Tulsa library pioneer dies at 97

TulsaWorld | Tulsa library pioneer dies at 97

Services Wednesday for 'first lady of Oklahoma libraries' Lillian Norberg, a Tulsa community activist who led the campaign that created the Tulsa City-County Library System, died Saturday. She was 97.

A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Southminster Presbyterian Church under the direction of Stanleys Funeral Service.

Norberg was born Oct. 24, 1908, in Seminole, where her father, Henry A. Born, owned a hardware store.

She and her five brothers and sisters were taught that education was the most important possession a person could have.

"Books and reading were paramount in my family," she told The Tulsa Tribune in 1985. "They were our passion, our love, the content of our conversation."...

When Lillian Norberg moved to Tulsa, she was astounded by the poor condition of the public library at Third Street and Cheyenne Avenue, and in 1957 she formed an organization called the Friends of the Tulsa Public Library to work for improvements.

She was the first president of the group, which led the campaign in the early 1960s for Tulsa's present Central Library and countywide branch library system...