Remembering Sabra Statham

The DPLA family was devastated to hear that one of our Community Reps, Sabra Statham, passed away suddenly on Friday. Sabra was a Digital Project Coordinator at Pennsylvania State University and had joined the Reps program in 2014 as part of the second class. In the last year, she worked enthusiastically to represent DPLA in conversation with local Pennsylvania genealogy groups and in collaboration with her fellow Pennsylvania reps.  She was multitalented: in addition to her innovative work in the library at Penn State, she was an accomplished musician and a scholar of musical modernism.

On a personal note, I met Sabra when I visited Penn State last year, and was enormously impressed with her and her many projects. She cared deeply about reaching a broader audience through digital means, and worked on many fronts toward that goal, including through DPLA.

Recently Sabra was selected to receive a 2015 DPLA + DLF Cross-Pollinator Travel Grant to attend DPLAfest 2015. It’s hard for all of us to understand that she won’t be joining us in Indianapolis next month.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Sabra’s family and friends.