The Cambridge Public Library Foundation is pleased to announce the acquisition of a historic piece of Cambridge Public Library memorabilia: a letter written in 1890 by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. declining an invitation to sit on the Library’s Board of Advisors.  Holmes, the son of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., a prominent Cambridge author and physician, went on to serve as a United States Supreme Court Justice.  

​Holmes’ letter, along with letters by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere, and Margaret Fuller, will be featured in the upcoming lecture, American Treasures from the Cambridge Public Library’s Archives and Special Collections, presented by Drew Griffin, Cambridge Public Library’s Senior Librarian in Adult Services.  The lecture will take place virtually on May 13 at 12 p.m. as part of the popular Lunchtime Lectures from the Cambridge Room.  Registration for the workshop is available here:   bit.ly/cpltreasures. Don't miss this exciting event!

Mónica Klien, a beloved member of the Cambridge Public Library’s English as a Second Language (ESL) family, passed away in January 2020.  A professor of languages and Latin American literature who taught at Georgetown University, MIT, and Wellesley College, Mónica started teaching ESL at the Library in 2015 and described it as the most rewarding experience of her career. Mónica was born and raised in Peru and so, like her students, discovered English as a secondary language.​

​Mónica taught at the Library until weeks before her death and many of her friends and family honored her life with a gift to the Library Foundation. A bright light gone too soon, we are honored to remember Mó​nica by sharing this touching short essay she wrote about her life and her experience teaching at the Library.

I am standing in front of eighteen students in the basement of the library. This is not the glass palace of the main library, but one of the other branches in a grittier part of town. It is a bunker-style structure, surrounded by piles of snow left by the monster 2015 New England Winter.  We are doing a vocabulary exercise where I show them a written word or phrase, and they have to describe it with words in English.  I show them “MAKE UP”, and different people scream different things: What ladies put on to look pretty! When you kiss after a fight with your husband! To invent a story!
 
For more than twenty years, I have taught Latin American Literature and Culture and Spanish in beautiful universities and colleges with brick towers surrounded by green lawns and flowers. Places with implicit rules of conduct, where mostly –with few exceptions- the children of privilege attend. After 10 years of teaching at Georgetown University in Washington DC, restlessness started setting in. I often thought of other possibilities: growing my own vegetables in a farm (I had only planted tomatoes and parsley in pots); starting a shelter for old and abused horses (I was 12 the last time I was near a horse);  making different kinds of empanadas with the hope of creating an empanada empire a la Georgetown Cupcakes (until one afternoon, while driving  in Dupont Circle, I  noticed a new shining place called House of Empanadas). I thought of many other possibilities, to which my husband would skeptically comment, “Ahhh, that really would be a successful enterprise!”
 
In 2009, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had chemo, and then resumed teaching.  A couple of years later, life brought us to Cambridge, and I took the road well traveled simply, oh well, Robert Frost, because it was easier.  I landed a job in a prestigious women’s college, where I received, for the first time in my teaching career, a negative evaluation from the students: not nurturing enough, too cold.  A colleague suggested I take food to class. I was appalled by the demands of the spoiled few and the obsession with grades, appalled by a system of over-empowered students and professors eager to please no matter what, appalled by the constant departmental bickering which ultimately leads to bad choices and a demeaning of the whole process of transferring knowledge to a new generation. I taught a couple more semesters there, but I was basically done, finished, finito.
 
This decision more or less coincided with my health going south. And I don’t mean going south to the Rio Grande, but south to the South Pole. I did not teach in 2014. It was an extremely challenging year.  I had a recurrence, a surgery and then landed in the emergency room twice. One of those times I had to stay in the hospital for nine days. At the end of the year, I visited my patient portal and scrolled down and down and down to the tens, the hundreds, of appointments for MRIs, CT scans, doctor of this, doctor of that. I wept when I saw that screen.
 
