Susan K. Martin

Susan Katherine Martin (born 1942) is an American librarian. She has worked as a university librarian and was executive director of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.

Early life

Martin was born in Cambridge, England in 1942.^[1] Her parents were pianist Jolan (née Schonfeld) and Egon Orowan, a native of Budapest, Hungary.^[2][3] Both of her parents fled Nazi Germany because of their Jewish ancestry, reuniting and marrying in England.^[3] Her family moved to Belmont, Massachusetts in the United States in 1950, and she became a naturalized citizen in 1961.^[4][5] Her father was a noted professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.^[5]

She graduated from Belmont High School in 1959.^[6][7] Martin attended Tufts University, graduating with a B.A. in romance languages in 1963.^[8][9] She received a Master of Library Science from Simmons College in 1965.^[9][8] She interned at the Harvard College Library from 1963 to 1965.^[9] She attended the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a Ph.D. in library and information science in 1983.^[8][9]

Career

Martin worked as a systems librarian at Harvard University from 1963 to 1973.^[9][10] She was the head of library systems office at Berkeley at the University of California, Berkeley Libraries from 1973 to 1979.^[9][10] Next, she was the director of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University from 1979 to 1988.^[10] In 1984, Martin became the Samuel Lazerow distinguished lecturer at Drexel University.

She was the executive director National Commission on Libraries and Information Science from 1988 to 1990.^[8] For this position, she was responsible for developing legislation and advising the executive and legislative branches about the needs of the libraries.^[9] She also directed and planned national library and information science programs with state, local, and private organization.^[9]

Martin was the university librarian of Georgetown University from 1990 to 2001.^[11] In 2001, she became the president of SKM Associates, a library management consulting firm.^[8] In September 2002, she became a part-time visiting program officer for scholarly communications with the Association of College and Research Libraries.^[8]

Martin became a fellow in the Council on Library Resources in 1973. In 1994, she was elected president of the Association of College and Research Libraries.^[12] She was also president of Library and Information Technology Association and the Universal Serials and Book Exchange.^[12][10] She was an American Library Association delegate to the Soviet Union in November 1976.^[10]

She has written numerous articles and monographs on library automation.^[10] She was the editor of the Journal of Library Automation from 1973 to 1977 and an was on the board of consultants for Library Issues: Briefings for Faculty and Administrators.^[9][10]

Awards and honors

Martin received the Simmons College Distinguished Alumni Award in 1977.^[12] When she retired from Georgetown in 2001, members of the Library Advisory Council established The Susan K. Martin Fund for Innovative Information Technologies in her honor.^[11] In addition, Thomas J. Healey family established The Susan K. Martin, Ph.D., Fund for Science Fiction Award Collections at Georgetown in her honor in 2001.^[13]

Personal life

She married David S. Martin of New Bedford, Massachusetts in June 1962.^[4] He was the dean of School of Education at Galludaet University.^[14] She became one of the first female members of the Cosmos Club in 1988.^[15] She donated her father's papers to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries.^[16]

Selected publications

• Library Networks, 1986-87: Libraries in Partnership (Professional Librarian Series). Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986. ISBN 978-0867291278
• "Academic Library Fund-Raising: Organization, Process, and Politics". Library Trends vol. 48, no. 3 (2000). ISBN 9781315116143
• "The Use of Hypertext for Orientation: the NCLIS Approach". Essen Symposium. pp. 57–69, 1989

• Keeping the Pace with the Users". The Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 20, no. 4 (September 1994): 225-225.

• "The Profession and Its Leaders: Mutual Responsibilities". The Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 22, no. 5 (September 1996)

• "Clinging to ''Status: The Attitude of Librarians to the Non-MLS Staff". The Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 23, no. 3 (May 1997)

• "The Changing Role of the Library Director: Fund-raising and the Academic Library". The Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 24, no. 1(January 1998): 3-10

• "A New Kind of Audience". The Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 24, no. 6 (November 1998): 469-469

• "Visions - When Vision Encounters Reality: A Professional Dilemma". The Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 25, no. 3 (May 1999).

References