Lesley University

James Slattery, 1962 - 1995

Thirty-three year Lesley veteran, James (Jim) Slattery held several positions during his tenure, including Director of the Library, Campus Planner, and Professor of Social Science. Jim discusses his very first days at Lesley in the early 1960s, working to build the library's collection.

James Slattery:

I immediately started to try to encourage just general reading. I bought a bunch of new books and got a bunch of new books. I got them cataloged by the cataloger and I got them out on display, best sellers and novels and classics and things like that and put up a sign saying, "books for cocktail conversation." And (coughs) within two days the president called me into his office and said that the Chairman of the Board of Trustees had wondered into the library and he was a teetotaler (laughs). This was Livingston Stebbins a fine old man (laughs)…and he had just built the building the library was in a couple of years before and he was just enraged (laughs). So I had to take down the sign (laugh). And it was that sort of place. It was very old fashioned even for the time. It was 1962 before the sixties really begin. And students were not allowed to wear jeans… not allowed to wear shorts. Well, they could wear shorts on hot days on campus but if they went off campus they had to wear a raincoat over their shorts (laughs).