[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 100 (Tuesday, July 9, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1221-E1222]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 THE QUEENS BOROUGH PUBLIC LIBRARY--SERVING THE COMMUNITY FOR 100 YEARS

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                         HON. GARY L. ACKERMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 9, 1996

  Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today so that this body may take 
note of a very special organization in my district--the Queens Borough 
Public Library. This organization celebrates the anniversary of its 
founding this year. I wish to congratulate them and offer my voice in 
support of their tireless efforts to educate and serve the residents of 
Queens Borough.
  As I have told many of you before, Queens is a very special place to 
me and to those who live there. Its nearly two million residents make 
up the most ethnically diverse community in the United States. For 
years, the face of Queens has been the face of the many cultures of the 
world.
  In that vein, the Queens Library system reaches out to this microcosm 
of the American mosaic and provides not just books, but citizenship 
education classes, English as a second language [ESL] classes, job 
training, and access to the information superhighway. In fact, the 
Queens Library offers over 18,000 programs to the community at large. 
Sixty-three facilities scattered throughout the borough are wellsprings 
of learning from which the community benefits.
  On top of all this, the Queens Library is adding an international 
resource center [IRC] to the redesigned Flushing Branch, which will 
enable it to showcase many of the cultures reflected in the borough 
population. Using the latest technology, this unique facility will 
provide cultural background, business information, and educational 
materials on the varied peoples of the world.
  With its expanded facilities, the Queens Library will be able to host 
even more high quality exhibitions. For example, last year, it 
presented an excellent exhibit with support from the National Endowment 
for the Humanities [NEH] on Lewis Latimer, a 19th-century inventor, and 
on Korean-style printing with movable metal type--a technique perfected 
in Asia well before Gutenberg and his printing press.

[[Page E1222]]

  Many of my colleagues know that I have had a longstanding interest in 
the Asian region, and therefore, I am delighted Queens is becoming an 
increasingly recognized center of Asian commerce in the United States. 
I wholeheartedly applaud the Queens Library for its diligent efforts 
and foresight in this regard.
  For a hundred years, the Queens Library has nurtured the community, 
supplying its needs for information and community services. As it heads 
into its next hundred years, I wish them the best, and look forward to 
the new developments it will surely bring.

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