The Librarian

One of the coolest things about Broadway Fillmore Alive is that I get to meet all kinds of people who work very hard to keep neighborhood treasures ALIVE.

A few months ago I learned that the Adam Mickiewicz Library & Dramatic Circle (AMLDC) got a new librarian.  The AMLDC had been without one for awhile.

A lot of people associate AMLDC with Dyngus Day, Torn Space Theater and their social events, but there is an extensive library featuring books and material representing a collection of Polish, Polish American and other material unique to Buffalo and Western New York.  I have seen the collection and could easily get lost in spending hour upon hour with all the fascinating material.

The person who has taken on the task of reorganizing  is Mary Lanham.

While working on the libray at the AMLDC, she decided to create a blog to help chronicle her experiences.

It can be viewed by clicking here–>

I think it is a very cool and important story and I decided to interview her for Broadway Fillmore Alive.  Mary graciously answered answered all the question I sent her and the following is the end result.

BFA: Can you give a little background on yourself?

ML: I was born in the Hudson Valley but have spent most of my live in Western New York. I have my Bachelor’s in History from the University at Buffalo. While I was working on my BA, I had the opportunity to reorganize the archives of the Polish Collection at UB’s Lockwood Library. After completing my Bachelor’s, I enrolled in the school’s Library and Information Studies program. I finished the program in a year and a half and was recently awarded my Master of Library Science degree. When I am not working, I enjoy painting very small pictures and reading about history and folklore.

BFA: How did you get involved with Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle?

ML: I have a few friends and family members who have been members at Mickie’s for a while. After going to different events like Pączki Day and Dyngus for years, I finally decided to pay the $10 and join.

BFA: What made you decide to become the librarian?

ML: When I first got a tour of the Library, it was in total disarray. Boxes of donated materials were piled up everywhere and the books were organized in an antiquated cataloguing system. As a librarian, I felt an obligation to clean this place up, not just for my own piece of mind, but more importantly for the community. People need to see what is in the Library’s collection and be able to find the information that they are looking for. After offering to help, the board appointed me Librarian of the Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle in the summer of 2010.

BFA: Is the task of reorganizing the library different than what you expected? What are the obstacles? What is cool about it?

ML: I knew it would a great deal of work to reorganize the Library. It had been without a regular librarian for about twenty years so a lot of stuff has piled up. In the intervening period, a few grad students have come and gone, but it seems nothing permanent was done to organize the materials. One of the biggest obstacles is the way the books were originally organized. Books at Mickie’s are basically in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. Since materials are now organized by subject matter every book will have to be recataloged and relabeled in accordance with the Library of Congress classification system. They will then all have to be reshelved.

But there are a lot of cool things about the Library. I like opening a mysterious donation box and seeing what it contains. It could contain books from the turn of the last century, personal papers, or modern books. Some of the cool finds have been: a turn of the century medical book from Poland that was written for women, a relief of Mickiewicz by Buffalo artist Joseph Mazur, and my personal favorite, the very first handwritten catalog of the Library from 1895. The really cool thing about this project is knowing that once I’m done, people will be able to find information that is important them.

BFA:  How long do you anticipate the project will take?

ML: That is very difficult to estimate right now. It will take at least a year or so to complete just the reorganization. The real “problem” if you will, is that the Library has a lot of materials in its collection that no other library in the world has. I can’t just copy other libraries’ information and paste them into Adam Mickiewicz Library’s catalog; I will have to do a good deal of original cataloging, which is very time consuming.

BFA: Why did you decide to do a blog on your experience?

ML: While I was interning at the Canisius High School Library I started keeping a blog. I found that writing a blog helped me to keep track of what I had accomplished each day. I liked blogging so much, that I decided to do the same for the project at the Mickie’s. It also lets readers know what is going on in the Library even though it’s not open yet.

BFA: Why is a place like the Adam Mickiewicz Library important?

ML: That is a very tough question to answer, not because it isn’t important, but it’s important for so many reasons. The Library is a place that is part of, and contains Buffalo’s Polish history. It is the oldest surviving Polish library in the city with books donated by Francis Franczyk, Joseph Mazur, and Miecislaus Haiman to name a few. It is home to over 400 hand-copied plays and of the 104 items I’ve tried to catalog so far, 71 are found at no other library in the world except at the Adam Mickiewicz Library.

With a little time and effort the Library can become a focal point of research. I’ve already had some genealogists ask about family members’ applications and an art historian asking about the Mazur items. One of the most important things about the Library is that it’s still in the heart of Polonia. As other organizations either left or closed, the Library stayed and survived. You could almost say that in Broadway-Fillmore, the Library is Alive.

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Thank you Mary!