She has worked as a university librarian and was executive director of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.
[1] Her parents were pianist Jolan (née Schonfeld) and Egon Orowan, a native of Budapest, Hungary.
[9] She also directed and planned national library and information science programs with state, local, and private organization.
[8] In September 2002, she became a part-time visiting program officer for scholarly communications with the Association of College and Research Libraries.
[12] She was also president of Library and Information Technology Association and the Universal Serials and Book Exchange.
[12] When she retired from Georgetown in 2001, members of the Library Advisory Council established The Susan K. Martin Fund for Innovative Information Technologies in her honor.
[11] In addition, Thomas J. Healey family established The Susan K. Martin, Ph.D., Fund for Science Fiction Award Collections at Georgetown in her honor in 2001.