Libraries names music booth after the late William Harnish

In memory of William Harnish, our colleague who passed away last year, the Libraries has named one of the Music Booths in the Hill Library in his honor. 

William had served as an Ask Us service manager in the Access Services department since 2015. He was a joyful colleague whose devotion to the Libraries and loyalty to NC State students was renowned among Libraries staff and our student workers who worked with him at the Ask Us desk. One could always count on William to say “yes” when someone needed something. These qualities were recognized with a 2019 Provost’s Unit Award for Excellence. 

William always had a concert he was looking forward to. His eclectic musical tastes—ranging from death metal to bluegrass to folk music—gave him a wealth of stories of shows he’d seen, sometimes with Libraries colleagues. If you stopped to have a conversation with William, he would tell enthusiastic stories about recent shows he had seen, or touch upon his other passions which included keeping up with his two rowdy rescue dogs and incorporating the hottest peppers known to humans in his cooking.

A 1997 graduate of Bard College, William followed in his mother’s footsteps with a long career in libraries, holding positions at The Pennsylvania State University and Towson State University before coming to NC State. 

Senior Vice Provost and Director of Libraries Greg Raschke remembered William in a message to Libraries staff last fall: “For me, two of the highest compliments you can pay to someone’s life are that they put the needs of others above themselves and left the world a better place for their having been in it. William did both.”