Sarah Sachs ’82 is a librarian with a mission. Above and beyond her work at the Potsdam Public Library, her involvement includes working with the Head Start Program and serving as a board member of the St. Lawrence Childcare Council and 1st Book St. Lawrence County, among other organizations; all of them are focused on getting books to kids. “When I give away a book to a child, it is the best thing in the world. A certain segment of our population doesn’t have any books at home, and there is a significant impact on their children’s preparation for school. I see my job as connecting families with a collection that belongs to them. All families have access to books and resources at the library and everyone owns them.”

Sachs has also been working with SUNY Potsdam faculty Lynn Hall, Deborah Conrad and Carolyn Stone on a grant-funded project called “Where Are the Books?” to expose elementary education students to the breadth of materials available to them for use in the classroom. Professor Hall explains, “Since our collaboration with Sarah, our students are using a much more varied selection of texts to engage learning of science… as a result of our collaboration school children benefit as they are exposed to more variety of literature. We couldn’t do this project without Sarah and her leadership.”