RENOVATION PROCESS (2010-2014)

Renovation of the Designated Rooms and Modernization of the Joseph and Catherine Marjanczyk Library at the Polish Cultural Foundation.

The Library Committee of the Polish Cultural Foundation was established in 2010. The main purpose of the Library Committee was to renovate the Marjanczyk Library of the Polish Cultural Foundation and to bring it to operational status.

The library renovation project started at the beginning of the 2011 (first boxes for temporary book storage were bought on January 14th, 2011). The renovation proceeded as planned. One of the important steps included establishing Conceptual Library Design. The design was accomplished with the assistance of Magda Rudnik-Nieroda, an architect, (See Attached Figures 1, 2 and 3). The next phase included installation of electric and A/C upgrades, painting, installation of new oak flooring, installation of lighting covering half of the library and installation of some of the book shelves. At a cost of much effort and $21,500.00, this phase has also been completed (See Figures 4 and 5). Additionally, four workstations with a wireless barcode scanner and a library label printer were prepared and are ready to start the book cataloguing operation.

In October 2012, an agreement between the Polish Cultural Foundation and the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America was signed, creating a basis for co-operation in the fields of library cataloging, archive management, and conservation between these two organizations. The agreement allowed the Marjanczyk Library to participate in a common library cataloguing project putting together books and other media records of three institutions (the Marjanczyk Library, the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America and the Polish Institute for Arts and Sciences of America). The software catalogue is available currently at www.pilsudskilibrary.org (the site name will be changed once a new name for the common catalogue is agreed on). The catalogue is created in Open Source software KOHA, allowing for browsing resources from all participating institutions, but organizing the media records into separate library collections. The first Marjanczyk Library’s book record was entered into the new catalogue in December 2012.

As of November 4, 2014, all bookshelves for the  library collection room were installed and the cataloguing process is in advanced stage. The library committee is hoping to finish the project in a few months and put the Marjanczyk Library into operation.

In June 2014, our library accepted 3,000 Polish books from the Newark Public Library as a result of its purges for lack of funds for the maintenance of the Polish book collections.
Please review the included pictures that represent the progress that was made in the library in the last three year.

The list of needs and objectives to finish the project and maintain library status is still long, and we will appreciate any support that can bring us to this point. About $35,000 is still needed to successfully complete the project.