Next Friday, June 17th will be Suzanne Degler's last day at MCAD. She is moving west with her family where she is looking forward to enjoying the Mediterranean climate of the area south of San Francisco. Instead of MCAD students, she will be bumping into Stanford students at the local coffee houses. Instead of heat, humidity, freezing temperatures, snowfall and tornados she will be contending with fog, drought and lovely day after lovely day. We assume the fortitude forged here will sustain her out there.
We have been fortunate to have had her as library director since 1996. In this time she has overseen the momentous project of bringing our catalog online, including converting typed catalog cards to digital records, undertaking a complete inventory, and barcoding all our volumes. In addition to this, she has selected and acquired all our new materials and managed the people, finances and property of our library.
Maybe you know her and have appreciated her humor and good heartedness. Maybe you loved that she bought that book you requested or that she found books you didn't know you needed (who knew that you loved Kuniyoshi or Andy Goldsworthy). However, even if you don't know her or never directly met her, you can still appreciate that she was the one overseeing your library experience from hiring the staff to replacing the light fixtures (so you could see to read); buying all our new books and DVDs, including that obscure European film that you loved; selecting our periodicals from Adbusters to Scientific American; and making sure we thought about what you students and faculty would need so we could provide good service.
Given all that, please feel free to thank her and say your farewells.
