Linda Grinberg, 51; Film Librarian and Activist Against AIDS

Linda Grinberg, 51, a film collection librarian who became an AIDS activist after she was diagnosed with the disease in 1991, died Monday of complications from AIDS at her home in Los Angeles.

A Cal State Northridge graduate with a degree in English, Grinberg was chief executive and librarian of the Sherman Grinberg Film Libraries, a Hollywood film collection started by her late father. After the firm was sold, she worked as a film producer.

Stricken with AIDS, Grinberg devoted her efforts to several organizations to assist patients and established the Foundation for AIDS and Immune Research to fund and promote research. She was also a co-founder of the Fair Pricing Coalition, an organization that works with the pharmaceutical industry to reduce prices of prescription drugs for people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Because of her advocacy, writing and donations, she received the Project Inform Activism Award in 1996.

Grinberg also volunteered for aggressive new forms of AIDS drug treatment, saying in an interview that her constant goal since her diagnosis had become “buying time, buying time.”