The school library received a donation of books from its namesake, Dr. Robert Ira Lewy (‘60), on November 3, 2007.
Librarian Chris Asch was informed that morning of the new shipment of books, which were coming from Dr. Lewy’s library in Houston, Texas. “It was expected, but not so soon,” Asch said. “There were a little over a dozen boxes. I’d say there were between 500 to 1,000 books.”
The books are currently being stored in metal shelves in the back of the library. Some of these books will go into the collection, while others will be donated to other libraries or be put in the gift cart outside of the library.
“There is still room on the top and bottom of the shelves,” Asch said.
The books are on a variety of subjects and in many different languages.
“They were his personal books and they were very eclectic,” Asch said. “He had a wide range of books, from biographies to pop culture like Stephen King.”
“They are mostly leisure, for relaxation,” Lewy, a retired oncologist, said. “But there are some technical and medical ones and some rare foreign language ones I inherited from my own parents.”
According to Asch, the library receives a relatively small amount of money from the City and State Department of Education for books. Last year, it received $33,000 from the state and $15,000 from the city. The amount is based on the number of students in the school, but this year, the library has only received money from the State Department of Education.
“Since the mayor is in charge of the schools, principals are no longer required to pay the $15,000 to the library,” Asch said.
For the 2008 fiscal year, the administration allocated $18,919 to purchase library books from a school budget of almost $17 million.
“[The school is] chronically underfunded. [I] couldn’t think of a better group of individuals to help,” Lewy said. “[The library] was an obvious place to start because not all Stuy kids have access to a good library or have a home library.”
Last year, Lewy donated more than $1 million to the school to establish the Dr. Robert Ira Lewy Multimedia Center.
Some think the book donations will benefit the library, but question their presence in the increasingly technological and social atmosphere of the school library.
“Its’ a really good thing, especially since Stuy kids would be the ones to use the books most to their advantage,” sophomore Marta Krason Krason said. “I just hope the new books we receive are properly cared for.”
“It’s good that people are donating books to school, but I don’t think an average Stuy student would have the time to do leisure reading,” sophomore Fion Mak said.
A proposal was put forth last year to move the bookshelves to make room for new computers, but it is still being debated.
“You’re not going to sit in front of a computer screen and read a book,” Asch said.
“I don’t use the library,” senior Roan Laplante said. “I haven’t actually looked at the collection at all. I think the books are going to waste.”
“People come in here to hang out and print stuff,” sophomore Kai Sam Ng said. “No one comes here for books. Only a few people do.”
Lewy said he will donate more books to the library in the future.
“I still have a large collection of art and travel books which I still use,” Dr. Lewy said. “I will give them to Stuyvesant as a bequest.”