DONOR SPOTLIGHT
Creating the Library of the Future Sue Furman visits the Newberry’s IT Department earlier this year.
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“ I’m proud to be a librarian because it’s about serving people and giving them access to the information that they need. Digital tools help us do that.”
hen asked about her successful library career, Sue Furman half-jokingly attributes it to “the quirk of having been a girl able to understand machines.” Sue is a vibrant personality, a self-described perfectionist, a dedicated librarian, and a member of the Blatchford Society, the Newberry’s planned giving society. She’s also one of the tech whizzes who helped launch the Newberry into the Internet Age in the 1990s. In addition to repairing malfunctioning equipment, Sue began Sue has always been dedicated to serving the public. After helping libraries computerize their card catalogs, an important step earning her Master’s in Library Science in 1980, she joined a team toward making information more accessible. “I’m proud to be a of librarians tasked with building a public library from scratch in librarian because it’s about serving people and giving them access Darien, Illinois. “We literally had to go to a bookstore and buy to the information that they need. Digital tools help us do that.” a library,” Sue says with a laugh. “That’s not something you get When Sue interviewed for a position at the Newberry in 1990, to do every day.” In just six months, the team built the Darien Associate Librarian Mary Wyly knew that the library needed to Demonstration Library and convinced the public that it was computerize its catalog—and that Sue was the woman for the job. worth their time and tax money. “Our biggest selling point was Sue served as the Newberry’s Director of Computing that we could get our users information from anywhere in the Services from 1990 to 1999. During that time, she was also part country using Interlibrary Loan.” (Interlibrary Loan is a service of an informal interdepartmental alliance of female librarians led that allows readers to request materials from other libraries— by Mary Wyly and including Sue in computing services, Hjordis including the Library of Congress.) “That was a big deal for our readers. It gave them access to information like never before,” Sue explains. After leaving Darien’s new, fully functioning public library district, Sue continued to work as a librarian in the Chicago area. No matter where she went, though, one thing remained constant: “When machines stopped working, they came looking for me.” Sue had a knack for technology from a young age, due in part to the inf luence of her father. “My father didn’t particularly want a child, but if he was going to have one, he was going to have a boy. Instead, he got me.” But the things that were supposedly “for boys,” like machines and engineering, interested her, too. And she was good with them. “Machines just made sense to me.” The Newberry’s IT department in 1990
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Spring/Summer 2020
