Sarah Elizabeth Thomas is a university librarian. In May 2013 it was announced that she has been appointed vice president for Harvard University Library, taking up the post in August. Previously she held the office of Bodley's Librarian and Director of the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford since February 2007. She is responsible for the operation of the largest university libraries in the United Kingdom, and one of the major research libraries in the world.
Thomas was raised in Haydenville, Massachusetts, United States, and graduated from Smith College in 1970. She qualified as a professional librarian at Simmons College in 1973 and received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1982 for a thesis on the Austrian author Hugo von Hofmannsthal and his relations with his publisher.
Between 1996 and 2006, Thomas held the positions of Adjunct Professor of German and Carl A. Kroch University Librarian at Cornell University. Her previous experience in major United States research libraries included Harvard's Widener Library, Johns Hopkins, the National Agricultural Library, the Library of Congress, and the Research Libraries Group.
She is the first woman to hold the position of Bodley's Librarian, and the second librarian (after her predecessor, Reginald Carr) also to be in charge of the university's integrated library service (known as "Oxford University Library Services" when it was established in 2000, but renamed "Bodleian Libraries" on 2 March 2010 – Bodley's 465th birthday). Thomas, an American, is also the first foreign librarian to run the Bodleian. In an interview she gave shortly after taking up the position, she recalled visiting Oxford when she was working at the Library of Congress to speak at the Sheldonian Theatre. She said that she remembered thinking "I could just die then and be happy". When recruitment consultants approached her about applying for the post and she saw the job description, she said, "it was love at first sight. It was everything I wanted to do, but bigger. Integration, the digital library, the estates programme, the opportunity to be inside a truly magnificent institution and have a role at a pivotal moment in its history – that was just too enticing for me."
In 2007, Thomas was awarded the Melvil Dewey Medal of the American Library Association, and in 2010 was awarded the Smith College Medal.
Thomas is married to Peter B. Hirtle, an archivist. They have two sons.
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