Tuesday, March 29, 2011

So It Begins....

More than 400 books had been collected to begin a poetry library that would support and cater to the Denver poetry community. The Denver Poetry Community donated the books about four or five years ago, but the organizing party of this project moved on to other things and the books were stored for that time until January 2011 rolled around. At this time, I was contacted because of my love of books by the person who had been keeping the books all of this time. I was told that I could peruse and take what I wanted. I was ecstatic, of course, but looking around my already cramped home, and thinking about the original intent behind the collection, made me feel a little ill at ease about taking any of the books for myself. I only had a few days to make a decision, so I called Art from Ashes (AfA), asked if they could store the books as a library, and was told that I should head the project.

I began logging the poetry books at our LibraryThing in January. So far we have logged approximately 350 poetry books, anthologies, literary magazines, and chapbooks. For more information about the specifics, please check out the LibraryThing link above.

So far, we only have one bookshelf which is overflowing. At the moment, logging of the books has come to a hiatus until more bookshelves can be acquired. To begin, we need six more bookshelves so that we can begin positing donations onto them. We have a deadline for acquiring the bookshelves which is April 30th. That's not too far away!

I have put a call out for donations of materials, workmanship, and/or bookshelves so that we can begin filling them and move on to the second phase of creating a check out system for the books. I am waiting to hear from a couple of parties, but am still putting feelers out so that we can get this job done in time for the upcoming workshops at AfA, which begin in May, in the room in which the library is being housed.

Art from Ashes already has a reading room. I mention this because in some of the development talks for the library, the idea came up that the library should solely be a reading room project. I believe that a reading room without a check out system would create exclusivity. The Poetry Library at Art from Ashes aims to build community surrounding Art from Ashes, the Denver Poetry Community, the poetry community at large, and the youth that Art from Ashes empowers on a daily basis. This is a community outreach project, just as much as it is a community support program. It is not meant to be exclusive.

I have been doing my own reading on what a library is physically and philosophically. According to the authors Walt Crawford and Micheal Gorman, "Libraries exist to acquire, give access to, and safegaurd carriers of knowledge and information in all forms and to provide instruction and assistance in the use of the collections to which their users have access" (Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality). I love this idea and would like this to become a part of the library's aim. A check out system will become pertinent so that we can keep track of the books. That way the books can be available for many people instead of one (i.e. if we created a bring a book/take a book set-up).

I would like to introduce Leslie Williams, community outreach and senior librarian at the Byers Branch Library. Leslie will also be a writer on this blog. She has been meeting with me and very generously sharing research, ideas, her knowledge as a librarian, and her time for this project. She has related that the Byers Branch library has long wanted to collaborate with AfA, and this project is an excellent segue-way towards that cause.

Please feel free to comment here, contact me at AfA, or through my email at tameca dot coleman at gmail dot com with any ideas, questions, donations, and so on.