Father Chrysostom V. Schlimm, O.S.B., has spent a good deal of time in the Library at Saint Vincent—serving in a variety of roles, including director of libraries, for the past 48 years. He retired at the end of the spring semester.
A native of St. Marys, Father Chrysostom came to Saint Vincent to attend the Preparatory School, P’52. He entered the monastery before finishing college, professing simple vows in 1955, then finishing a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Saint Vincent College, C’57. He made solemn profession of monastic vows in 1958, then completed a master of divinity degree from Saint Vincent Seminary, S’61, the year he was ordained a priest. He went to Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., to study classical languages, earning a master of arts degree in 1964, and participated in the New England Latin Workshop at Tuft’s University (1968), the Vergilian Society Summer School in Italy (1969), and in the summer study program in Greece with Seton Hill College (1969).
He began serving on the College faculty following ordination, in the Department of Foreign Languages, and in 1964 joined the Seminary faculty. Father Chrysostom became an assistant cataloger at the Saint Vincent Library in 1970, serving in that capacity until 1983. After he started work at the library, he began studies in library science, earning a master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1973. In 1984 he became director of libraries for the Archabbey, Seminary and College, a role he held until 2001, when he was named special collections librarian, the position from which he retired this spring.
Interspersed with these roles as well as others in the college, including committee and alumni work, he has assisted in many parishes in the Dioceses of Greensburg, Pittsburgh, Erie, Altoona-Johnstown in Pennsylvania; Youngstown, Ohio and the Archdioceses of Washington and Baltimore.
Father Chrysostom was also involved with the Catholic Library Association and its Western Pennsylvania Chapter, the Classical Association of Pittsburgh and Vicinity, the Pennsylvania Classical Association, the Catholic Association of the Atlantic States, the Vergilian Socoiety of America, the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Pennsylvania Library Association and the Pittsburgh Regional Library Center, now Palinet, a Library cooperative membership organization.
In 2001 he received the Boniface Wimmer Faculty Award for extraordinary achievements on the faculty, and for his service to the library, which included automating the library in 1994 and then upgrading the system to a web and graphics based system, in addition to overseeing a library renovation in 1998-1999. That same year he was named an Alumnus of Distinction by the Saint Vincent Alumni Association, “in recognition of meritorious service and lifelong commitment to Saint Vincent.” In 2011, Father Chrysostom received the Prep Hall of Fame Faculty Award.
