Tony Martin, the longtime Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh director and a national leader in library computerization, died Saturday in suburban Nashville, Tenn. He was 87.

Mr. Martin started work for the Carnegie as a page, reshelving books in the voluminous library stacks, and rose through the ranks to become the entire system's director in 1969, where he stayed until his retirement in 1985. Known outside the doors of Carnegie headquarters in Oakland for his innovations in computerizing the catalogs of the library's holdings -- a sometimes controversial conversion in its first days -- he was known behind them for his kind way with people.

The director made a point of visiting all of the 20-odd Carnegie Library branches citywide each year, getting to know staffers behind the scenes, and inviting librarians to summertime pool parties at his house in Bethel Park.

He knew enough about the workers that when a part-time Downtown librarian named Gladys Maharam resigned in 1980, with hopes of finding another job, he made a special visit to see her.

"He came down to see me on my last day on the job -- this is the director -- and he said 'If you ever want to come back to Carnegie Library, there will be a place for you.' I did come back -- three months later," Ms. Maharam said with a laugh.

She is now deputy director of the library.

Working with people, Mr. Martin's former assistant director Joe Falgione said, "was a major strength. He knew the staff, knew their strong points, their weak points, their problems. They trusted him."

Mr. Martin received degrees from Duquesne University, Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Pittsburgh, and served as a B-17 bomber pilot with the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II. After the war he worked for the U.S. Bureau of Mines before joining the library system, rising from the Research Department to the assistant directorship of the Allegheny regional branch on the North Side. He became director of the branch in 1956 and, after working for Carnegie director Keith Doms in the mid-1960s, became director in 1969.

He was a board member of the Pittsburgh Regional Library Center, the Pennsylvania Advisory Council on Library Development, the Pennsylvania Library Association, WQED-TV and other groups, as well as being a founding member of St. Thomas More Church in 1953.

Mr. Martin marshalled the library through the first stages of computerization in the 1970s, which was no easy task. Public libraries are tradition-bound things, and moving catalogs from paper to computer screens took both hard work and some convincing of library supporters.

"People didn't understand. Other libraries weren't doing it," Ms. Maharam said. "Libraries are thought of as very historical -- when people thought of libraries back then they thought of Andrew Carnegie with a white beard or an old Model T-type Ford. That was the concept of libraries -- people did not think of them as modern."

Mr. Martin changed that. Under his leadership in 1973, Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh became the first public library outside Ohio to access the forward-thinking OCLC database. Formerly called the Ohio College Library Center system, it was (and is) a nonprofit collaborative that allowed libraries to share the arduous task of computerizing the cataloging of billions of paper materials and holdings.

With his wife, Julia, he edited a guide to scientific publications called the Technical Book Index from 1956 to 1969. He also instituted the library's first electronic circulation system in 1984, which later became its online catalog.

After retiring the next year, he volunteered as the National Flag Foundation's archivist from 1987 to 1988. He moved with his wife to Spring Hill, Tenn., near their two daughters, in late 2006.

He is survived by his wife, daughters Michele and Anita, both of Spring Hill, Tenn., son Tony of Wilmington, N.C., and three grandchildren. Funeral arrangements will announced later.