The 10,000 books, games, CDs and DVDs that once lined the walls of the Slavin Children’s Library at 6505 Wilshire Blvd. are on track to once more be made available to the public later this month.
Four institutions — American Jewish University (AJU), Chabad of Santa Monica, the Jewish Learning Exchange and the Tashbar Torat Hayim Hebrew Academy — have been given the bulk of the collection, with AJU receiving more than any other site.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which has had oversight of the now-shuttered library, will allocate any remaining items through a lottery to local Jewish groups that agree to make the collection open to the public.
The four groups that have received collections already satisfied the Federation’s criteria: Each already has a librarian and each plans to offer programming around the books and make the collection available to the public.
According to Jonathan Jacoby, Federation’s senior vice president of Programs for Jewish Life, “The entire collection will be made available through various institutions,” with the exception of some outdated materials.
On March 14, Federation announced that it would close the Slavin Library, located in the lobby of Federation’s Wilshire Boulevard building, to make room for an extended space of the popular Zimmer Children’s Museum, which is also in the lobby. The new space, which has been empty since the library closed on May 19, will be called the Slavin’s Children’s Center when it reopens. Construction is set to begin on June 10.
In a March interview with the Jewish Journal, Zimmer CEO Esther Netter said that the new space will allow the museum “to offer additional classes, additional school field trips, parents and educator programming, [and] performances.”
AJU has been given between 2,000 and 3,000 books for the collection of its Sperber Jewish Community Library on its Mulholland Drive campus.
Robert Wexler, AJU’s president, said that after he found out about the Slavin’s imminent closing, he contacted Federation and expressed interest in obtaining some of the collection to become part of a children’s section at Sperber. He added that each book AJU will receive was selected on the basis of its likelihood of being valuable to future patrons and its potential usefulness for Jewish children’s teachers and teachers in training.
“The collection will continue to expand annually,” Wexler said. “We have endowment funds available for future purchases of children’s books as well as appropriate audio-visual material and educational games.”
Merav Goldman, Federation’s vice president for Management & Administration in the EJF Strategic Initiative, said Federation will give the remaining portions of the collection in coming weeks to Jewish institutions that can make them accessible to the public.
“I’m hopeful that we’ll see in uptick in programming around Jewish books now that we’ve spread the wealth, so to speak, throughout the community,” Goldman said.
