Marie Annette Kascus

Marie Annette Kascus (Martucci), 83, of Newton, died peacefully on Monday, October 5, 2026, at the Miriam Boyd Parlin Hospice House in Wayland, and leaves behind a lifetime of dedicated scholarship and a loving marriage of 60 years to her beloved husband Joseph Edward Kascus.

She was born in East Boston on June 2, 1943, the daughter of the late Anthony Martucci, of Boston, and Mildred (Lochiatto) Martucci, of Newton, of the Censabella family. She grew up in a large East Boston family and remained devoted to it throughout her life. She was the sister of Peter, Charlie, and Joseph Cebsabella and John Martucci and of Beverly Girten (Martucci), and the loving aunt of nephews Tony, Charlie, Michael, and Pete, and of nieces Evelyn, Dorrie, Debi, Donna, Darlene, Denise, Cheryl, Janice, and Doreen. In 1966, Marie married Joseph Edward Kascus while he was serving in the US Army. In the early years of their marriage, Marie worked part-time in The Litchfield Hills Bookstore they opened together, in Torrington, Connecticut, specializing in miniature books. Their life together took them from Massachusetts to Connecticut to Burlington, Vermont, and home again to Boston and Newton, Massachusetts. Marie had a lifetime passion for books and dearly loved her cats, especially Misty. With her love of books and library service, it’s not surprising that she had an extensive collection of owl-related object d’art decorating their beautiful homes and beloved penthouse apartment over the years. Marie and Joe traveled extensively, enjoying together their love for family, food, and cooking as well as opera. Their favorite destination was, of course, Italy.

Marie trained at and earned a PhD in library and information science in 2004 from Simmons University in Boston and made her career serving as an academic librarian at the Elihu Burritt Library of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain and later as head research librarian at the UVM/University of Vermont in Burlington. From the late 1980s through the early 2000s, her specialty was distance education, well before remote learning was popularized. She wrote practical literature on how libraries should serve those distance-learning students. With William Aguilar, she published “Providing Library Support to Off-Campus Programs” in College & Research Libraries (1988), arguing that extension students were entitled to the same library support as students on campus. In 1991, she helped shape a special issue of Library Trends on off-campus library programs. Her 1994 survey in the American Journal of Distance Education found that most library schools barely taught the subject. With Dawn Hale, she wrote a 1995 guide on outsourcing library cataloging and processing, and she also wrote extensively on fundraising for smaller academic libraries.

Her most lasting books were written with Alexander L. Slade of the University of Victoria: Library Services for Off-Campus and Distance Education: The Second Annotated Bibliography (1996) and Library Services for Open and Distance Learning: The Third Annotated Bibliography (2000). Together, they described more than a thousand reports, articles, and dissertations from around the world, and the 2000 volume gave special weight to the World Wide Web.

Funeral services for Marie will be held at the McDonald Funeral Home, 19 Yale Ave., Wakefield, on Tuesday, October 13, at 11:30 a.m. Interment will follow on a later day at the Bourne National Cemetery. Arrangements are by the McDonald Funeral Home, Wakefield.

In lieu of flowers, gifts in her memory may be made to City-Wide Friends of the Boston Public Library, a community-based nonprofit that supports the BPL and advocates for BPL branch services in many surrounding communities. Donate online at citywidefriendsbpl.org.