TRIBUTE TO Sally Blumberg Linden upon her retirement (2003)

Profile:  Sally Blumberg Linden

By Dorothea Widmayer ‘52

Written in 2003...(rediscovered recently by Lia G Poorvu)) 

A petite dynamo in a hard hat, longtime Research Librarian and Special Projects Manager Sally Blumberg Linden ’56 has spent most of her time since 1993 overseeing major changes to Clapp Library:  renovations to Archives, Book Arts, and Special Collections; installation of the fourth floor Conservation Facility; and now an overhaul of the main floor.  She also oversaw 1997 changes establishing the Knapp Media and Technology Center.  Sally makes clear in conversation that she loves the challenge to listen to ideas and hopes of potential users, to imagine creative uses of space and light, and to help faculty, students, librarians, and architects translate these into the “right” project outcome.  “Sally succeeds,” says College Librarian and Vice President for Information Services Mich Jedrey.  “Wellesley’s library facilities are recognized as models of modernized, enabling spaces, visited from all over the world.”

When she finished high school in a small mill town in upstate New York, Sally chose the liberal arts and Wellesley over home economics at her state university.  It took me two years to hit my stride,” Sally admits, but, characteristically, she loved the challenge.  During her junior and senior years, she confidently enjoyed a scholar’s life, majoring in political science, finding English and art history exciting and satisfying, and performing as a member of the Shakespeare Society.  Although she spent many hours in the library, however, “I had no thought of becoming a librarian.”

Marriage, children, and gourmet cooking followed graduation.  But as her second daughter entered middle school, Sally needed to refocus her life.  Wellesley’s placement counselors helped her discover a potential for library work, and she entered the Simmons College program in 1969, taking a single course each semester over four years.  Electing to manage Clapp Library’s research department over corporate librarianship, Sally returned to her alma mater in 1973.  During the next 20 years she compiled an outstanding record in reference services, library instruction, and management.

“In 1993,” Sally remembers, “I began adding ‘special projects’ to my agenda.  The first I took on was developing a College copyright policy.”  Her talent for consensus building and negotiation, coupled with a clear prose style, resulted in a model copyright policy for other academic institutions.  Sally has also been a prime mover in devising the College policy for “acceptable use of computing resources,” another challenge given rapidly changing technology and high community expectations.

Recently widowed, Sally looks forward to retiring this June and spending more time with family.  One of her daughters, a self-employed carpenter, lives nearby; the other, an oncologist, in Seattle.  Sally also plans to spend more time in her house on Martha’s Vineyard, to read, to attend concerts and ballet performances, to cook, and to keep fit.  “While others might have viewed the final decade of their work lives as a time to ‘wind down,’” Mich Jedrey observes with admiration, “Sally demonstrated the value of a liberal arts education by embracing change and continuing  to grow.”  A very modest person, Sally has an adventurous spirit and an enthusiasm that shine in an expressive smile and cheerful greeting.  But her unassuming demeanor belies a profound institutional knowledge that Clapp Library will sorely miss.