Ann J. Wolpert, the director of libraries at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1996, died earlier this month after a brief illness. She was 70 years old.
A pioneer in the advancement of the digital library, Wolpert was a strong advocate for unrestricted online access to journal articles. She also had responsibility for the MIT Press, which published 30 journals and about 200 books each year.
Prior to joining MIT in 1996, Wolpert was executive director of library and information services at Harvard Business School. She was a former president of the Association of Research Libraries.
Wolpert was a graduate of Boston University and earned a master of library science degree at Simmons College in Boston.