Carolyn J. Hardnett-Robinson, a former director of library services at The Baltimore Sun who brought the newspaper's library into the computer age, died of cancer Feb. 16 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson.

She was 68.

“Carolyn was innovative and always wanted to keep ahead of what was next in library technology,” said Paul M. McCardell, The Sun's current director of library services. “While she respected the library's past, she was always looking to the future.”

The daughter of Freddie P. Hardnett, a career noncommissioned Army officer, and Ada Matilda West Hardnett, a homemaker, Carolyn Judy Hardnett was born in Washington and raised in Remington, Va.

After graduating in 1965 from William C. Taylor High School in Warrenton, Va., at the time a segregated high school, she attended Hampton Institute — now Hampton University — in Hampton, Va.

Ms. Hardnett-Robinson did not initially aspire to work in newspapers. While a student at Hampton, she planned to pursue a degree in home economics, then become a teacher.

In 1970, in order to help pay for her education, she took a job briefly in a bank, then joined the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau as a receptionist. There she also worked with Barbara Newcombe, the bureau's librarian, and when Ms. Newcombe was appointed library head in Chicago in 1976, Ms. Hardnett-Robinson succeeded her in the Washington post.

In 1985, she was named director of library services at The Sun when its former director retired. She said she liked working for a newspaper library because of its “excitement and rewards.”

“I liked being the first to know history in the making. Every day something new happened,” she told the Afro-American in a 1987 interview.

“You can see the fruits of your labor. You know you have helped,” she said in the interview.

A genial Southerner, Ms. Hardnett-Robinson is remembered for her outgoing, ebullient and unflappable personality. She moved easily among editors and reporters consumed with breaking news, looming deadlines and daily news stories.

“She could rally the staff whenever there was breaking news or on special projects such as the anniversary magazine when The Sun celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1987,” said Mr. McCardell.

“Carolyn brightened up any place she ever worked, even staid, quiet libraries, with her laughter and spunk. She had such a warm, generous spirit — and took delight in life — that you just wanted to be around her,” Susan Baer, who got to know Ms. Hardnett-Robinson when she interned in The Tribune's Washington bureau from 1977 to 1978, wrote in an email.

“I often wondered how she ever got any work done because people from all parts of the newsroom, from the top editors on down, were always coming into her office just to chat or ask advice or share a laugh,” wrote Ms. Baer, who later became editor of the old Sunday Sun Magazine and is now a Washington writer. “She was so loved, and such a wonderful and devoted friend.”

Among Ms. Hardnett-Robinson's achievements at The Sun was the establishment of a computerized database. No longer would paper clippings be filed in folders that were then placed in Lektriever vertical carousels.

She also transformed the newspaper library from a cost center to a revenue-generating department, according to a profile of Ms. Hardnett-Robinson done by the Special Libraries Association.

“She was very patient and kind as we learned the computerized system, and once we did, we were able to put away our typewriters and scissors,” recalled Mr. McCardell. He said the computerized database went online in 1990.

After leaving The Sun in 1991, Ms. Hardnett-Robinson founded Hardnett Communications, a research and consulting service for freelance reporters, writers and business professionals.

In 1994, she joined the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times and worked as a researcher until 1998, when she returned to Washington to serve as director of research for BET Publications.

Ms. Hardnett-Robinson became senior researcher for special projects for the Newseum, a Washington news and journalism museum. Then, from 2007 until retiring in 2015, she was a senior information services analyst working in the AARP library in Washington.

Her professional memberships included the Special Libraries Association, where she was a past director and was elected chair of its news division in 1985.

Her SLA awards include the Ralph J. Shoemaker Award in 1984, the Agnes Henebry Roll of Honor Award in 1991, and the Joseph F. Kwapil Memorial Award in 2007.

She was a lifetime member of the NAACP and was a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Ms. Hardnett-Robinson was a frequent freelance writer and, in 1990, attended the inauguration of L. Douglas Wilder, Virginia's first African-American governor, an event that she described as one of the most memorable of her life.

“My heart was full and the tears flowed freely as I witnessed an event my ancestors never would have thought possible: a black man became governor of my home state of Virginia,” she wrote in a moving essay, “A Letter From Richmond,” published on the op-ed page of The Sun in 1990. The piece was picked up by wire services.

She wrote that as she waited in the crowd, “my past caught up with me.” She recalled attending a segregated school with an outhouse behind it. She wrote of ragged secondhand textbooks with missing pages, and of Jim Crow laws that prevented her family from eating at roadside restaurants or using restrooms when traveling.

“Growing up in Fauquier County meant going to the drugstore in town and not being able to sit at the counter to eat an ice cream cone,” she wrote. “It was simply not what black people were allowed to do.”

Ms. Hardnett-Robinson wrote that as the band played “America the Beautiful,” she began to “lose control … a chill played up my spine … and a lump settled in my throat.”

“I had sung this patriotic song so many times, but this time it was different. It now had more meaning for me than ever before.”

She noted that Governor Wilder was the grandson of Henrico County slaves. “What would they say if they could see their grandson now?” she wrote.

A resident of the Belvedere Square neighborhood, she was an avid reader, traveler and a gourmet cook.

“She also enjoyed dining out,” said her husband of 11 years, Anthony A. “Tony” Robinson.

Ms. Hardnett-Robinson was a longtime active member, volunteer and trustee of Union Baptist Church, 1219 Druid Hill Ave., where a memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. March 12.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by a sister, Carrie H. Swain of Locust Grove, Va.; and a niece, the Rev. Candace E. Hardnett of Savannah, Ga.

frasmussen@baltsun.com