Elsa Florence Kramer

Elsa Florence Kramer

Elsa F. Kramer, 63, died November 7, 2020 at Community Hospital East where she had been hospitalized since October 28 after suffering a stroke.

Elsa was an accomplished editor, journalist, publisher, researcher, scholar, librarian, and educator whose four-decade career spanned the transition of the printing and publishing industry as well as the field of education into digital media and online instruction.

A lifelong Indianapolis resident, Elsa attended School 84 through fourth grade and transferred to School 80 to take part in the gifted program of Indianapolis Public Schools from fifth until eighth grade. Her life was upended in 1970 when her father, William, died suddenly at the end of her seventh grade year. Upon graduation, she opted to attend Shortridge High School rather than nearby Broad Ripple High School. In addition to excelling academically, she participated in choral performing groups and took the first steps on what would become a lifelong career path—she served as an editor on the “Shortridge Echo” and worked on the yearbook.

Elsa graduated at the end of her junior year, which at the time required proof of college acceptance and permission from the superintendent of schools. Later in life she recalled her public school education favorably, more for the life lessons provided by the interaction with a diverse student body than for its pedagogical excellence.

After one semester at DePauw University she transferred to Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) where she thrived in the multicultural student mix and began what turned out to be a lifelong relationship with the institution. Between classes, she was a work-study typesetter and editor for the “Sagamore,” IUPUI’s student newspaper. Published twice a week, it contained local and national advertising and had citywide distribution. Through the “Sagamore” she made lifelong friends and gained work skills she used throughout her career. Upon graduation in December 1978, with a B.A. in English composition, she leveraged her work on the “Sagamore” to get the first in a series of jobs in publishing and education. She initially worked as a technical writer for a local bank, then moved to a print shop where she improved her proficiency with the new generation of phototypesetting machines. These experiences were useful when she returned to IUPUI as the director of student publications with responsibilities for managing the financial operations of and serving as adviser to the “Sagamore.” She was proud of the fact that during her stint as director, the “Sagamore” became the first newspaper in Indianapolis to publish the comic strip “Doonesbury.” Of greater significance, her work at the “Sagamore” led to the formation of lifelong friendships.

Moving to the college textbook and software division of Indianapolis-based Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing Co., Elsa lasted six months as an editor, until her organizational skills caught the attention of upper management. She was promoted to direct the editorial staff during a critical period of transition from the era of blue-pencil editing to the implementation of computers in all publishing functions. Today we take for granted the ability to mix text and images on computers to produce print and digital media on a variety of platforms, but in 1983, Elsa was on the leading edge of this transformation.

The death of her beloved older brother Karl in 1984 at the age of 36 and her mother Florence’s deteriorating health led Elsa to take a break from her corporate career to manage her mother’s care. Known as “Flo,” she bequeathed her daughter a keen intelligence, a wicked sense of humor, humility, and a love for the quirks of the English language including idioms, slang, mixed metaphors, and mondagreens. Flo worked many years as an editor for Curtis Publishing in Indianapolis, so in many ways her daughter followed in her mother’s footsteps.

Elsa launched her sole proprietorship in 1985, providing strategic research and editorial services primarily to clients in nonprofit educational publishing and museum settings, including The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, Purdue University, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, prior to its rebranding as Newfields. She maintained her freelance work as a self-employed researcher, writer, and editor of books and magazines for the rest of her life.

The subject matter she edited was broad and deep: K–12 teacher guides in economics, English, geography, government, health, math, science, social studies, visual arts, and world history; mass-market flower and vegetable titles for Meredith Books/Better Homes & Gardens, and college textbooks for Pearson Custom Publishing. She also served briefly as managing editor of “The Educational Forum,” a peer-reviewed scholarly journal focused on national and international education issues.

Elsa’s own scholarly works were published in “the Journal of Electronic Publishing, OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives,” and elsewhere. Her pieces for the “Indiana Magazine of History” on the Tribe of Ishmael continue to be cited by scholars researching 20th-century eugenics.

