Cornell Provost Biddy Martin has announced the reappointment of Sarah E. Thomas as the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian for a five-year term, beginning July 1.

"Sarah Thomas' contributions to Cornell have been profound, particularly given the era of great change and growth she has overseen as university librarian," Martin said. "I am delighted she has accepted reappointment and am confident that she will continue to lead our libraries with creativity and vision."

Thomas is the 10th university librarian at Cornell, which has one of the largest research libraries in the world, with a total budget of over $50 million, a staff of 500 and more than 7.5 million volumes.

She came to Cornell in August 1996 from the Library of Congress, where she held positions overseeing the library's public services, special collections and cataloging directorate.

"It's a rare privilege to lead the Cornell University Library," Thomas said. "It's a unique organization with extraordinary collections, a tradition of innovation and a superb staff with a 'go the extra mile' service ethic. I've particularly enjoyed, over the past decade, the opportunity to get to know Cornell's dedicated alumni, inspirational faculty and super-achieving students, who come to our libraries in droves."

During the past 10 years, the Cornell University Library, the eighth-ranked academic research library in the United States, has consistently emerged at the top of university services in senior surveys, studies of service quality in research libraries and in the recent Faculty Work-Life Survey. In 2002 the library received the Association of College and Research Libraries Excellence in Academic Libraries Award.

Under Thomas' leadership, the library has continued to build its rare and special collections and recently added a distinguished Native American collection. The library also has embraced the digital age, developing a suite of online services and offering 24-hour worldwide access to a rich array of online journals and other electronic media. Thomas has had a strong commitment to the integration of the 20 Cornell libraries into an organization that seeks to provide seamless access to information for the benefit of its users.

Thomas is the principal force behind Project Euclid, a Mellon Foundation-funded initiative to support the cost-effective online dissemination of mathematics and statistics journals. Project Euclid is now self-sustaining and publishes 45 journals available to users around the world. She also is the principal investigator on a Mellon Foundation grant project to generalize Project Euclid software and release it as an open-source product under the name "DPubS."

Thomas has served on the executive board of the Association of Research Libraries for six years and was its president in 2004-05. She also has chaired the Digital Library Federation Steering Committee and been a member of the board of the Research Libraries Group.

A 1970 graduate of Smith College, Thomas holds a Master of Science degree in library science from Simmons College and a Ph.D. in German literature from Johns Hopkins University.