Monterey Bay Conservationists
A gracious bequest by Sheila Gibson Baldridge (1934-2023) and Alan Baldridge (1933 -2014) has put the finishing touches to their professional and personal involvement with the Miller Library and its collections from prior to its construction at Hopkins Marine Station to the present day. Neighboring organizations on which they also bestowed their boundless expertise, guidance, volunteerism, and philanthropy included the Moss Landing Marine
Laboratories, the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Friends of the Sea Otter, the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District, the Myers Oceanographic and Marine Biology Trust, and the local chapters of the Audubon Society and the American Cetacean Society.
Situated on one of the most historic and picturesque settings on the California coastline, along Ocean View Boulevard in Pacific Grove, the Harold A. Miller Library supports the research and teaching needs of the Hopkins Marine Station and the Oceans Department in the Doerr School of Sustainability. Its primary focus is on marine biology, but it also collects materials on oceanography, fisheries, sustainability, and other aquatic sciences, as well as maintaining its own special collections and archives.
Sheila and Alan, both born in England, met at a library science school in Newcastle, married in Liverpool, and moved to the United States. In 1966, Alan was hired as a librarian at Hopkins Marine Station while Sheila found similar employment at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. Over the years and after Alan’s passing, Sheila worked in several libraries and championed environmental conservation on the Monterey Peninsula. She was a founding board member of the Myers Trust, providing grants to marine science graduate students at local universities. In 2005, the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories named their new research vessel the Sheila B in honor of her longtime, outstanding service to students and faculty.
Alan left the Hopkins Marine Station in 1974 for a stint as an associate professor and librarian at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami, then returned in 1978 as librarian and assistant to the Station’s director. He worked closely with the Friends of Hopkins Marine Station support group until he retired in 1993. He was well known and highly respected in the Monterey vicinity and beyond as a research scientist and expert naturalist, whale-watching and pelagic trip guide, author of The Bird Year and Gray Whales, and on-ship scientist for several Stanford Alumni expeditions.
In a biography prefacing a Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interview in 2012, Joe Wible, now the emeritus head of the Miller Library, said: “Probably the most visible of Baldridge's accomplishments is the Harold A. Miller Library Building, which was dedicated in 1989. He played a key role in both the fundraising for the project and the design of the facility, which is the envy of marine lab librarians everywhere. This was the second time Baldridge had to move the outstanding collection he developed for the lab's scientists. The library started in the Loeb research building before moving to the historic Monterey Boat Works. There, because the library shared the building with the dive lockers, Baldridge had the now famous sign put up: Please No Wet Suits in the Library.”
Amanda Whitmire, head of the Science & Engineering Resource Group at Stanford University Libraries and head of the Miller Library, said, “I never had a chance to meet Alan, but it was my great fortune to have spent time with Sheila through Friends of Hopkins events and in soliciting her advice in stewarding the Alan Baldridge Book Fund. I will never forget her delight when I pitched the idea of using some of the book funds to buy replicas of marine mammal skulls for teaching comparative vertebrate anatomy. She had no trouble thinking outside the book!”