Retirement reception is May 31 for Sandy Slater Sandy Slater, head of the Chester Fritz Library Elwyn B. Robinson Special Collections has announced her retirement beginning July 7. A reception honoring Sandy will be held Thursday, May 31, in the East Asian Room of the Library from 3 to 5 p.m. Everyone is invited to come and thank Sandy for her dedication to the University. Sandy began her work in 1985 as a library associate in the department. She was appointed head of the department five years later in 1990. During her many years of service, she has greatly contributed to the growth and development of the library’s Special Collections. Her responsibilities have included administration of the University archives program, collecting regional historical manuscripts and records, developing the family history collection and the special book collections, including the Norwegian Bygdebok Collection and Fred G. Aandahl Book Collection. She was also curator and coordinator of the East Asian Room, and the bibliographer for the history department. Additional responsibilities included editing and contributing articles to the library’s annual newsletter, Lux et Lex. She also coordinated the Merrifield Competition and chaired the competition jury since its inception in 1994. This competition has awarded over $20,000 in scholarships to students who have written papers using the primary resources housed in Special Collections. She has coordinated the Robinson Lecture, and edited the Robinson Bibliography, since its inception in 1991. In recent years, Sandy has directed the expansion of Special Collections digital information. Today there are over 550 finding aids to the manuscript collections available through the Internet. In addition, four different digitization projects including the Dakota Student index, the E.J. Lander & Co. land records, the Grand Forks marriage records, and the Grand Forks coroner records, have been made available electronically. Sandy has promoted historical preservation on the local and state level by serving on the North Dakota State Historical Records Advisory Board since 1990. She has been a member of the Grand Forks Historic Preservation Commission since 1987 and has served as vice chair since 1999. Sandy is active in the University’s Nordic Initiative and is currently participating on the Historic Preservation Committee for UND's 125th Anniversary. Over the years, she has participated in many workshops and conferences on historical preservation and genealogy and is widely recognized as an expert on archival administration and special collections. The staff of the Chester Fritz Library, the University community as well as archivists and researchers in Grand Forks and throughout the region, will miss Sandy. Please join the library staff as we wish Sandy good health and great happiness in her future adventures. -- Wilbur Stolt, director of libraries.