the Trapp Family Summer Music Camps in Stowe, Vermont. Liturgical music was their frequent study topic, in addition to the general camp offerings. He was accepted to participate in the 1946 Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts, where he sang under Robert Shaw, the noted American choral and orchestra conductor. At Colgate, he helped organize a Chamber Music Series, and also toured Europe twice with the University’s Glee Club, under the auspices of the Experiment in International Living. Through the 1940s and into the early 1960s he could often be found, with scores, at concerts at the old Carnegie Hall score desks (cheap tickets for serious music students). He read voraciously in the areas of music history and biography, performance standards, and recording review literature. He began collecting music recordings in 1938, and became a life-long member of the Association of Recorded Sound Collections when it formed in 1966. He applied many of the principles of his career in librarianship, especially material selection and preservation, to his recorded music collection. He had expert knowledge of classical music discography. Music listening, and concert and opera-going were life-long joys he also shared with Linda.
In retirement, the Hiatts bought a home in the Cape George area of Port Townsend, and Peter enjoyed keeping in touch with his students from his many years of teaching in New Jersey, Indiana, and Washington, and worked on several projects and committees for Jefferson County and Port Townsend libraries, including service on the Port Townsend Library Foundation Board. Peter was a biographee in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in Education, and Who’s Who in the World.
Peter is survived by his wife Linda and daughter Holly Virginia (Mark) Wilson of Edmonds, Washington. A private gathering is planned for the summer. Memorial contributions may be made to the national Alzheimer’s Association or its Western Washington affiliate.
