The Newberry Library’s first female president is making big plans

The new president and chief librarian of the Newberry Library began work on Dec. 1 and on a warm afternoon a couple of months later, she was sitting in her book-lined office saying, with what one can sense is a genuine enthusiasm, “There will be a bar bill from Lenny Bruce.”

Astrida Orle Tantillo was talking about one of the items that will be part of the first major exhibition of her tenure, “A Night at Mister Kelly’s,” which opens March 21.

“I was never there but this exhibit will bring through our doors many people who were there, but perhaps have never been here at the Newberry,” she says.