Glenn Curtis Smoot was born October 5, 1958, in Columbia, Missouri. A member of the faculty at Kentucky State University in Frankfort at the time of his death, Smoot was previously an archivist at Voyageurs National Park and with the Stearns County Historical Society in St. Cloud, Minn.

He lived in St. Paul for 17 years and was active in the St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center in Minneapolis and the local caucus of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

He died January 29, 2002, at his home in Frankfort, Ky. He was 43.

Smoot, a voracious reader beginning at age four, held a Bachelors degree in English from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, a Masters degree in English Literature from the University of Minnesota, and a Masters degree in Library and Information Sciences from Rosary College (now Dominican University) in River Forest, Ill. He was a member of the Church of the Ascension (Episcopal) in Frankfort.

A group of anonymous donors named CVM’s library in honor of his memory. The donors felt that naming a local library was an especially appropriate tribute to Smoot, who spent his entire working life in libraries and archives.

Smoot organized and catalogued archival collections for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the National Park Service, the Stearns County Historical Society, and Kentucky State University.