Sarah Meisels was director of the Wheaton Public Library for 35 years, overseeing several expansions and renovations as the western suburb grew.
“She dedicated herself to the Wheaton Public Library and the patrons who use it, and (she) always wanted it to be the best for Wheaton residents,” said Dawn Kovacs, the library’s deputy director.
Meisels, 88, died of heart failure Feb. 1 at her home at the Bickford of St. Charles assisted living and memory care facility in St. Charles, said her niece, Alexandra Adams. She was a longtime Wheaton resident.
Born Sarah Greaves in Elmhurst, Meisels graduated from York High School and studied at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania before transferring to the University of Minnesota, where she earned a bachelor’s degree.
Meisels attended Chicago-Kent College of Law and taught at Moser Secretarial School in the Loop before getting a master’s degree in library science from Rosary College, which is now Dominican University. In 1966 Meisels joined the staff of the Wheaton Public Library, just a year after the library opened its building on North Cross Street in Wheaton. The building was renovated in 1973 and expanded in 1978.
Originally a reference librarian, Meisels was promoted in 1978 to director of the library, succeeding Marjorie Lincoln. Colleagues recalled that Meisels took over in the midst of an expansion and renovation project, and she oversaw its successful completion.
While Meisels spent plenty of her time managing the library’s finances and facilities, she was a bibliophile at heart who greatly enjoyed leading Great Books discussions and having less formal literary chats with the library’s patrons, colleagues said.
“I don’t think she ever used a computer, but she knew that we had to computerize, and she was all for it,” recalled Carolyn DeAre, the library’s retired deputy director and reference librarian. “She always wanted to get the latest that was available — even though she might never use it, she knew that’s what a library had to do.”
Kovacs also recalled Meisels’ strong support for computerizing the library’s collections in the late 1980s.
“As new technology came around to libraries, like CD-ROMs, databases and the internet, I asked if we could do that, (and) Sarah never said no and found the money to pay for it,” Kovacs said. “We expanded to teaching patrons how to use library technology like CD-ROM and database searching, and then how to use technology in general, like email, web searching and eBook readers, which required additional staff that Sarah hired. She loved the old — Great Books, opera, ancient history — but she wasn’t afraid of the new.”
Meisels also championed and oversaw the library’s biggest expansion, a 2007 addition and renovation that added computer workstations, a mural in the library’s Children’s Story House and a new west entrance linking the library’s campus with nearby Adams Park. To do so required closing North Cross Street, a move that was controversial at the time.
“She was the one who fought to have Cross Street closed so that the library could adjoin the park, which I think was a wonderful idea,” DeAre said. “She could see us having programs out there (in the plaza), and we didn’t realize how sunny it would be out there.”
To help build community support for the 2007 addition and renovation, Meisels helped launch the current Friends of Wheaton Public Library group, which was instrumental in getting Wheaton’s City Council to approve that project, DeAre said.
Looking back, Meisels said she took pride in the 2007 project.
“I loved it. A lot of people don’t care for that sort of thing, with the disruption and everything. But I think that was the culmination of my career,” Meisels told the Tribune in 2013. “Architects can make it look pretty but you’ve got to know how libraries work. It takes a librarian to plan a building.”
Meisels also steered the library through strained municipal budgets during the global financial crisis, which led to a 16% reduction in tax revenue. Employees took pay cuts, and the library’s board to decide to close the library on Fridays.
“Nobody liked it. You never like to restrict service to your public because that’s why you exist,” she told the Tribune in 2013. “It was a difficult decision. I know the board had a hard time with it.”
Meisels retired at 76 in 2013. Upon her retirement, she reflected on the future of libraries.
“Books aren’t going to go away,” she said. “Things just evolve but a lot of things sort of stay the same because people are the same. You just do it with a different twist.”
A first marriage to Frank Kille ended in divorce. Meisels’ second husband, Henry, died in 2001. She also is survived by a sister, Margaret Adams.
A visitation will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, at Pedersen Ryberg Funeral Home, 435 N. York St., Elmhurst. A memorial service will follow at 11 a.m.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.