During this period she also maintained a position as Chief Financial Officer for Apple Press Inc., a printing and publishing services company established in 1983 in Broad Ripple. A co-owner, she provided administrative support and was involved in the writing, editing, and design of public policy papers and book and magazine projects for the company, including “Indy Midtown Magazine” and “Branches Magazine.” The former publication benefited not only from her formidable editing skills but also from her interest in civic literacy and public policy. The latter publication blossomed under her 25-year tenure as editor which infused the editorial voice with her nonreligious ethical standards of kindness and nonviolence that emanated from her guiding principle—the Golden Rule of treating others the way one wants to be treated.

Throughout her life Elsa retained a curiosity and eagerness to learn new things. She decided at mid-career to earn a master’s degree and settled on Library Information Science (LIS) as the best way to enhance and augment her talents. While a lifelong traditional library user, activist, advocate, and donor, she had no plans to work in a traditional library setting. Rather, she was interested in honing and perfecting the critical thinking and evaluation skills she felt all 21st-century citizens ought to have. In 2005 she returned to IUPUI and earned an MLS from the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science (SLIS.) In 2013, she earned an MPA in public/nonprofit management from the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indianapolis.

Beginning in 2009, she developed online course content and taught online library and information science courses for SLIS (now the Department of Library and Information Science—DLIS—in the School of Informatics) as an adjunct instructor. She loved teaching and while she thrived in the classroom, she easily made the transition to online content delivery, student interaction, and evaluation.

This excerpt from her self-introduction to students offers a glimpse into her style and character.

“I am a librarian. Librarians present in an infinite number of ways. I happen to be a white, cisgender, heteronormative, physically disabled female over 40—all characteristics that I cannot change, so I hope you won’t hold them against me. Despite my demographic deficits, I am a long-time democratic socialist, just as tired of being hated on for my liberalism as I am for being mistrusted for all the parts of me I didn’t choose. I am perpetually disgusted with Indiana but made a choice to stay here and keep fighting the ignorance. My career spans decades, with emphasis on education and educational publishing.

“I try to be aware of my social biases when working with students. If a student complains of being offended by assigned content, I look for a solution that maintains instructional integrity while also letting the student feel understood. I routinely ask my supervisor and colleagues to provide feedback on my suggestions, and I take action based on their input.

“My daily work involves administrative minutiae as well as reference-style interviews and subject matter research; the creation of subject guides and literature reviews, and helping others learn to use technology tools to find, evaluate, analyze, and make use of data and information. In teaching, my strengths are in civic and financial literacies and professional communication skills. These are the ways I help to fight ignorance and promote tolerance in Indiana and elsewhere. I’m certainly not woke, but I am a compassionate human being trying hard to follow the rules and still make a difference.”

Elsa’s teaching philosophy combined several influences: an emphasis on innovation and ethics in the application of standard business practices, something she learned from an award-winning professor, Dr. Jean Preer; a diversity‐building approach to teaching and learning, from a life-changing course in resources and services for people with disabilities, and her own experience as a mid-career graduate student, hoping to move theory into practice as an instructor. She wrote, “I strive to share kindling for the information literacy fire but let students strike the matches.”

Her DLIS colleagues relied on her skills to help shape how the department functioned. She helped to rewrite the curriculum for a required “gateway” course in computer-based tools and technology, both to update the content and to create the structure for its delivery within an online learning management system. In addition to writing fresh content on web and database searches, file formats, citations, spreadsheets, presentation software, and HTML, she added sections on social media and mobile technologies. She also diversified the examples used in order to model information literacy instruction across many disciplines and to support students with a variety of backgrounds and interests. The course instructor told her the new curriculum was “just what was needed for this course” and that the updated content and online delivery structure help students master the needed skills to be successful in the program and in their careers. “Elsa is our ‘keeper of the keys’ for S500,” Bill Helling, director of the DLIS associate faculty wrote earlier this year. “She knows more than anyone what works and what does not. And she is the one among those who teach who really cares enough to keep trying to improve it.”

