Sara Tompson
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California, USA
When she was six years old, Sara Tompson knew she wanted to be either a teacher or a librarian, and settled solidly on librarian in high school. But not a totally traditional librarian, as she happily reminded her high school friends who gently teased her for being chatty. To this day her extroversion has proved an asset in her chosen profession, even though students still sometimes "shush" her at the reference desk! Sara was lucky to have librarian role models in her family: a cousin who worked as a school and a special librarian; a cousin who is a high school librarian; an aunt and a second cousin who volunteer in libraries. And now she has cousins-in-law in librarianship. Her first library position was as a library security guard while earning her undergraduate degree in English at Northern Illinois University.
Sara is currently Associate Dean for Library Public Service at the University of Southern California. She has been at USC for six years, previously as the Science & Engineering Library Team Leader. She also currently does research consulting for a new engineerig firm started by some of her former colleagues. Her background is in scitech libraries in academic, corporate and government settings. Prior to coming to USC, Sara lived in her home state of Illinois. Past positions include: Knowledge Services Center Director, Packer Engineering; Library Administrator, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Information Services Program Manager and Librarian, Illinois Hazardous Waste Research and Information Center; Research Information Specialist, University of Illinois Center for Compound Semiconductor Microelectronics.
Ms. Tompson attributes much of her professional and personal growth to her involvement with the Special Libraries Association, which she first joined in 1990 at the encouragement of Illinois scientific surveys librarians. Sara got involved with SLA-Ilinois while in Champaign-Urbana, hosting "downstate" meetings with strong support from the chapter Board. When she moved back to northern Illinois, Sara dove into collegial writing, and is a coauthor of the 4th edition of the 1997 SLA imprint text Special Libraries: A Guide for Management. Sara has held a variety of SLA offices, including: Engineering Division Chair; SLA-Ilinois President and Secretary; and Physics/Astronomy/Mathematics Division Secretary. She is currently the Professional Development Chair for the Southern California Chapter, and on the New Orleans conference West Coast Chapters Reception committee. She was a member of the Research Committee from 2001-2003, which promoted evidence-based research in special librarianship.
Teaching, research and writing are an integral part of Sara's professional practice. She has written for numerous journals, including authoring articles for SLA's Information Outlook regarding competencies, systems thinking, and marketing. She won the SLA 2003 H.W. Wilson Award with her coauthor Lorri Zipperer for the competencies article, and won the SLA-IL 2002 Author Award. She has coauthored three book chapters, "Systems Thinking: A Toolset for Demonstrating Value," to appear in Best Practices in Corporate Libraries; "Competencies Required! For Education, Recruitment, and Retention" in Recruiting, Training, and Retention of Science and Technology Librarians; and, "Digital Library Services: An Overview of the Hybrid Approach" in Handbook of Information Management, 8th edition. She co-taught Special Libraries Administration at Dominican University and regularly guest lectures live and virtually for UCLA and UIUC (her alma mater) graduate library courses.
Ms. Tompson is an instrument rated private pilot, and enjoys flying over the gorgeous southern California landscape with her husband and her friends, human and canine.
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