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Friends of Queens Public Library
44th Anniversary Edition The QPL’s Friends of the Library
The network’s origins and impact over the years
by Sophie Krichevsky
Associate Editor
The Queens Public Library has long served as a vital institution throughout the borough, as each branch delivers a variety of services that far exceed providing internet access or helping locate a copy of the latest Sally Rooney novel.
Many of those additional programs and resources are made possible through the Friends of the Library, in which community members work with their local branches to fundraise for, organize and promote library projects and initiatives.
Despite its relative youth, the group’s history is somewhat murky. Even the year of the Friends’ founding is unclear, remembered as anywhere from 1995 to ’99.
There’s consensus, however, that the Friends network was formed by then-QPL President Gary Strong and former library community affairs manager and ex-City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer .
“What we were seeking to do was to develop a borough-wide network of library advocates, right, who could build support for libraries, in their community,” Van Bramer said.
In fact, he still remembers traveling to community boards, civic groups and houses of worship to encourage residents to form chapters at area branches.
As Scott McLeod, the director of Volunteer Services at QPL explained, the QPL’s Friends network is somewhat unconventional.
“Most systems — especially smaller, kind of rural, suburban systems — only have one [group],” he said. “We’ve always had multiple chapters.”
But in Queens, creating a network of Friends groups made “perfect sense,” Van Bramer said.
“We’re a borough of neighborhoods,” he told the Chronicle. “If you go to the Woodside Library — you feel really connected to your local library, want to help your local library, and therefore your local community. We wanted to allow folks to do that — to organize in their local communities, supporting their local library, while at the same time ... connect them to the bigger system.”
That was certainly the case for Michaeline Von Drathen, who joined the Friends of Ridgewood Library in 2017 and became chapter president in 2020.
“I had always wanted to do service or volunteer work in the Ridgewood community, and one of the first places I thought of was Ridgewood Library,” she told the Chronicle. “I’ve been going to Ridgewood Library since I was a kid, and my father actually grew up here as well, and he went to the library, as well.”
Von Drathen takes pride in the work the Friends of Ridgewood Library do, be it a book giveaway or a watercolor workshop.
“They’re a dedicated bunch of individuals,” she said of her chapter’s members.
Van Bramer said that Flushing, Sunnyside, Richmond Hill, Steinway, Windsor Park, Auburndale and the Rochdale Village Adult Learning Center were among the first branches to form chapters.
But McLeod said it’s not clear which chapter — including both the active, now 12, and the inactive ones — was the first.
“This is a question that we’ve been asking — and I’ve been asking — since my department took over stewardship of the Friends,” he said. “I’ve had to go back and realize, the Friends had been around longer than the internet, and they’ve been around longer than digital record keeping. Everything was, at that time, really paper archives, and a lot of our Friends kept their own their own records.”
The pursuit of the Friends’ beginnings ultimately led McLeod in December 2021 to start the Friends Legacy Project, a digital archive compiling records and oral histories of the network and its chapters.
“We have Friends that have been around since the late ’90s, and they, they’re constantly telling us about all the great stuff that they have done at their branches, or that other groups have done,” McLeod said. “And we said, ‘OK, you guys have got to stop telling us this sort of in passing. We really want to document all of these things.’”
Through that project, McLeod said the QPL has been able to track the network’s evolution. And though many of the Friends’ projects are the same — backpack giveaways, plant sales, book swaps and street fairs were mainstays even in the beginning — they have been able to cast a wider net in more recent years.
“When they started, it was all about community — who you knew in the community and word of mouth,” McLeod said. “Now, the Friends have been able to reach a wider audience through things like email, and we’re exploring things like texting.”
“They still love their fliers,” he joked.
But throughout the Friends’ history, among the two most popular events are the annual Friends Conference and Library Day in Albany.
During the annual conference, which takes place every fall, Friends from various chapters have the opportunity to exchange thoughts and learn from each other through a variety of workshops.
A former QPL employee herself, St. Albans chapter President Lynn Owens first became interested in joining the Friends through the conference; she has attended every year since 2016.
“I like attending Friends conferences,” Owens said. “That provides opportunities to hear and share ideas with other Friends from across the borough — things that they’re doing, the things that work, things that are wonderful, things that you can replicate.”
Heading to Albany for Library Day every March as state lawmakers finalize the budget is another event many Friends have enjoyed over the years.
Van Bramer used to lead the annual pilgrimage, during which Friends of the Library would lobby area legislators to provide the QPL with more funding. He looks back on it fondly. Referring to Assemblyman Jeff Aubrey (D-Corona), he said, “I remember going to visit the assemblyman. We would have folks from East Elmhurst, from his district, who would go up there, of course, he invariably knew them. “It was very sweet. They would be like, ‘The East Elmhurst Library is my favorite place in the world.’” It’s a hit among Friends every year. “They find it extremely rewarding,” Owens said.
