Dr. Dale Barker treated age just like it was a number, and made it his business to keep mentally and physically fit.
He turned to audio books and book clubs when he lost his sight at 85. And he made it a point to join friends at meals so he'd have good conversation. Until a few months ago, at 91, he exercised daily.
"He was a model of how to handle old age," said a daughter, Sybil Susan Barker of Buford. "And he never complained."
Dr. Dale Lockard Barker of Stone Mountain earned an electrical engineering degree at Georgia Tech while he worked in the campus library. With a master's degree and Ph.D in library science from the University of Illinois, he spent decades as a librarian at Georgia Tech, the University of Miami and the University of Georgia.
"He had worked in the library that his mother ran in Adairsville," his daughter said. "He always loved reading, particularly nonfiction. We always had so many books in the house. I would even play librarian as a kid."
Dr. Barker stayed in Emory Hospital for two weeks after he fell several times and suffered brain injuries, which he died from on April 20. Visitation is set for 10 a.m. Thursday, followed by an 11 a.m. memorial at Park Springs, a retirement community in Stone Mountain where he lived with Caroline Barker, his wife of 61 years. Wages & Sons, Stone Mountain chapel, is in charge of arrangements.
For 16 years, Dr. Barker served as Tech's associate director of libraries. He served in the same capacity for 23 years at the University of Miami, and did a brief stint at UGA. The librarian played a role in the modernization and adaptation of technology at those facilities.
"He was a good scholar, knew a lot about how to get information and how to help people doing research," said Bob Kyles, who sought Dr. Barker's expertise for research projects while a Tech employee. "As far as I know, everybody loved him."
In early 1990, the librarian retired from the University of Miami, and he and his wife returned to metro Atlanta. Upon their return, they formed a club comprised of Tech colleagues and friends that met regularly for breakfast.
Dr. Barker served with the Marines in the South Pacific during World War II. He was asked to compile and edit "Hitting the Beaches," a memoir about the first armored amphibian battalion from that war.
"He never complained that his world was shrinking," his daughter said. "He just kept going."
Additional survivors include his wife, Caroline Barker of Stone Mountain; another daughter, Cathy Barker Taylor of Greenville, S.C.; and three grandchildren.
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