Library donor makes history personal

For Michael Humnicky, alumni (MLS 95) and retired aerospace engineer, donating funds to libraries and archives is born out of a belief in the significance of their missions.  

“I feel libraries and archives are very important. The problem that historians are having is people are not archiving their materials anymore,” said Humnicky.   

Preserving history in its many versions is one reason he is a substantial contributor to IU Libraries, the Lilly Library, and several other universities.  In 2025, he was recognized as a lifetime member of the Indiana University Foundation Presidents Circle. This special designation honors IU’s most generous donors. Members are people who have helped define the very character of IU.  

Personal Memoirs Make Historical Connections

His affinity for libraries and archives grew out of his life experiences, including time as a young child in South Bend, Indiana.  

“My father had a fairly large library in our house,” he recalled. “It was something that we were raised with as kids. My father never threw away a book and we never gave them away either,” said Humnicky, who added he gives away all the books he reads in his retirement to public libraries.  

He has come to realize the importance of archives and memoirs to preserve the stories of the past. When Humnicky was sorting his mother’s and aunt’s possessions following their deaths, he found personal memoirs his maternal grandfather, Harry F. Ulrey, wrote about experiences in World War I and his life in general. To preserve the stories, he published his grandfather’s memoirs and sent a copy to the Church of the Brethren, a pacifist congregation Ulrey attended in Pyrmont, Indiana. 

“What was so moving to me was one essay about when he was put in a group of conscientious objectors who were harassed,” said Humnicky, who also submitted the essays to the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project. “We’re losing primary stories of veterans because people aren’t cognizant they should submit their memoirs.”  

Humnicky’s younger brother, John, who served in the Vietnam War, also wrote a series of memoirs about Vietnam and his experiences there. A newspaper published some of them, and Humnicky is trying to convince him to self-publish them.

“We’re not historically important people in the world, myself and my brother. We’re just worker bees,” Humnicky recognized. Even so, he knows stories like these are important to tell.

Some of those stories have been told to Diane Dallis-Comentale, the Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries.  “Mike Humnicky has such a variety of experiences and collects stories everywhere he goes,” she said. “He shares the values of our library, especially in the areas of discovery and innovation. There is so much evidence of his ongoing curiosity and appetite for new knowledge. That makes him a wonderful partner in our mission.” 

A Family Library Legacy

His father, Stephen, and mother, Virginia, both earned IU master’s degrees in library science. His father, who earned a Purdue undergraduate chemical engineering degree, was a research chemist at Bendix Corporation in South Bend, while his mother was an IU School of Medicine librarian. His aunt, Theodora Andrews, a Library Science alumna from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was head pharmacy librarian at Purdue.  

Humnicky first earned a dual bachelor’s degree in physics and economics at Purdue and later obtained an IU master’s degree in library science. His wife, Judith, earned a physics degree from Purdue and worked as software engineer in the aerospace field. 

After graduating from Purdue, he and Judith moved to Silicon Valley where he worked in several government and aerospace-related positions. Humnicky spent most of his career in the aerospace systems engineering field in California, and retired as an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Humnicky planned on becoming a science librarian mid-career, but an unexpected, well-paying opportunity to work for a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, a defense and aerospace contractor, changed his course. 

His wife Judith passed away in July 2011 and then he retired from Lockheed in 2012 and moved to Murfreesboro, after reconnecting with a high school sweetheart who lived there and to whom he was married for eight years. 

Giving to Libraries 

While Humnicky made estate plans earlier in life, he later decided he wanted to donate a considerable amount of income while he was living to IU and Purdue, as well as other universities, including Ball State University, Indiana State University, Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn., and Middle State Tennessee University.  

When he visited IU in 2025, Christine Wagner, IU Libraries Stewardship Officer, connected him with the IU Nonresidential Scholars Program for Ukraine, which he supports financially. His parents, who met while attending Purdue, were born in the U.S., but his grandparents emigrated from Ukraine.  

Humnicky has funded an endowment to buy books and archival material related to the history of Poland and Ukraine, with materials purchased now and will continue after he dies. He arranged for his funds to allow Ukrainian researchers who aren’t located at IU or Purdue to have access to e-journals and essays.  

He set up two other estate endowments at IU – one for the Sciences Library, specifically for physics and astronomy, and another for the Lilly Library. From his current funds, Humnicky said he also annually donates to the Herman B Wells Library Fund, Lilly Library Fund, Sciences Library, and the Ukrainian Scholars Support Fund.  Humnicky, who been a pianist and violist, said he has donated funds over the years to the IU Jacobs School of Music and gave Ukrainian music albums to IU’s music library. 

He stressed that universities and their libraries generally aren’t funded as much today as they were years ago. “Libraries struggle with their budgets,” he explained. “It makes me feel good that I can support them in some way.” 

Dallis-Comentale appreciates his support, both now and in the future, “Consistent giving from donors like Mike Humnicky helps us look forward with confidence and live out our vision for this library. There are many people at our libraries and across this campus who so very grateful to him.”