If you granted a librarian three wishes, chances are you’d end up with Suffolk’s new Mildred F. Sawyer Library.

For one, it’s a strikingly beautiful space for learning, comfortable and contemporary but ideal for research and scholarship. It’s also state-of-the-art, offering incomparable access to cutting-edge information services. And best of all, if you’re library director Bob Dugan, it’s full of students—all the time.

Suffolk is buzzing with stories about how many students are taking advantage of the new facility. The crush of customers clearly delights Dugan, even though his staff is hard pressed to keep up with demand. And he cannot offer enough gratitude to the Sawyer Charitable Foundation for making these wishes come true.

The Sawyer family has a long history of supporting Suffolk—the Sawyer Business School is named for Mildred’s husband Frank Sawyer—and the Foundation’s annual support for the library is emblematic of a gift’s ability to transform Suffolk and the lives of its students.

“Without their support, we would be just another academic library,” Dugan explains. “What students take for granted here just doesn’t happen anywhere else.” With the Sawyer family’s long-term commitment, the library has been offering amenities like laptops, online reference materials, and wireless Internet since 1999, earning Suffolk a national reputation as an early adapter of advanced tools.

As the rapid development of technology is changing the way information resources are available to students and scholars, Suffolk is setting the pace. “We’re able to keep up because of the Sawyer Charitable Foundation,” says Dugan. “And, of course, once we can keep up, we can take it to the next level.”

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