| 1 | Name: | Dr. Sarah E. Thomas | |
| Institution: | Harvard University | ||
| Year Elected: | 2013 | ||
| Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | ||
| Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1948 | ||
Sarah Thomas was Bodley's Librarian, the first woman and non-British citizen to hold the position since 1602. She headed the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford from 2007 through July 2013. From August 2013 through March 2019 she took up the position of Vice President for the Harvard Library at Harvard University and subsequently was also named University Librarian and Roy E. Larsen Librarian of the Faculty of Arts and Science. She shaped the library's vision to increase focus on user-centered services that connect faculty, students, alumni, and researchers with library resources online and in person. She spearheaded efforts to advance digital scholarship, committing library resources to open access and she advanced collaboration among libraries in areas such as shared storage, shared resources, and shared collections. She was University Librarian at Cornell University from 1996 until 2007. She began her career at Harvard University's Widener Library and has since worked at Johns Hopkins University, the Research Libraries Group (Stanford, CA), the National Agricultural Library, and the Library of Congress. She is a recipient of the Smith College Medal (2009), the Melvil Dewey Award (2007) from the American Library Association, and in 2004 she served as the President of the Association of Research Libraries. From 2013 to 2020 she was a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In addition she has served on the boards of OCLC, the Natural History Museum, London, Historic Deerfield, and the Walters Art Gallery. She is a graduate of Smith College, and holds a MS in Library Science from Simmons College, Boston, and a Ph.D. in German literature from the Johns Hopkins University. Sarah Thomas was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2013. | |||