It is a mixed crowd today there in the library basement.  We have a small United Nations: Chinese, Russians, Iranians, Mexicans, Nepalese, Ukrainians, Chileans, Syrians, French, Haitians. Nobody is younger than late twenties. I’m worried we are making too much noise because Maria’s office has a window to the classroom.   Maria is the coordinator who gracefully and efficiently leads students and volunteers of multiple ESL classes in all the libraries of Cambridge.
 
The students are on fire, after we finish with the multiple meanings of “MAKE UP.” One woman screams: Teacher! Did you wear make up today??  I am a little taken aback but say, maybe a little. Another yells: Teacher! Do you have a husband?? Well… yes, yes, I do. Yet, another, Teacher! Do you like your husband?? Yes, I like him!! There is a lot of laughter. I feel alive, connected to these people who give thanks after every class without knowing I am a volunteer, who probe into my personal life in surprising ways. I feel connected to them by the purest form of transmission, without all the constraints that many American higher education institutions have fallen into.  Yes, yes, I give these students a little. I wonder if they know how much they give me.

What is your role at the Library?
I am the manager of Communications, Programs and Events at the Cambridge Public Library. With my team, I manage internal and external communications. That includes managing our social media platform, writing press releases, bulk marketing emails, updating our website, and coordinating with the city on messaging and communications when necessary. My Department is also responsible for planning and executing events and programs in support of strategic priorities – some suggested by community members. We have a range of programs at the Library, from author talks to art exhibitions and lecture series.

How do you decide what programs to put on at the Library?
We take suggestions from community members, the Library team, the Director – every six weeks we have a programming meeting where our committee reviews proposed events.

What is a typical day at work like for you? I imagine it’s quite different now than it was when the Library was open, of course!
That’s right! If I could talk a little about how it was in the building – the Library is a very fast-paced, dynamic environment with a lot going on. On top of managing programs and events, my team also manages use of Library spaces. Things can move very quickly at the Library, and there are many stakeholders involved – from the Library branches to the Mayor’s office. It’s a lot of fun! And I am honored to work at the Library, to have an opportunity to work in service to the community.
Things are different now with remote work and virtual programming. We have the infrastructure set up for remote work, using software like Microsoft Teams. It definitely requires more focus when you’re working from home! We have shifted our focus to virtual programs and rely more on social media to communicate with our patrons than previously. We have seen great attendance for our virtual programs. On July 2nd, the communal reading of Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” and the US Declaration of Independence was attended by nearly 300 people. In May, we had Porsha Olayiwola, Boston’s poet laureate, present a virtual reading with about 190 people in attendance. The Library’s Virtual Family Story Times are always full, too!
Although our programs are popular, it is important to keep in mind the gap in access to technology, particularly in low income black and brown households. It is difficult to evaluate the success of any program when you know that a cross section of the community will not be able to participate because they do not have access to technology. This is a great challenge, and it’s important that we work to bridge this gap. We hope to engage our stakeholders to find solutions to this challenge in the future.

What are your favorite events that the Library has hosted?
It’s hard to choose – we have held some really good ones! The communal reading of the Frederick Douglass speech and the Declaration of Independence earlier this month was great – the Douglass  reading thoroughly debunked the Declaration of Independence and I think it was important that we hosted the event when we did. And  Porsha Olayiwola’s reading was really powerful. Last year we hosted a talk with Professor Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University, as part of our International Briefing series, on the BJP and the rise of Hindu Nationalism in India.  The event was well attended and Dr. Varshney gave a great lecture on how minority communities in India are faring in the wake of the BJP’s rise to power. The talk also addressed human rights and highlighted the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities which we see happening in Myanmar and other places in the world.
We also hosted a professor named Jennifer Nash in early March. She conducted research among black doulas working for little or no pay in Chicago, and their importance in providing community healthcare and advocacy, within the context of black identity. That was another fantastic event.
Finally, another one that comes to mind was the talk by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, hosted in February. He is a controversial figure, but I think it is important that the Library host a range of viewpoints.