Those interested in joining a Friends of the Library chapter may visit volunteer.queenslibrary.org/ friends_membership. Q
The Friends of the Library help organize and fundraise for a number of library programs throughout the borough, ranging from arts and crafts activities to street fairs to plant sales. PHOTOS COURTESY QUEENS PUBLIC LIBRARY
STRONG BRANCHES
C M ANNY page 23 Y K Newtown Historical Society
continued from page 7
Nassau itself did not exist.
“It was at first the five boroughs and Suffolk,” Wilkinson said. “And Queens extended out to the Suffolk county line.”
Three of the Queens towns, she said, elected not to stake out on their own when New York City decided to consolidate in 1898.
“That’s how Nassau came about,” she said. “And the three towns in the western part of Queens were Flushing, Jamaica and Newtown.”
Newtown, Wilkinson said, extended from the East River to the Flushing River. She said it, Flushing and Jamaica were more like townships, with the individual towns and neighborhoods within them retaining their distinct identities.
“They continued that out in Nassau County,” Wilkinson said. “Here it all sort of melted into New York City.”
Maspeth was the original town settled in 1642, but the settlers were driven out by Native Americans and fled back to Manhattan Island.
“They decided to try again and settled in what today is called Elmhurst,” Wilkinson said. “Elmhurst was called Newtown until the beginning of the 20th century.”
Enter the real estate industry.
“Real estate interests decided that they wanted to rename the towns,” she explained. “They didn’t like the association with Newtown Creek, which was already pretty polluted. They said, ‘Why would we keep this name? We want people to move here. We don’t want them to associate it with a filthy creek.’”
Members did not mind the name when they founded the group in 2007, to say the least. And neither then nor today do they mind the organization’s relatively small footprint.
“We aren’t really interested in having a building,” she said. “What we do is contact other organizations to do displays. We’ve had stuff out at Maspeth Federal Savings, outside by 69th Street and Grand Avenue. There’s a sign dedicated to the history of Maspeth, one of those blue and gold signs.
Another point of pride, Wilkinson said, was the group’s participation in the naming of a community garden slated for Ridgewood, one she said could be opening as early as this coming spring.
“We give tours. We like to do more to educate than collect objects. Of course objects can be very valuable for education, but we want to stay small, 100 percent volunteer. Whenever you have the time, you can go out and we can get something going.
“But I think we’ve accomplished a lot for that type of an organization.”
More information about the Newtown Historical Society can be found online at newtownhistorical.org. Q
Bobbi offers haven for pets
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new family. Killing is not an option; one animal has been with the organization for more than 10 years.
“We don’t do a lot of fosters,” she said. “Mostly with people who volunteer here for a while. I don’t trust anybody.”
The organization undertakes a rigorous process in determining whether or not an adoption applicant is fit to take home one of its animals. Staffers ask for pet history, a number for a reachable veterinarian, rent status and three nonfamily references, among other items.
They also perform home checks, and one of the stipulations for adopting is approval for a visit from the organization. The application also asks if the adopting family would have the means to cover the expenses for any behavioral problems.
“Sometimes I’ll turn down a lot of people before one goes,” Giordano said.
Recently, the organization has taken to advocating for Athena, a dog left on the stoop of the Freeport location. She was found in a crate too small for a dog of her size, emaciated with sores all over her body — one of which was exposing her bone.
Organization staff rushed her to the veterinarian, where they managed to save her life. They later found the man who had abandoned her, and he admitted to keeping her in the cage, ridden with dirt and feces, for months.
“Someone who can do that to a dog is not in their right mind,” manager of shelter operations Elyse Jordan said. “They could move on to people or children.”
Jordan said the maximum punishment they are expecting for the man is a fine and up to a year in prison.
“The laws definitely need to be changed,” she said.
To cover expenses, the organization hosts fundraisers throughout the year. It recently held its Halloween Masquerade Ball, for which 307 people showed up. In the past, it has been part of events at the Javits Center and hosted parades at The Shops at Atlas Park.
They have an event planned for March at the Coral House in Baldwin.
The organization relies on the kindness of the community to keep running. Most of the staff is made up of volunteers, with one veterinarian offering his time on Fridays to check on animals at the Freeport location. Another man decorates his house for Halloween and asks visitors for donations, all going to Bobbi and the Strays.
“We got a lot of really good people,” she said. “Very good people.”
Those looking to volunteer with the organization can visit bobbiandthestrays. org/volunteer/. Those looking to donate can visit bobbiandthestrays.org/donate/.
Anyone looking to adopt a pet can visit bobbiandthestrays.org/adopt/. Q
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