page_title: Marcia Croker Noyes
section_title: MLA
hierarchical_section_title: Marcia Croker Noyes / MLA
caption_attribution_description: English: Marcia Crocker Noyes at the end of her career at the Faculty, in her apartment in the Faculty's building.
context_page_description: Marcia Crocker Noyes was the librarian at The Maryland State Medical Society from 1896 to 1946, and was a founding and presiding member of the Medical Library Association.
  If I have accomplished anything, let that speak for me, as while making a living, I tried to make a life.
  — Marcia Croker Noyes, Obituary
context_section_description: Paralleling her career, Noyes was also involved in the Medical Library Association (MLA), as one of eight founding members and later Association President. On May 2, 1898, the eight charter members gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to form the MLA, determining the Association's objective to "foster medical libraries and promote the exchange of medical literature."
  One of the earliest mandates of the MLA was the Exchange, a distribution and trade service for those who had duplicates or little-used books in their collections. Initially, the Exchange was run out of the Philadelphia medical society, but in 1900 it was moved to Baltimore and Noyes oversaw it. Several hundred periodicals and journals were received and sent each month, a huge amount of work for a tiny staff. In 1904, the Faculty had run out of room to manage the Exchange, so it was moved to the Medical Society of the County of Kings (Brooklyn, New York). But without Noyes's excellent administrative skills, it foundered and in 1908, the MLA asked Noyes to take charge once again. In 1909, when the new Faculty building opened, there was enough room to run the Exchange and with the help of MLA Treasurer, noted bibliophile and close friend, Dr. John Ruhräh, it once again became successful.
  Additionally, Noyes and Dr. Ruhräh combined forces to revive the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, which had all but ceased publication in 1908, taking the Exchange with it. This duo maintained editorial control from 1911 until 1926. In 1933, Noyes was elected the first woman and the first non-physician (or the "first unmedicated member") to preside over the Association.
  Noyes wanted to write the history of the MLA once she retired from full-time work at the Faculty, but her health was beginning to fail. She had an increasingly painful back condition that required her to wear a brace and had suffered a serious burn on her shoulder, possibly from her summers spent running a summer camp, Camp Seyon (Noyes spelled backwards), for young ladies in the Adirondack Mountains.
  On April 24, 1946, a reception was planned to honor Noyes's 50 years at the Faculty; despite her request that the physicians wait until November, the actual date of her 50 years. The Faculty went ahead and hosted the reception on the earlier, planned date due to her deteriorating health. More than 250 physicians attended the celebration and many speeches were given. She was presented with a suitcase, a sum of money to use for travelling, and her favorite painting which she had persuaded the Library committee to purchase many years earlier. 
  The painting was of Dr. John Philip Smith, a founder of the Medical College in Winchester, Virginia. It was painted by Edward Caledon Smith, a Virginia painter who had been a student of the painter Thomas Sully. She adored this painting and vowed, jokingly, to take it with her wherever she went.
  The painting was not to stay with her for very long, for she died on November 24, 1946, and left it to the Faculty in her will. Her funeral was held by her request in the Faculty's Osler Hall, named for her dear friend. More than 60 physicians served as her pallbearers, and she was buried at Baltimore's Green Mount Cemetery.
caption: Marcia Crocker Noyes in her apartment at the Faculty building
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