A Lovely Garden: The Michael P. Mazur Library at The Heartland Institute

It has been more than six years since the Michael Parry Mazur Memorial Library's Grand Opening, May 4, 2016.

In the years since, the library has become better organized and ready for use.

*More than 2,500 records have been saved to the library's OCLC account.

*There are currently more than 23,000 total items in the collection.

*The eventual hope is to circulate books via OCLC WorldShare.

Joseph Davis, head librarian, has been tracking the library's progress.

"Running a library is a lot like gardening," Davis muses. "You work on one individual book or plant at a time. Library staff prune, by making general repairs; tend, by cataloging books; and water, by call number labeling."

Davis continues, "Pink Floyd said, 'hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way' and the British do like their gardens. In these difficult times, a garden provides a way to channel one's energy and enthusiasm."

The Mazur Library is available for interested volunteers, guests, and retirees to tidy up, to relax & read, and to putter about in a garden of freedom.

The Mazur Library is housed at The Heartland Institute, in Arlington Heights, whose mission is, "to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems."

The Mazur Library advances The Heartland Institute mission by preserving the literature of liberty for future generations of students and scholars.

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, or would like to just browse the collection, give us a call at (312) 377-4000 to make an appointment.

For the library volunteer, working in the Mazur Library could include:

*Labeling and barcoding, as we process the collection.

*Protecting hardcover book dust jackets, using mylar covers.

*Reviewing new donations and managing the sale of duplicate items.

*Reading for and co-hosting an in-house/streaming book discussion club.

If you would like to help the library grow, you may opt to purchase books for the library from our amazon wish list.

If you are interested in donating some books, drop them off at The Heartland Institute, or call us, and we would be happy to stop by to pick them up.

Meanwhile, the library presses on, like Leonard G. Bernstein's Candide opera, "We'll build our house, and chop our wood, and make our garden grow."