Eileen Thornton Papers, 1938-1971, n.d. | Oberlin College Archives

Thornton, Eileen (1909-1997)

Eileen Thornton, librarian (library director) at Oberlin College from 1956 to 1971, was born in Wexford, Ireland in 1909.  She became a U.S. citizen in 1924, received her B.S. from the University of Minnesota cum laude in 1931, and the A.M. from the University of Chicago in 1945.  Before coming to Oberlin, Thornton held positions at the Hibbing Public Library in Minnesota; the St. Louis County Poor Commission, also in Hibbing; the University of Minnesota Library; the West Waterloo High School library in Iowa; the Bemidji State Teachers College Library in Bemidji, Minnesota; the University of Chicago Library; and the Vassar College Library where she was the Librarian.

In addition to these positions Thornton taught as a visiting lecturer at Columbia University in 1949, and at Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1953 and 1961.  She also served as a consultant to the New York State Education Department in 1955, the Board of Education for the Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee in 1956, and the College Center of the Finger Lakes in Corning, New York in 1962-63.

Eileen Thornton was the first woman to hold the position of Librarian at Oberlin College.  She also served as the librarian of the Oberlin Public Library and was the clerk-treasurer for its board.  From 1964 to her retirement in 1971, Thornton participated in the planning of the new main library building for the College, completed in 1974 (Mudd Learning Center).

Several important developments in the College Library occurred under Thornton’s leadership: a music library to support the Conservatory, improved library services to the science departments, the establishment of a collection supporting East Asian studies, and the hiring of Oberlin’s first archivist in 1966, reporting to the provost.  Subject specialists in music, art and science were added and the reference services expanded and improved.  Readers were given progressively easier access to all parts of the collection, and library hours were considerably extended.  The Oberlin College Library was a founding member of OCLC, which was chartered in 1967 and is located in Columbus.

Thornton was a life member of the American Library Association and a member of the ALA Council and ALA Executive Board.  She served at the president of two ALA divisions: the Association of College and Research Libraries in 1957-58, and the Library Administration Division in 1967-68.  In 1969 she was the only woman and the only college librarian selected as a delegate to the first Japan-U.S. Conference on Libraries and Information Science in Higher Education.  In that year also she was awarded the University of Minnesota Outstanding Achievement Award.

In 1989 the College Library honored Thornton by naming a conference room in Mudd Center in her name.  That year she received the Association of College and Research Libraries’ distinguished service award.

Eileen Thornton was living at Kendal at Oberlin, a local retirement community, when she died on January 10, 1997 at the age of 88.

Sources Consulted

Vita for Eileen Thornton, 1962, Eileen Thornton Papers (RG 30/280).

Staff file for Eileen Thornton (RG 28/3).

Author: Anne Cuyler Salsich

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