Fika with Vicky - Suzanne Karr Schmidt PhD- The Newberry Library

United Public Radio

This week we’re heading to Chicago to spend some time with Suzanne Karr Schmidt (PhD Yale) at The Newberry Library. Suzanne is their Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, she also researches for and creates exhibits, and helps lost books find their way back home. So, if you need a break from the holiday busyness curl up with a steaming mug, close your eyes and imagine a magical world where curiosity can be both inspired and sated, there is a portal that reaches back 5,000 years and contemplates the future, and most importantly has 27.5 miles of bookshelves. Fika will take you there, on this 100th episode. About the Newberry Library - Our collections, programs, and exhibitions are a portal to more than six centuries of human history, from the 15th century to the present. The Newberry welcomes anyone who is eager to learn about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. Our community of learning includes historians, genealogists, visual and performing artists, writers, graphic designers, teachers, students, and many, many others. A Brief History of the Newberry Walter L. Newberry, a businessman and civic leader in Chicago who died in 1868, left a provision in his will calling for the creation of a “free public library.” Newberry was light on details. He couldn’t predict how the library might best serve Chicago by the time it opened. As a result, Newberry staff shaped the institution around the needs of the city. To complement the Chicago Public Library, which had been established in 1872, the trustees decided to found a non-circulating reference library that would be free and open to the public. Before the Newberry opened in 1887, it had no collection to offer visitors. Walter Newberry’s own book collection, which might have served as a foundation for the library, had been destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. And so the Newberry’s first librarians grew the library’s collection from the ground up. Today, the Newberry collection extends across 27.5 miles of shelving in the library stacks. And it's still growing. We acquire and preserve materials that represent a range of perspectives and experiences—including those that historically have been marginalized, misrepresented, or silenced. Learn more about the Newberry at - www.newberry.org About Suzanne Karr Schmidt PhD: Suzanne Karr Schmidt (PhD Yale) is the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Chicago’s Newberry Library, where she adds books to the collection and curated exhibitions. Currently also serving as the director of the Movable Book Society, she publishes widely on unusual printed things, particularly on the “Renaissance Pop-Up Book.” She most recently curated the playful Newberry exhibition, Pop-Up Books Through the Ages (March-July, 2023). Previous shows include her co-curated 2020 Newberry exhibition Renaissance Invention: Stradanus’s Nova Reperta (including a Renaissance beer collaboration with Sketchbook Brewing), and her 2011 Art Institute of Chicago exhibition Altered and Adorned: Using Renaissance Prints in Daily Life. She is currently working on an upcoming Newberry exhibition about premodern printing on fabric for September 2026. Learn more about Suzanne at - @drkarrschmidt (Bluesky) @Ladydisdaine (Instagram) If you enjoyed this episode of Fika with Vicky please follow us @ - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FikawithVicky YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@FikawithVicky Blueskye - https://bsky.app/profile/davehs.bsky.social Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/fikawithvicky/