Ruth Mortimer (September 16, 1931[1] – January 31, 1994) was an American rare books curator and librarian, known for her work at both Harvard University and Smith College.
[1] As a first year at Smith College in 1949, Mortimer worked as an assistant in the Rare Books Collection, which was then under the curatorship of Dorothy King.
After Smith, Mortimer worked for a year as a pre-professional librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library; during this time, she also took courses in French at the Columbia University School of General Studies.
[3] These books are considered "standard reference works in the field," notes The New York Times,[4] and were "a monument of good typography [and] their author's learning and industry" according to the Independent.
[2] Mortimer also oversaw the Smith College library's one-millionth volume purchase, the Epistole devotissime of St. Catherine of Siena.
[4][5][1] In Mortimer was honored as a Rosenbach Fellow in Bibliography in 1984-1985 lecturing on "L 'Art de Bien Batir: French 16th Century Architecture Books."