JFK Commencement Visit Celebrated with Special Collections Exhibit

Spring 2003 marked a special anniversary—and a special exhibit—at San Diego State University. On June 6, 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave the commencement address and received an honorary Doctorate of Law degree, the first given in this field by the California State University system.

In honor of this 40th anniversary, the SDSU Library’s Special Collections and University Archives held an exhibit of books written by or about John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family. “A Brief Shining Moment: John F. Kennedy at SDSU,” which ran from March 13 through May 31, also featured photographs taken during Kennedy’s visit, the text copy of his speech, the commencement program, and a unique video shot during and after the president’s speech.

The items featured in the exhibit were from Special Collections’ J.F. Kennedy Collection, which consists of more than 200 books on Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the Kennedy family, with many being signed, inscribed first editions, and the Kennedy Collection of Non-Book Material, an adjunct to the Book Collection featuring newspapers and newspaper clippings, magazines, pamphlets, flyers, photographs, and other memorabilia.

Most of the works on display were donated by Andreas Brown, an SDSU alumnus and owner of the famed Gotham Book Mart in New York City. Brown was an acquaintance of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and some of the notes in the collection are handwritten correspondence between her and Brown.

President John F.Kennedy attends the june 6, 1963, SDSU Commencement.
To his right is former SDSU president Malcolm A. Love.

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Librarians usually match books and resources to patrons; when Margaret Theall was studying librarianship, she found that she had a talent for matching volunteers to organizations. “When I was going to library school, I was involved in the Junior League. People learned that I was good at organizing information, which is what librarians do. People would come to me with a volunteer opportunity, and I’d find someone with the right skills to help them out,” Theall said.

Theall also found another match: her love for volunteer work, interest in libraries, and talent for fundraising made her a perfect match for library development work. On November 4, 2002, Theall became director of development at the SDSU Library.

Theall received both her bachelor of arts degree in English literature and her master of library and information studies degree from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. While at McGill, Theall received her first taste of library work as a documentation technologist in the government documents department. After receiving her master’s degree, she became the manager of Advancement Research and Records at McGill until she returned to her native Toronto in 1993 to become the University of Toronto’s manager of Advancement Research and Major Gifts Records. In 1996, she became the associate director, Library Advancement and Public Affairs, for the University of Toronto Libraries and served as acting director for six months.

In her new position at the SDSU Library, Theall is in charge of raising funds for various projects that the library plans to undertake such as creating a group study lounge in the Malcolm A. Love Library building and creating several online digital archives using the materials found in Special Collections. “I want to increase endowments to the library for collections and an endowed lecture series,” Theall explained. “I also want to focus on finding private funding for new exhibit cases and tasteful sculpture and artwork for the library.”

Library volunteers, such as the Friends of the Library, will find a kindred spirit in Theall. She was a long-time member of Montreal’s Junior League, and until her move to San Diego served on the board of the Marvelle Koffler Breast Centre at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. “I chaired a committee at Mount Sinai that received a grant for a publication called ‘Breast Cancer: Men Get It, Too’,” Theall said. “I’m very serious about my volunteer work.” Theall received a Gold Award for Fundraising Publications (District II) from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education in February 2000 for a publication titled “University of Toronto Libraries: Preserving the Past – Preparing for the Future.”

In addition to practicing fundraising, Theall is accomplished at speaking about it. Over the past 10 years, she has spoken at numerous universities and seminars about fundraising, and she spoke about development at the American Library Association meeting in June 2003.

Margaret Theall can be reached by e-mail at mtheall@mail.sdsu.edu or by phone at (619) 594-2296.

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