Melissa Bailey Photo
Alejandro Lopez had his eyes on the prize. The 8‑year-old walked into the Fair Haven library branch, found Lore Lichtenberg, and started hitting the books.
Alejandro was gunning for the Caldecott Book Award, which called for students to read 74 books in a series, one for every year since 1938. Some of the books are hard to find. The school didn’t have them all, so Alejandro went to the library, where Lichtenberg helped him find, check out, and read through all the books in the series. He became the third student in school history to have his name engraved on a plaque on the Benjamin Jepson School wall for winning the Caldecott.
Alejandro (pictured above), who’s now 10, shared his story Tuesday at a press event in honor of National Library Workers Day.
Over three dozen library staffers and supporters gathered on the steps of the New Haven Free Public Library’s main branch at 133 Elm St. to celebrate the day. The event was organized by AFSCME Locals 884 and 3144, which together represent nearly 40 municipal library workers.
Union members sported buttons bearing the numbers 331.88, the Dewey Decimal approximation for “trade union.”
Lichtenberg (at right in photo), a library technical assistant, said the library system represents less than 1 percent of the city budget but “100 percent of the solution” to New Haveners needs.
Local 884 represents front-line library workers who shelve books, help visitors navigate the aisles, help kids with homework, and help employment-seekers apply for jobs online. They work at the city’s main branch, neighborhood branches in Fair Haven, Westville, the Hill and Dixwell, as well as in the city’s mobile readmobile.
Bill Armstrong, who has worked at the library’s main branch for 15 years, spun off a poem of sorts about all the services workers offer. Librarians help visitors learn “how to bake a cake, fix your car, and play the guitar,” he said, tapping his foot to the rhythm of his words.
Melissa Canham-Clyne, a former New Haven library branch manager who now works in Bethany, hailed the public library as a “free university.”
“Whether you have lost everything or you have everything,” she said, “you can stand shoulder to shoulder” in the city’s most democratic institution, she said. The city’s “free university” offers computer classes, art and film, she noted.
The celebration came amid some rumblings of labor-management conflict under the new library director, Christopher Korenowsky. Locals 3144 and 884 recently aired some of those concerns at a public meeting of the library board.
Local 3144 President Cherlyn Poindexter (at right in photo) said the two unions and the city met last week with a mediator and settled four municipal prohibited practice complaints they had filed against the library administration.
“Now everybody seems to want to come to the table and work together,” she said. “We are optimistic about working with the director” on ongoing concerns.