Patricia Gail Oyler of Watertown, MA, died Tuesday night, June 10, 2025, at the AccentCare Inpatient Hospice Center in Milton, MA, of metastatic ovarian cancer at the age of eighty-one. She was diagnosed five years previously and had undergone extensive treatment with both established and experimental drugs before succumbing to the disease.
Pat was the oldest of five children of the late Dr. James R. Oyler and Gail Dinwiddie Oyler of Biglerville, PA. She is survived by three brothers and a sister, James R. Oyler Jr. of Salt Lake City, UT; John S. Oyler of Huntingdon Valley, PA; Carol A. Oyler Snyder of Harrisburg, PA; and Dr. George A. Oyler of Lincoln, NE.
Pat was born November 11, 1943, at the Sloane Hospital in Manhattan, New York City. At the time of her birth her father, Dr. James Oyler, was working at Columbia University in New York City as part of a team funded by the US War Department to test and improve the “K Rations” used in World War II. Shortly after the end of the war, James, Gail, and their young daughter Pat moved to Gettysburg, PA and later Biglerville, PA.
She attended grade school and high school in Gettysburg and McSherrystown, PA, and then received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. She went on to receive Master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, and later Master of Business Administration from Simmons College in Boston, MA. Her academic and professional work was in Library and Information Science.
Pat entered her professional career at Simmons College in 1974 in the early days of applying computers and information science to the ancient art of library organization and management. As a Professor of Library and Information Sciences at Simmons, she achieved worldwide recognition for her accomplishments, as well as training many other professionals to efficiently convert and standardize information. In addition to newly developed information, she also worked with archives and rare documents and other materials to safely bring them into the computer age.
Throughout her career, Pat believed strongly in free access to information for the growth and freedom of people throughout the world, including developing countries. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil, worked with the Royal Library of Sweden, and the US Information Agency in both the USA and India. Pat’s commitment to librarianship and access converged with the education of Vietnamese librarians at Simmons, which was supported for several years by a generous grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies. In 2009, Pat was selected by American Library Association as the recipient of the John Ames Humphry/OCLC/Forest Press Award for International Librarianship, the citation for which read in part: Pat “ .. has dedicated the past 16 years of her professional and personal life to the development of a program for Vietnamese librarians to earn MLS degrees in library and information science at Simmons College. Creating an exemplary model for professional training for 21st century librarianship in transitioning countries, Dr. Oyler has coordinated fundraising, teaching, consulting and many other logistics for the now 55 plus graduates. She also consulted on the grant-funded building of five major university libraries in Vietnam.” In 2013, she was awarded Vietnam’s Medal for Science and Technology by the Vietnam Ministry of Science and Technology.
She served and held leadership positions with professional organizations in the United States, including the American Library Association, chairing its International Relations Round Table (IRRT), and the Association of College and Research Libraries, as well as worldwide with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. She especially focused on training and sharing among libraries and collections throughout the world.
While she never married, Pat always remembered the birthdays of her many nephews, nieces, and grand-nephews and nieces. Her “animated cards” became a standard feature when they first appeared on the Internet, and were appreciated both because they were touching and often funny.
Services will be held at the Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola, 1095 Church Road, Orrtanna 17353 (Buchanan Valley) on Saturday, July 19. A reception will begin at 10:00 AM at the Loyola Center at the Church, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 11:00 AM. A private burial will follow in the Church Cemetery.
Memorial contributions in Pat’s name, in lieu of flowers, can be made to the Adams County Library System, 140 Baltimore St., Gettysburg, PA 17325, or to the ALA International Relations Round Table 75th Anniversary Funds (at https://ec.ala.org/donate/projects ; scroll down, click on “Roundtables” then scroll further click on “IRRT”; scroll down to 75th Anniversary Funds).