How did you end up working for the Library?
I started working at the City of Cambridge in 2009 as the Coordinator of Special Projects with Mayor Denise Simmons. In this role I liaised with different segments of the community including the clergy and minority communities. I worked for a time after this at other city departments – when Simmons was reelected to the City Council I served as her City Council aide, and when she was reelected as Mayor in 2016 I joined her office as the Deputy Chief of Staff. Here I worked on different policy measures including an effort to unilaterally raise the minimum wage in Cambridge. It was a great experience working in the Mayor’s Office, but after a while I wanted something different and was interested in transitioning to a different role in a city department. The mayor’s office had collaborated with the Library a number of times, and I was familiar with the Library’s operations and experienced in events. I applied for a position at the Library and was promoted after a year, and I have been working in this role ever since.

​Is there anything else you would like to share?
Right now I am working on two separate task forces at the Library to address issues of race and injustice, which were formed following the recent George Floyd protests by Director McCauley. With Em St. Germain I am heading a task force to come up with library programming to address racism. I am also on another Task Force addressing racism more broadly. I think these task forces present a great vehicle and opportunity to address some of issues around access, equity and inclusion which are very important to Director McCauley and to our stakeholders, and I look forward to the type of sincere and in-depth conversation and self-evaluation you would expect from a public-facing institution.

Thank you, Muna!

What do you do at the Library?
I am the archivist at the Cambridge Public Library, and, to make it very simple, I collect, preserve, describe and make available records of enduring value that document the history of Cambridge.

What does a typical day look like for you?
I am responsible for answering all reference requests – in person and remote requests. I interface a lot with the public in that way – answering questions, connecting patrons to resources, et cetera. I am responsible for curating the collection – going into the community and working with various community members, organizations and families to build the collection.
Once a collection comes in, there’s all kinds of administrative work that needs to be done around creating a Deed of Gift (the terms in which the donation comes to the Library). There is what we call processing in the profession, which is organizing the material in such a way that researchers can use it: describing it and making the description of the collection searchable online. The next step is digitizing the collection, and that entails a lot of technical pieces to make the images discoverable as well as making the collection freely available to anyone with an internet connection.
I’m in charge of exhibits and public programming, so, I’m teaching workshops that I develop curriculum for, and finding professionals or experts on a particular topic to give talks at the Library. I also do some social media outreach… my day-to-day job can touch any one of those pieces. It’s varied, and I’m using a lot of different skills all the time.

​How do things come into the collection? People reaching out, you reaching out to them? I imagine it’s kind of a mix of those.
It is a mix! People do come to me when they have something that may be historically valuable. And usually I can make a decision right on the spot about whether it is or isn’t – and when I talk about historically valuable, I’m talking about things that are completely unique to Cambridge and to the Library. There are a lot of other collecting institutions in the city, and not a lot of space, so we want to make sure we’re not duplicating efforts – I have to triage what comes to me. But most of my efforts to get material entail going out to the community, working with various partners, and building a network to get collections to the Library for people to use.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been working with Cambridge’s African American community, to document, preserve, and make available their wonderful, amazing, difficult, painful and nearly 400-year history in the city. It’s important to work with communities, especially communities that have been underserved, traditionally in our society, or under-documented because of institutionalized racism and prejudice. It takes a lot of trust building and creating relationships, and really saying: “Your history is essential to our city’s understanding of itself, and it is my job to document it and make it available to all in perpetuity.”
I’m slowly starting to receive donations, and it’s exciting.  The Cambridge Community Center is donating their records –  they’re a 91 year-old  organization, located in the Riverside neighborhood of Cambridge, just off Western Avenue, that serves the city’s Black community.

Is there anything that’s come into the collection recently that’s been particularly exciting for you?
Yes! The Johnson-Cardozo Family Papers I received last year is a fantastic collection that documents four generations of African Americans in the city. The collection includes personal papers – and personal papers are often very difficult to collect because they have so much meaning and value to individuals. Families often prefer to keep these kinds of papers rather than donate them to an institution, which is totally understandable. There are phenomenal materials in this collection – photo albums going back to the early 20th century, portraits, diplomas, family recipes, bibles, and published and unpublished manuscripts. There are even bronze cast baby shoes! 
​The most important piece from this collection is a bible from the donor’s great-grandfather, Robert Johnson. ​Johnson was a formerly enslaved man who sought freedom from a plantation in Virginia through the Underground Railroad and came to Boston in 1829. This family bible has Johnson’s genealogy on the inside cover. The bible in and of itself has no historic value: it’s an inexpensive, mass produced bible from the mid-19th century, but its provenance is just so incredible. I received some funding to get it conserved so that researchers can use it and it can be displayed. This bible is just such an amazing addition to the Library. 

