David Sullivan (1951 – 2016)
David Sullivan joined the Notre Dame Faculty as the Classics and Byzantine Studies Librarian in July 2010. Following his arrival, he held a number of positions sharing his subject expertise, leadership, and sense of humor with faculty, students, and library colleagues.
Prior to joining us at Notre Dame, David had a varied and successful career as a librarian at Stanford, Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania. While he was a classics scholar and an active member of the American Philological Association, he was enthusiastic about all areas of humanities and his involvement in acquisitions at Stanford, for example, included the papers of Allen Ginsberg.
David’s publications include a book-length translation from French, Veyne’s Seneca: Life of a Stoic, Routledge, 2003. He carried out a number of translating and editing projects including a digital edition of Mercator, Atlas, sive de Cosmographia mundi, Octavo, 2000.
Among his many accomplishments, David initiated a large collection development project in classical studies with grant funding from the Mellon Foundation; he planned and organized a new Byzantine Studies reading room, and had a leading role in various library collection initiatives including chairing the Strategic Acquisitions Taskforce.
He will be remembered in the Library as a caring and sociable colleague. He was always interested in the success of individual students and freely gave of his time to help with difficult texts and translations. He also shared his home-cooked meals whenever an opportunity arose. He was generous with his colleagues who will miss his conversation, his wit, and his laughter.
David died peacefully on December 12, 2016 in hospice at South Bend after a brief illness.
A gathering will be held in the Hesburgh Library to remember our late colleague and to celebrate his life and work. Please join us in the Scholars Lounge, Hesburgh Library on Tuesday, March 21 between 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. We will share memories of David during the celebration and fill a memorial book, which was created in his honor. If you are unable to attend but would like to add to his memorial book, please send your stories and sentiments to Trudie Mullins (mullins.12@nd.edu).