The Library of Congress Professional Association used to have an annual book and record sale. Employees could donate unwanted items that other staff members could then buy. Almost at the beginning of my Library career, I went to the sale and bought a record with "Sarah Irvine" written on the label. That's how Sarah got on my radar. And, until now, no one but Sarah has heard that story.
I don't remember how we actually met, however. I soon realized, though, that she didn't have a mean, nasty, or malicious bone in her entire body, an opinion I never saw reason to change. If you know or remember only one thing about Sarah, it should be that.
Though she majored in zoology at the University of Michigan—she told me she did so because she hoped to find a cure for diabetes—about halfway through she took a Russian language class. Between her undergraduate work at Michigan and later studies at Georgetown University she earned 30 credits of Russian. She told me she should have majored in Russian, but by the time she realized that it was too late to change.
Sarah's love of Russian extended to the culture, especially the music, and most particularly the operas. As with everything she was interested in, her knowledge in this area was broad and deep. Though my degree is in musicology, Sarah knew way more about Russian and Eastern European music and opera than I ever will.
Sarah had a huge interest in, and a real flair for, languages. In addition to Russian, she took four years of Spanish in high school, 16 credits of German, and 12 credits of Japanese. The "party line" was that she didn't know French, but she could manage to say—and understand—what she needed to in French as well.
Though she would strenuously object if she heard me say this, her Russian really was fluent. For many years she had lunch once a week with a co-worker who was a native speaker of Russian. They spoke English only on the few occasions I joined them. When we went to see Tchaikovsky's opera Pikovaia Dama at the Washington Opera, she got the volume from the Pushkin complete edition on which it is based and sat and read it on break and at lunch. When I mentioned this to a colleague with a Harvard master's in Russian, he said, "Anyone who can just sit and read Pushkin like that knows Russian as well as anybody needs to know Russian."
Some people thought because Sarah was little, easy going, and very laid back that you could push her around and that she wouldn't stand up for herself. Ask the former head of Slavic cataloging at the Library of Congress how that worked out for him! Sarah had earned her promotion, but he was dawdling over the paperwork. When she decided there had been enough delay, she went into his office, said, "I want my promotion!" (the exact words she used when she told me the story), and said she would wait while he finished the paperwork and then carry it to its destination. Her promotion went through that day!
Sarah would be adamant that I say here that everyone, definitely including Sarah, liked and got along well with her boss in Slavic section and thought he was a nice guy.
Though she started at the Library in the Slavic section, Sarah was accepted into the TAP program (it stood for "Training, Appraisal, and Promotion"), a path by which promising technicians could move into professional positions and earn a master's in library science. She excelled in her new job, which was cataloging books in English, and was promoted as quickly as regulations allowed.
Sarah was a superstar cataloger, absolutely top notch, known throughout the Library for her invariably high quality work and for her thorough knowledge of the cataloging rules and procedures. She earned several outstanding performance ratings, the highest you can get. No one ever had to go behind Sarah and do it right; if you see a mistake on her cataloging you have a story to tell your grandchildren. Believe me, there are quite a few people about whom no one would say any of that!
I think even those less prejudiced than I would agree.
Most libraries in the United States, and many elsewhere, follow Library of Congress cataloging policy. So only the best catalogers are called upon to write policy statements. On several occasions Sarah was temporarily assigned to the cataloging policy office to write these procedures. One of those times she revised the documentation for series, the most complicated, arcane area of cataloging, and turned an incomprehensible sheaf of papers into instructions everyone could understand and use.
Later, when the Library started inputting cataloging directly into the computer, Sarah was asked to teach the class for doing series online. She doubted her ability to teach the course and didn't want to do it. I told her that she was a good cataloger, knew her stuff, wasn't trying to snow anyone, and would only be explaining what she was already doing. Besides, she had done lots of one-on-one training, and all her trainees had been successful. In a letter to a friend she wrote, "I have been helping out with teaching some new procedures, for catalogers to input their own records into the computer instead of filling out worksheets for other people to input. I actually taught three 3-hour lecture classes—until recently, I didn't think I could stand up calmly and teach a group!" As luck would have it, I was assigned to one of her classes, and I thought she did a fine job.
This touches on only a few reasons why Sarah was so special. I could go on about how she was never judgmental and was always accepting, her sense of fair play, the way she always rooted for the underdog, her support of many charities. However, I have to stop somewhere; there just isn't time to include it all.
On a personal note, Sarah is the best thing that ever happened to me. The smartest thing I ever did was to ask her to lunch that day. Why she put up with me for thirty-six-odd years is a mystery, but my life has been immeasurably richer because she did.
Created: 9 Aug 2022
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