Explore a list of novels set in libraries provided by Penguin Random House Books

Gitner, who has worked in programs to assist migrants at the Queens Public Library for 28 years, is one of 10 librarians nationally whom the American Library Association cited for “profound impact on the people in their communities.” The recipients were chosen from nearly 1,400 nominees submitted by library users nationwide. Gitner is the assistant director of the Queens Library’s New Americans Program, which coordinates informational workshops on topics like immigration law, parenting and tenants’ rights.

“I view Fred as our international ambassador,” said Dennis Walcott, the president and chief executive of the Queens Library. “His sensitivity to the asylum seekers who are coming to libraries and what Fred was able to do with his staff to go out and interface with them is off the charts.”

Library officials said the latest round of budget cuts proposed by Mayor Eric Adams, at 5 percent, would force reductions in services like English and citizenship classes that immigrant communities have come to rely on. Demand for those programs has climbed as the coronavirus pandemic has eased: Attendance in English classes was up 35 percent last year from 2022, with more than 62,000 people attending across the library’s 66 locations.

Walcott said the proposed cuts could also have an effect on services offered on Saturdays, which would affect immigrants who have jobs that make stopping at a library impossible during the week. (Sunday hours at the two Queens libraries that were open seven days a week ended with the budget cuts that were announced in November.)

Gitner, 72, didn’t write the book on how libraries could help immigrants, but he coedited one in 2001 and another in 2013. And in more than 25 years with the library, he has followed the changing patterns of immigration in Queens.

When the library hired him in the 1990s, many of the immigrants who were moving to the borough were from Russia. The mix of languages is different now. Spanish is still the most requested, but “French is now No. 2, because we have migrants arriving from West Africa,” he said. But librarians are also hearing Wolof, the language preferred by many in Senegal, and Fulani, which is spoken in Guinea.

The library took a voluntary language survey of staff members last year and found that they spoke nearly 50 languages, Gitner said. More recently, he has worked to arrange a translation service with a toll-free number that staff members in branch libraries can call when someone comes in who speaks a language that no one in the branch is fluent in.

Gitner and the other recipients of the I Love My Librarian Award will each receive $5,000, along with a $750 travel stipend to attend the American Library Association’s LibLearnX conference in Baltimore in two weeks. The awards are sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered with the New York Public Library (which is separate from the Queens Library and operates branches in the Bronx, Manhattan and on Staten Island).

Check out this book. Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.

With no trace of how these mysterious books came into the world, Ashlyn is caught up in a decades-old literary mystery, beckoned by two hearts in ruins, whoever they were, wherever they are. Determined to learn the truth behind the doomed lovers’ tale, she reads on, following a trail of broken promises and seemingly unforgivable betrayals. The more Ashlyn learns about Hemi and Belle, the nearer she comes to bringing closure to their love story—and to the unfinished chapters of her own life.

The Toy Library inside the Lincoln Branch will no longer have separate hours but will be open when the building in open.

The Rochester Public Library's Lincoln Branch, which is also home to the city's ever-popular Toy Library, is set to reopen Monday nearly one year after renovations to overhaul the branch began.

The branch, at 851 Joseph Ave., is a nearly 12,000-square-foot building at the corner of Joseph Avenue and Avenue D in northeast Rochester. It is one of the city's largest branch libraries and houses the library system's largest collection of books and films in Spanish, according to the Rochester Public Library website.

The Lincoln branch opened at its current location in 1994. The toy library opened within the Lincoln branch in 2000. Before that, it ran for about 15 years on North Street as a Junior League project. The Toy Library was last refreshed in 2019 when four windows were added on an exterior wall, to allow natural light to enter the space, new carpet and tile and a toddler-friendly play structure.

Thousands of toys line the shelves of the 2,500-square-foot Toy Library, which doubles as a safe indoor play space for children and their caregivers. Many visitors simply come and play without borrowing items.

Patrons (with a library card) can borrow up to 10 items at a time for up to three weeks

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