There is an old adage that goes “the only constant is change.” For the past several decades at Temple University Ambler, however, the only constant is Sandi Thompson.

Thompson, head librarian of the Ambler Campus Library, marked 55 years of dedication to Temple University last fall and every sign points to that tally continuing to rise.

In 1969, Thompson was a fresh face in the former Paley Library on Main Campus, applying for a job after seeing it listed in her local newspaper—no internet searches or LinkedIn then. She began as a bibliographic assistant, first in the Acquisitions Department, followed by service in the Business Library, Government Documents and then in the Mathematical Sciences Library.

“My first job was behind the scenes, not face-to-face, and I soon realized I missed person-to-person contact,” she said. “In the Business Library, I was a bibliographic assistant working with three professional librarians. That was public-facing and that was when I knew that this is what I was meant to do.”

What has kept Thompson at Temple for all of these years? “It’s the people,” she said.

“At Main Campus, at Ambler, I have had this wonderful opportunity to really relate to our students, to the faculty and my colleagues; to get to know them on campus and acknowledge their contributions and have them acknowledge me as well,” she said. “In my time here, my goal has been to help students find the right resources they need or help them discover where their interests truly lie. Hopefully I’ve helped faculty members find new ways to discover information or pushed them in a different direction to help them make their classes come alive.”

In this video, Sandi Thompson, head librarian at Ambler Campus Library, reflects on her career at Temple spanning more than five decades.

Becoming part of Temple Ambler’s history

In 1984, Thompson arrived at Temple University Ambler after earning her MS in library science at Drexel University. As bibliographic services librarian, she became deeply involved in the campus community and its library.

In addition to her more “traditional” duties as librarian, Thompson set about building a historical archive of the Ambler Campus, preserving key documents, photographs and memories of the campus and the former Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, which preceded Temple Ambler.

“I worked at Main Campus when the Temple Music Festival and Institute was here, and it was my first introduction to Ambler,” she said. “That initial interest blossomed from there. The campus has such a rich history that you can’t help but get immersed in it.”

Thompson was an integral part in the research and development of historical content for anniversaries of the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women and Ambler as a campus of Temple and the book A Century of Cultivation 1911 to 2011—100 Years from the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women to Temple University Ambler.

“These were all joint ventures between the campus, the arboretum and the library,” she recalled. “We work together, regardless of our titles or who we are, and we work for the benefit of the campus and the students.”

Perseverance Conquers

Preserving campus history and supporting the campus community became all the more important after the hurricane and tornado that struck Temple Ambler in 2021, which devastated the library building and threatened the archives that Thompson and her colleagues had worked so meticulously to build over the years.

In a series of defining moments, Thompson helped rescue Temple Ambler’s historic archive and ensure that library resources and support remained available to everyone in the tornado’s aftermath. Two weeks after the storm, when the campus reopened, library staff were on hand to support the community.

“Everything went down to Charles Library and everything that we were able to preserve remained accessible to our students, faculty and staff,” she said. “We set about determining where the library would live on campus, how we could best provide the services we offer to our community.” 

Thompson, working closely with Information Technology Services and campus administrators, developed the Information Commons in the Learning Center, a hub of learning, collaboration and resources for the campus community, which today houses about 45,000 pieces of the Ambler Library’s collection.

Librarians, Thompson said, are more important today than ever, “with many students brought up on computers and technology and trusting all that they read.

“There are many ways students can study material with a critical eye to make decisions about what they are reading, and we can help teach them these things. Being able to look at material critically is an integral part of learning and reading and becomes even more important with the current state of disinformation, misinformation and the burgeoning growth of AI coming at us from all sides,” she said. “What I truly aim for is that students who find themselves interested in reading will be lifelong learners and find knowledge, respite, fun, adventure, and whatever else they might need or enjoy in reading.” 

—Jim Duffy