Maurice J. Freedman, Ph.D., known as Moishe to much of his family of origin and his childhood friends and Mitch to the rest of the world throughout his adult life, was born in Newark, NJ to Lithuanian immigrants Max Freedman and Sylvia Casif Freedman. He was a proud graduate of Bregaw Avenue Elementary School and Weequahic High School. He graduated from Newark Rutgers before earning his Masters of Library Science at the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. at Rutgers University.
Mitch is survived by his wife of 42 years, Paula Mazer Freedman, his four children, Jenna Freedman (Eric Freedman Goldhagen), Susan Freedman, Danna Freedman-Shara (Michael Smith), Jesse Freedman (Julia Matallana Freedman), granddaughter Ella and brother Bernard Freedman (Tina). He was pre-deceased by his sister Leah Pariser (Jack Pariser) and his parents.
Mitch was a man who loved. He loved his family, his friends, acquaintances, children's librarians celebrating the Newbery award, jazz music, the Mets, the Knicks, the Brooklyn Dodgers, books, movies, photography, travel, and public libraries. One of the things that made Mitch a wonderful father was that each of his children was his favorite. His granddaughter Ella transformed his life, bringing him impossible joy every time she walked through his door. Even in his final hours he found the strength to call Ella "baby" and kiss her on the head.
At the time of his passing, Mitch was retired from several stints as an interim library director (New City, Nyack, Pound Ridge, and Purchase, all in NY) after his retirement from the Westchester Library System, which he led as Executive Director for 22 years. He is, perhaps, best known for his service as president of the American Library Association 2002/2003, for which he was a petition candidate. Mitch’s presidential initiative was labor-focused, including a push for better salaries for library workers with the message that just because librarians love their jobs, it doesn’t mean they should be paid like volunteers. As ALA president, he also launched National Library Workers Day and established the ALA-APA (Allied Professional Association) to enable lobbying without jeopardizing ALA's nonprofit status. A political activist since his library school days at UC Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement of the early 1960s, Mitch hosted anti-authoritarian left speakers at ALA, including Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore.
Mitch's first job out of library school was an internship at the Library of Congress where he discovered he was a natural administrator. His leadership philosophy was to hire great people and determine how to get to "yes" for whatever they needed. Mitch also described his leadership style as "walking around." He knew the power of relationships, connection, and how that built a cohesive team. From there, Mitch moved on to Information Dynamics Corp in Andover, MA, his one job in the private sector, and then to the Hennepin County Public Library (HCPL) in Minneapolis where he hired cataloger Sanford Berman, facilitating the technical framework for Sandy's alternate subject headings that challenged the white, male, Christian, heterosexual default in library description. Another HCPL hire was Michael McConnell, who had had a job offer rescinded by the University of Minnesota when they found out he was gay.
Mitch (and Sandy and many of their friends, including E.J. Josey, Patricia Glass Schuman, Miriam Braverman, and others) channeled their activism into the American Library Association (ALA), establishing the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) in 1968. The members considered themselves to be the conscience of the ALA, moving the organization to take stands on civil rights in the US, the Vietnam war, and later the repressive USA PATRIOT Act. Mitch won two prestigious ALA awards: Achievement in Library and Information Technology (1981) and the Lippincott award that recognizes distinguished service to the profession. He was also a founding member of the Progressive Librarians Guild. In 1999, Mitch organized a protest at an ALA conference in Philadelphia in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal. He participated in many other ALA demonstrations, including one protesting a speech about volunteerism made at the conference by Colin Powell, for which Powell was paid $70,000.
In 1977, Mitch joined the faculty of the Columbia University School of Library Service, the premier library school at the time, since closed, where he taught technical services and mentored a generation of librarians in the classroom and outside it. The library school community partied in the same apartment on 100th and Broadway in NYC where the Beastie Boys hung out, since it was the home of editor-in-chief of Library Journal John N. Berry and Louise Parker Berry and John's son, also John, an original member of the band. In order to keep his job at Columbia, Mitch, who at the time had only his Berkeley MLS, had to earn a Ph.D, which he achieved after some departmental strife at Rutgers University in 1982. That was also the year he met his wife, Paula Mazer Shara, with whom he shared 42 years and two children. His children by his first marriage, to Hermene Terry, stood for the couple at their wedding in 1983.
By the time he completed his Ph.D, Mitch had been appointed Executive Director of the Westchester Library System (WLS), a cooperative organization. WLS wasn't one library system, but rather 38 member libraries that each had their own collections and policies. He was at WLS for 22 years, retiring in 2005. During his tenure at WLS, he facilitated an intralibrary loan system connecting the collections of the independent libraries. But the first thing he did was raise the salaries of the children's and young adult librarians at WLS so they would be on par with the staff roles that are more typically highly valued and paid.
In retirement, Mitch and Paula (a former nurse and psychologist) followed their granddaughter to Rhode Island, where they built a loving community in their home in a renovated luggage factory. It was there that Mitch drew his last breaths.
Mitch had a tremendous heart: as a family friend put it, "his love was never in question. It was everywhere." At the age of 86 after a year in and out of the hospital, that tremendous heart failed. He was surrounded by his wife, children, granddaughter, and the young nurse who had helped care for him and who was crying as hard as the family, on Thursday, March 5 with Billie Holiday singing him off to whatever comes next.
If you wish to make a donation in his memory, please consider
Newark Public Library Mitch's first library and where he worked in high school
Louis Armstrong House Museum an institution he long supported
There will be a memorial in May. Please fill out this form if you wish to be notified.