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Date: 7/21/2022
SPRINGFIELD – The estate of a former private detective made a bequest to the Springfield Public Library that will improve the Reference Department.
The estate of Mary K. Brogan, along with the Library Foundation, made the announcement July 15 at the Central Library. The center will be renamed “The Brogan Reference Center.”
“This is a really, really big day for Springfield,” Patrick Markey, president of the Springfield Library Foundation, said. “This is a really important gift.”
Brogan used the library “personally and professionally,” Markey said and her family did not forget that.
Brogan’s niece Dr. Judith Cramer spoke on the behalf of the family.
“I believe my aunt saw the library as the cog in the community wheel,” she said. “It’s a place where people could go and feel free, feel comfortable getting the answers they had.”
She related that her aunt used the reference department extensively in her work.
In a written statement, Cramer said she spoke more about the importance of the library: “My grandfather, my aunt’s father, Harry R. Cramer, was a schoolteacher in Springfield and so my aunt grew up in an environment in which education was highly valued. The reference room at the Central Library was a constant and essential source of invaluable information for her. It was central to her conducting her research, and the Reference Department and its devoted staff were essential to her work as a private investigator.
She spoke often of using the old Criss-Cross directory to find addresses and calling the reference librarians for other research material she might need in her investigations. My aunt was so grateful to have these resources available to her, and knowing that this bequest will continue to make these resources available for students, researchers and other patrons brings our family great joy.”
Stephen Cary, chair of the Library Commission, explained to Reminder Publishing that some of the funding would be used for the library’s reference department to subscribe to online databases that allow for reference librarians to better use the Internet for the reference questions brought by the public.
Cary recalled how in the early 2000s, with the ascendency of search engines such as Google, people would ask him if the reference departments of libraries were still relevant. He would reply if a person submits a search term to a service such as Google, one will get plenty of information in seconds, unvetted and with advertisements. If you give the same subject to a reference librarian and five or 10 minutes, he or she will give “six to 10 leads which are exactly what you need.”
“We expect that the Brogan Fund will add approximately $12,500 per year to the Reference budget,” Markey said. The Foundation is also using $50,000 from the fund to create the Business Center and Reference Desk at the East Forest Park Branch and $50,000 to create the new Brogan Research Center at Wellman Hall at the Central Library.