As a result of her diligence, evaluations from her students were uniformly positive: “Elsa is a great and attentive instructor.” “She was very responsive to any student needs and was very effective in her teaching.” “The instructor did a fantastic job of explaining the subject matter to both students with experience on the subject and those who were new to the topic.” “This professor is the best one that I have had at IUPUI. She is very patient and still pushes the student to think.” Such comments showcase Elsa at her finest: thorough and thoughtful, helpful and generous, intelligent and humble.

Elsa was a committed community volunteer, devoting her time and talents to a range of causes. She was a past board member of Midtown Indianapolis, Inc., a local community development corporation. She served as a judge for several projects that seek to encourage academic growth in young people: National History Day in Indiana; Scholastic Art & Writing Awards; the College Fraternity Editors Association, and the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair. She was a grants reviewer for the Corporation for National and Community Service and a reviewer for the “Library Leadership & Management” journal.

An Advanced Master Gardener, Elsa deployed her skills for a decade as a volunteer virtual reference librarian for the Purdue University Marion County Extension Office E-Mail Answerline. She loved putting theory into practice by gardening at home. When vegetable gardening became too arduous for her, she focused her creativity on window boxes and container gardening. An adventurous cook, she was renowned for pesto made from the traditional Italian basil, as well as from arugula, dill, green onions, and Thai basil. She was resourceful in storing the harvest from the main growing season in order to enjoy its delights during the winter months.

Elsa maintained that literacy is the key that opens all opportunity doors and her appreciation of the public library began at an early age. In 2007, the Marion County Commissioners appointed her to the Board of Trustees of the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library and from 2010-12 she served as a panelist for the Gene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award.

Devoted to the First Amendment, Elsa held that without it, the other amendments are hard to enforce. She longed for the day when education and health care became universally mandated public goods. Her commitment to independence and liberty was exemplified by her staunch support for women’s reproductive rights as well as end-of-life choices for all. As a caregiver, she was anguished that her terminally ill mother was unable to die peacefully at home. Elsa watched helplessly for a heartbreaking 30 days as her mother suffered needlessly in a nursing home. While the doctors said there was no hope for Flo’s recovery, Indiana state law prevented medical assistance to help hasten the inevitable. Elsa felt her mother’s agony and loss of dignity were needless and cruel and that she, and others like her, deserved the option to make a painless early exit at home. The experience spurred Elsa to become part of the national Death with Dignity movement. She volunteered with local groups to promote the embrace of compassionate choices in end-of-life care through presentations, articles, and radio programs. It was an issue about which Elsa was resolute and she made her own end-of-life care wishes known to friends and loved ones. So when she remained non-responsive for a week after being placed in a medically induced coma following emergency brain surgery, she was removed from life support in accordance with her wishes and allowed to die in comfort, peace, and dignity.

A file on Elsa’s hard drive entitled “EFK Favorites” includes this quote.

“The key question is, no matter how much you absorb of another person, can you have absorbed so much of them that when that primary brain perishes, you can feel that that person did not totally perish from the earth . . . because they live on in a ‘second neural home’ ? . . . In the wake of a human being’s death, what survives is a set of afterglows, some brighter and some dimmer, in the collective brains of those who were dearest to them. . . . Though the primary brain has been eclipsed, there is, in those who remain . . . a collective corona that still glows.”
—Douglas Hofstadter, in “I Am a Strange Loop”

Survivors include her husband of 25 years, Thomas P. Healy; beloved canine, Nellie; cousins Lisa Sacco, Mooresville, NC; Tom Black, Emily Black, Bloomington, IN, and Sarah Hochberg, Chicago. Plant peonies, pansies, basil, or a native tree in her memory. Memorial contributions may be made to Compassion & Choices compassionandchoices.org or to the Indianapolis Public Library Foundation indyplfoundation.org .