Could you talk a little about working at the Library? What do you like about working in the Cambridge Room, and working at the CPL in general?
There are many things that go into the love of my job.  It’s great to be an archivist in a public library, where the barriers to entry are so low.  In a lot of archival repositories, researchers are required to make appointments or have an academic reason to use collections. When the Cambridge Room is open, I can just prop open the door and anybody can wander in and explore. And, we have such a dedicated patron base that is enthusiastic about the history of the city.
The Cambridge Public Library building is special. The space is beautiful here, in the Archives and Special Collections – a lot of archives are in the basement or in the attic or tucked away, but this collection is on the second floor, prominently displayed. Even the thought of where the Archives is placed in the building is brilliant – it’s on the north side of the building, so there’s no direct light to damage the rare books and artifacts that are on display. It’s just a beautiful space for researchers and staff to work in with all the amenities, like high density storage, that an archival repository needs.
Another aspect of my job that I really enjoy is teaching.  I try to bring my skills as an archivist to the community with public programming – for example, I offer workshops on how to preserve family photographs and how to conduct oral histories. These classes are very popular. We have an engaged citizenry who is interested in their own history and the history of Cambridge. That’s inspiring – to present to a full room of engaged and truly interested people. ​Lastly, our staff is amazing! They are knowledgeable, kind, excellent professionals to work with.

​How did you get interested in archival studies? Do you have any advice for anyone who is interested in working in an archive?
I studied humanities in undergrad and was not interested in pursuing a teaching path. I was exploring career options and saw that I could get a dual degree Master of Archives and Master of History at Simmons University and I thought, this is great, I can continue studying humanities and have a practical application for it. It really fit my academic desires as well as my career goals.  I’m such a typical librarian – I love to get information to people! There’s a lot of independent work that is done in archives. You can spend a lot of time cataloging rare books or processing collections, which is intense, detail oriented work, so there’s that aspect of it that I enjoy. On the other hand, there’s a social aspect to it that I love –  teaching, working with researchers, working with the community, and making connections. There’s a nice balance.
Advice for aspiring archivists? I think that if you’re interested in humanities and interested in history, working in the archives profession is a wonderful way to continue in that vein while also providing public service. Having a Master’s degree in History is useful – it gives you a leg up in the field as you’re applying for jobs. An internship where you’re actually processing collections is important, because you’ll know if you like the work and you’ll get the experience.

What can people explore from the collection online while the Library is closed during the pandemic?
Our most popular online resource is the Historic Cambridge Newspaper Collection, which offers four newspaper titles, including the Cambridge Chronicle, the longest running newspaper in the city’s history.  The collection, spanning the years 1846 to 2015, is fully searchable and has the additional advantage of creating a community of users who share and tag articles as well as correct newspaper text that has been garbled in the process of being digitized.  The crowdsourcing component of the collection has been fantastic:  nearly 650,000 lines of text have been corrected so that articles are more easily discoverable. 
Cambridge City Directories from 1848 to 1972 are also freely available.  The directories list the names and addresses of people living in the city, along with businesses, schools, organizations, and local government officials.  Included in the directories are wonderful advertisements from long defunct Cambridge and Boston businesses. This resource is widely used by historians and genealogist worldwide. 
Several photograph and textural collections are available to browse.  Users can look at the full collection of renowned documentary photographer and lifelong political activist Olive Pierce, who made Cambridge the subject of her mid-career.  Her photos depict the turbulent political scene of the 1970s, the lives of the children of the North Cambridge Housing Project Jefferson Park, and Cambridge Rindge and Latin students from the 1980s. A selection of Pierce’s photographs is currently on display at the Library.  All the Archives and Special Collections digital collections are easily accessible on the Library’s website.  Lastly, people can follow the Cambridge Room blog for news about the Archives and Special Collections as well as stories about Cambridge history.

