The Burton Monitor

The Burton Monitor is the updated library newsletter for the SMLR Community. The new name is in honor of SMLR's founding Dean, John F. Burton, Jr., who published for many years his own Workers' Compensation Monitor.  As before, the newsletter will focus on the academic research by faculty, resources and services offered by the library and will now include general news about labor and employment relations and human resource management. The newsletter will be published twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring.

In Loving Memory

I first met John when I was interviewed for the Library Director position in the summer of 2013. A few months later, he was one of the first to send me an email with congratulations and to request a meeting to discuss his Workers’ Compensation Research Collection. In his words, he wanted to “work together to move the collection to a new level.”  

John entered my office with a smile on his face, holding his briefcase, full of materials, memos, reports, and inventories ready to get things going. He always carried that briefcase. John had hope that his vision would become a reality. He gave me hope by sharing his confidence that what we were building would help others. I want to believe I gave John hope in return. That my passion for his project was as infectious as his smile and resilience.

Over the next decade we did bring his collection, and truly his life’s work, to a new level. I am grateful that John was able to see all of his hard work come to fruition when showing him the database that had been created, knowing that his work could now be shared with others with the same passion he exhibited every time I met with him. I hope that memories of him will bring smiles to all those who knew and loved him.