Meet Dan Linke

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LinkeName: Daniel J. Linke (“Dan”)

Title and Duties: Uni­ver­sity Archivist and Cura­tor of Pub­lic Pol­icy Papers. Over­see the oper­a­tions of the Mudd Library which includes ref­er­ence, tech­ni­cal ser­vices, exhi­bi­tions, and col­lec­tion devel­op­ment, as well as rep­re­sent­ing and pro­mot­ing Mudd Library within the Uni­ver­sity and to the pub­lic at large.

Worked at Mudd since: Decem­ber 27, 1993. Pro­moted to cur­rent posi­tion July 2002.

Ongo­ing projects: Direct­ing the James A. Baker III Oral His­tory Project; plan­ning the cel­e­bra­tion of the Uni­ver­sity Archives 50th Anniver­sary in 2009; and advo­cat­ing for an elec­tron­ics record man­age­ment pro­gram, in con­junc­tion with a full-time records man­ager to be hired.

Why I like my job/archives: Mudd’s hold­ings are broad and deep, in both the Pub­lic Pol­icy Papers and the Uni­ver­sity Archives, and some­thing inter­est­ing is always hap­pen­ing at Prince­ton. As a man­ager, I am also grate­ful for my smart and self-motivated staff.

An inter­est­ing work anec­dote: For the Baker Oral His­tory Project, I arranged to have Vice Pres­i­dent Richard Cheney inter­viewed on video­tape by for­mer Newsweek White House cor­re­spon­dent Tom DeFrank in the Vice President’s for­mal office in the Old Exec­u­tive Build­ing, which is adja­cent to the White House. The inter­view was to start at 10:30 but at 10:20, the Vice Pres­i­dent walked into the room unan­nounced and asked, “Who’s in charge here?” I refrained from mak­ing any Al Haig jokes, but strode for­ward and said “I am, sir” and intro­duced myself. For­tu­nately every­one was ready to go so we started. Though I had asked for an hour of his time, Cheney talked for almost 90 min­utes. (He restricted this inter­view though, so it is not yet available.)

Favorite item/collection: There are many. At the moment, when I give tours, I like to show Jacque­line Kennedy’s let­ter to Adlai Steven­son dated Dec. 4, 1963, Earl Gideon’s let­ter to the ACLU, and the Prince­ton flag that Pete Con­rad ’53 took to the moon with him on Apollo 12.

Other infor­ma­tion: I am one of three “Dans” work­ing at Mudd, and though born the ear­li­est, I do not like being called “Old Dan.”