Supreme Court of Ohio 2011 Annual Report

PAUL S. FU
LAW LIBRARY DIRECTOR, 1971 TO 2001
Paul S. Fu, 80, who served as director of the Supreme Court Law Library for 29 years
beginning in 1971, died December 27, 2011.
Under his leadership, the Law Library enjoyed steady growth from housing a
collection of nearly 115,000 volumes to 400,000 volumes by his retirement. The Law Library
was also the first state supreme court library in the nation to install an integrated online
library system.
Library Assistant Diane Taveira was a friend of Fu and remembered him as a devoted family
man who loved the arts and took great pride in the Law Library.
“I know that he loved the library and kept it as one of the foremost state supreme court
libraries in the nation,” Taveira said. “We all thought he was immortal. He was very Old
World, and I always thought that he represented the best of both the ancient world and the
contemporary world. He kind of walked that edge, and even though he thought of himself as
very modern, he was also very ancient.”
She noted that after retirement, Fu turned a lifelong love of fine arts into practice, taking
classes in oil painting and developing his own works.
Before joining the Supreme Court, Fu served as library director at the Ohio Northern
University College of Law and the Detroit College of Law. He earned his law degree from
Soochow University in 1960 and a library degree from the University of Illinois in 1968.
Fu was also active and served in leadership positions in national library associations. He was
one of the co-founders of the State, Court and County Law Libraries (SCCLL) Special Interest
Section of the American Association of Law Libraries. He also co-directed the first National
Conference on State Court Libraries. He was the recipient of the SCCLL’s Bethany J. Ochal
Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession in 2003.
Fu is survived by wife, Doris, two sons, Gene and Vincent, seven grandchildren, one brother
and nieces and nephews.
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