George Burwell Utley was the selection to be the "first librarian of the first tax supported public library in the state of Florida.

"[6] In 1911 when the American Library Association was searching for a replacement secretary for Chalmers Hadley they turned to George Utley.

At that time he resigned from his post in Jacksonville, Florida, and moved with his wife to Chicago, Illinois.

Utley was a key part of this effort for the length of the American involvement in World War One.

In 1920, after World War One had drawn to a conclusion, George Utley moved back to Chicago with the intention of resuming his duties as secretary of the American Library Association.

Under Utley's direction the Newberry's "collection increased to one of 180,000 volumes of carefully chosen works in English and American literature and history.

Utley did not voluntarily retire but was caught up in a policy move by the Newberry Library's board of trustees.

Utley's "research while writing papers on the Maryland Diocesan Library's rare books led him to write"[10] his first published and perhaps best known work The Life and Times of Thomas John Claggett, First Bishop of Maryland and the First Bishop Consecrated in America.

In 1951, five years after his death, the American Library Association published Utley's The Librarians’ Conference of 1853.