​Thank you, Alyssa!

On June 17, 2020, the Cambridge Public Library Foundation hosted bestselling authors Erik Larson and Alan Furst for a virtual event in front of a limited audience. Now, we are pleased to share the video of their lively and fascinating conversation for our entire community.

Erik Larson is the author of six national bestsellers: The Splendid and the Vile, Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac’s Storm, which have collectively sold more than 9 million copies.

Alan Furst is widely recognized as the master of the historical spy novel. He is the author of Under Occupation, A Hero of France, Midnight in Europe, Mission to Paris, and many other bestsellers.

Please click the image below to watch A Conversation with Erik Larson and Alan Furst.

As we celebrate Juneteenth this year, we are reminded that our work is not done. The events of the past several months have exposed glaring inequities in our society. COVID-19 is killing disproportionately more Black and Brown people, Black Americans are being murdered in broad daylight and unemployment is projected to be in the double digits for a very long time.
Racism is baked into American culture. We have all known this, and yet our actions to combat it have not been enough. The Cambridge Public Library Foundation stands for inclusion, tolerance, social justice and economic opportunity for all people. We stand with the Black Lives Matter movement and we are proud to support a library system that opens its doors to everyone and provides resources regardless of race, gender, age, physical ability or economic means with the finest professional staff in the country. We are steadfast in supporting the Library’s phased reopening to ensure that everyone feels safe and welcome to the Library’s free and high-quality services without question.
W.E.B. Du Bois famously named “the problem of the color line” the major issue of the 20th century. He couldn’t foresee racism infecting the next century as well, but the Library Foundation has long championed the battle against this social ill as one of our primary purposes. To that end, we are committed to sponsoring Library programs such as Our Path Forward to ask how our City can continue to engage in that struggle and dialogue. The Cambridge Public Library Foundation commits itself to the continuation and elevation of the fight to root out racism and invites all sectors of the public to join us in this effort.

Shippen Page
Board President, Cambridge Public Library Foundation
June 19, 2020

Dear Friends,
 
When the world reopens and life resumes its new normal, the Cambridge Public Library will face one of the greatest challenges in its 130 year history – safely meeting our community’s growing educational, creative and collective needs. If you can consider a charitable gift, let me assure you that every dollar given to the Library today will impact the future of our community.
 
School closings caused by the pandemic have been a great challenge. Children and teens’
educations and academic progress have slowed or come to a complete halt. The Library has stepped in to bridge that gap with free, convenient educational programming steered by passionate youth librarians and unlimited access to the world of books. Your gift will help the Library continue to bridge this critical gap.
 
Entrepreneurs of all ages are making plans to advance their ideas and build out their dreams. The Library’s Hive Makerspace will fuel them with high and low-tech tools training, workspace and materials for creative projects, and classes for advanced learning. Your gift will help sustain STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) at the Library, fostering creativity and resilience.
 
Low income and marginalized individuals are struggling to navigate an increasingly complex and evolving world. Patrons need access to technology like hotspots (for internet access) and laptops that they check out and use at home for school, work and job seeking. The Library’s English language classes, instructional courses on basic computer skills, and community reputation as a safe and reliable place for help and information make it a lifeline for many. Your gift will enrich the Library’s offerings for our most vulnerable populations.
 
Finally, library staff must feel and be safe doing the job that they love – serving all of us. To that end, they need critical supplies and must pivot to do their work in new ways. Increased virtual programming means that staff require special equipment like headsets and software. Your gift will help the Library provide vital services during its closure and help reopen its doors as soon as it is safely possible. 
 
As we all adjust to this new normal, I am deeply grateful for the Cambridge Public Library – one of our community’s greatest assets. Thank you for considering a gift to support its work during this pandemic and for supporting the Library staff who will rise and meet the great challenges that lay ahead. 

​Stay safe and be well,