Barry Blackwell: In praise of Tom Ban

John Court’s comment

      Tremendous thanks to Barry Blackwell for launching a richly deserved recognition for our uniquely–distinguished colleague, Dr. Thomas Ban – a stalwart co-founder of INHN.

      Those of us in the archival field as well as the historical realm are particularly grateful not only for Tom’s remarkably productive scholarly accomplishments, but as well for his encyclopaedic knowledge of the field, and his unstintingly generous willingness to share his prodigious wealth of knowledge.

      Those of us here, including if I may Dr. Ned Shorter, who are located in what has long been Tom’s home base – Toronto, Canada – feel particularly blessed for the rich, in-person benefit of Tom’s warm, engaging, courteous and altruistic personality.  I first met Tom in person shortly after the turn of this century when he bestowed our Archives for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), the lead teaching hospital for the University of Toronto medical faculty’s Department of Psychiatry, with a wonderfully rich collection of more than 300 article offprints, published or co-authored by himself.

      Subsequently we have all benefited from INHN’s inclusion of Tom’s outstanding bibliography – already comprising 763 items when his 1955 to 2007 version became available.  A copy is enclosed here, providing his 763 publication listings across 82 PDF pages.

      With my most sincere appreciation to Tom for his stellar career – thankfully still soaring – and for our many INHN colleagues who I know will bring their own thoughts and appreciation to Tom as well!

March 25, 2021