Sue Burkhart is the Acquisitions Librarian for the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals Library and she has been here for 24 years. She grew up in Middle Georgia and went to
Tift College in Forsyth, GA (now closed) and worked in a library for the first
time as a student assistant. From there she travelled around the country and
worked in libraries wherever she went.
Sue got her MLN from Emory University with two young children in the
house.
Sue worked at a law firm in New York City, Mercer University Law School
Library, and the University of Southern California Law Library before starting
with the Circuit Library. She began her
career here as the catalog librarian keeping our online catalog up to
date. She moved on to acquisitions of
legal materials for the libraries, the judges and other court staff. She is also in charge of our Library Digital
Collection of court historical material.
In her spare time, Sue enjoys spending time with her nine grandchildren
and travelling to visit them as often as she can. She also has an old English bulldog who takes
her for a walk rather than the other way around. If there is any time left she enjoys quilting
and reading.
1. Does your job title describe what you do? Why?
I believe my job title does describe what I do. Since we
have a small library staff I get to wear many hats. I am the Acquisitions Librarian purchasing
reference materials for judges, probation officers, federal public defenders,
and other federal court staff in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. I am also the
Catalog Librarian performing copy cataloging using OCLC and original cataloging
when the demand is there. I am also the Serials Librarian in charge of bindery
for the few law reviews that we still bind. I am also in charge of our Digital
Collection which consists of staff scanning historical court documents,
creating metadata for these items, and entering them into our digital
repository.
2. What are you reading right now?
I am usually reading two or three books at the same
time. I like all genres but at the
present time I am reading historical fiction and non-fiction. For my book club
I am reading America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura
Kamoie. This is an interesting look at the life of Thomas Jefferson through the
perspective of his daughter, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph, from the time
she was a young girl, acting as hostess at the White House during the
presidency of her father, and through his death. I am also reading Not
Everyone Gets a Trophy by Bruce Tulgan so that I can learn how to better
manage members of the millennial generation.
3. If you could work in any library what would it be? Why?
If I could work in any library it would be the one that I am
working in right now. I have been here for 24 years and I still love my job.
People ask me when I plan to retire and right now I can not give them an
answer. I like the variety of things
that I do everyday.
4. You suddenly have a free day at work, what project would you
work on?
I do like the variety of tasks that I do everyday, but some
days it feels like I don’t get a lot accomplished because I do have so many
things that need to be done. If I
suddenly had a free day at work I would work all day on our library digital
collection. That always seems to be at the bottom of my list of things to do
but I like having our court history available to people who are looking for a
specific item and we don’t have to go looking in file cabinets for them.
