Former AGI GeoRef Director John Mulvihill Passes Away

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is saddened to share the news that colleague and friend John G. Mulvihill passed away recently. Mulvihill served for 25 years as Director of AGI’s GeoRef Information System, the world’s premier bibliographic database for geoscience research literature. He greatly expanded GeoRef’s content, which topped 2.1 million references in 40 languages by the time of his retirement in 1998.

Mulvihill received the William B. Heroy Award for Distinguished Service to AGI in 1998 and the Geoscience Information Society’s Mary B. Ansari Distinguished Service Award in 2004. Sharon Tahirkheli, who succeeded Mulvihill in directing GeoRef and AGI Scholarly Information, said, “John’s impact on the availability of geoscience information has remained unsurpassed 25 years after he retired. The legacy of his foresight and deep understanding of how geoscientists need and use data and information will continue to influence the community into the foreseeable future, and his advice and guidance will be sorely missed.”