Lynda Claassen has served, since 1983, as director and chief curator of the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego. She has also held positions as slide and photograph curator at Cornell University, special collections librarian at Mills College, special consultant at the Smithsonian Institution, and special consultant at the Library of Congress. For twelve of her years at UCSD, Claassen also held the position of Library Development Officer.
Claassen is the author of Finders’ Guide to Prints and Drawings in the Smithsonian Institute (1981), and she speaks and writes frequently on collection development, academic fundraising, artists’ books, and the use of special collections in undergraduate education. She has been active in the Rare Books & Manuscripts Section of the Association of College & Research Libraries for more than twenty years, serving as preconference program chair in 2003 and chair of the Section’s Budget & Development Committee.
Claassen received her B.A. in art history from Smith College, pursued graduate work in architectural history at Cornell University, and earned an M.L.S. from the University of California, Berkeley.