Glaberman Library

While we haven’t posted in a while, it doesn’t mean things aren’t happening at the Glaberman.

First is some bittersweet news. Long-time Portland activist and IWW Jerry Baum, died last year. FW Baum, who was a Professor of Literature at Lewis And Clark College, amassed a large collection of books of working class literature, theatre and poetry. We are arranging for a donation of a good number of FW Baum’s books to the Glaberman and establishing the Jerry Baum Reading Room in the meeting room outside the main library.

Our friend and comrade, Jessie was out from someplace called New York City. Jessie, in a superhuman feat, categorized most of the library’s periodical collections and papers (5 four drawer filing cabinets full!) over the month of July. He also brought in a number of new volunteers who’ve become active. A big thanks to Jessie for all his hard work.

We are also starting up a weekly Labor Forum series soon. Gary Bills, who ran the IWW’s Saturday night forums for a number of years at the Burnside Hall is stepping in to help. Check the events section on this website.

We’ve fallen behind in cataloging due to technical problems integrating the system to our web host. We hope it’s sorted out soon.

All in all it’s been a very active couple of months at the Glaberman. Upcoming major events include a grand opening, the Second Annual Portland Radical Book Fair as well as a benefit for the Library at the end of November.

As many of you know, we suffered a little setback a couple of weeks ago. On the night of Tuesday May 1st (of all days!) or the morning of Wednesday May 2nd someone left water running outside and the library was flooded, to the tune of a couple of inches of water on the floor.

The shelved books were not damaged, but, as we are still in setup phase, there were boxes of pamphlets, zines, books, and serials on the floor, therefore in the water. Materials were removed from the boxes and spread out, various drying techniques were utilized, and in the end we completely lost very little, though some of our materials are quite wavy. After shop vac-ing out a lake’s worth of water, we ran a heavy duty propane heater (thanks Terry!) during the day for a couple of days and ran a dehumdifier for a week (a used dehumdifier was recently purchased, once it is up and running we’ll always keep it on in an attempt to control moisture), so we should be in pretty good shape.

Amazingly though, most of the damp stuff dried well and pressed flat! Just a matter of keeping an eye out for mold now. I will try to put together a more comprehensive account for the historical record sometime soon along with a selection of disaster recovery web resources. We definitely need to thank the folks on the Anarchist Librarian List, Jim Karman from Multnomah County Library, and Kristen Kern, Preservation Librarian from PSU Libraries for all the wonderful info and advice!

Today’s work party mainly revolved around identifying tasks. Bank accounts, non-profit status, staffing, events, deciding to use Library of Congress indexing, selling off extra books, etc. There will be a volunteers meeting at 7pm on Sunday the 20th to discuss these and other issues.

As can be seen, much needs to be done! If you are interested in volunteering, there will always be someone at the library around 1pm on Sundays.