Library Foundation

The Library Foundation of Buffalo & Erie County, Inc.

1 Lafayette Square Buffalo, New York 14203
716.858.8050
bflolibfoundation@gmail.com

Established in 1991, the Library Foundation of Buffalo & Erie County, Inc. is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System programs and projects that go beyond what is possible through public funding alone.

Since 2006, the Library Foundation has been affiliated with the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo (CFGB), which holds, oversees and administers the Library Foundation’s 13 donor-established endowment funds. This important relationship ensures that the Library Foundation’s assets are cost-effectively managed and invested appropriately to grow over time.

Gifts to the Library Foundation are tax deductible.

The Library Foundation is managed by an independent Board of Trustees which meets several times per year.

Trustees:

Jack Connors, President
Retired publisher, Buffalo Business First

Carima El-Behairy, Vice President
Business owner, CCE Consulting

Heather A. Cruz, Secretary
Vice Dean/Chief of Staff, UB School of Social Work

Sharon Kelly, Esq., Treasurer
Retired attorney, Hodgson Russ

Samantha L. Nephew
Healthcare Advocate, Healthcare Education Project

Peter Ruocco
Partner, Brock Schechter & Polakoff, LLP

John Spears
Library Director (ex officio)

Anne Conable, Foundation Administrator

Projects:

In recent years, the Library Foundation has recommitted to giving priority to initiatives that increase and improve public access to the Library’s extensive Rare Books & Special Collections. Ancestor organizations to the current Library System (Young Men’s Association, Grosvenor Library, and Buffalo Public Library) received and assembled world-class collections of rare books, prints, maps, sheet music and scores, reference and local history materials, and photographs which are the nucleus of today’s Rare Books & Special Collections.

Extraordinary one-of-a-kind holdings in the Collection including Mark Twain’s handwritten manuscript for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, rare Bibles, anti-slavery broadsides and other materials, the Milestones of Science Collection, Audubon’s Birds of America, and Shakespeare’s Folios are emblematic of Buffalo’s long history of donor generosity.

Projects supported by the Library Foundation include:

Lead sponsorship, Milestones of Science: Books That Shook the World!
The Library’s largest ever collection-based exhibition in renovated gallery, Downtown Library. Representative sample of greatest scientific treatises ever published, in first edition, with related exploration activities, Education Program, all-ages public programs. October 2015-September 2017

Underwrote purchase of 36 museum quality exhibit units for exhibitions and flexible display

Conservation support: John James Audubon’s Birds of America

Conservation and digitization, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn manuscript

Conservation projects, Milestones of Science Collection
Customized repair and preservation work on volumes to be exhibited. 2011-2014

Portrait conservation, Seth Grosvenor
As part of the Library’s 175^th Anniversary year, 2011

Lead sponsorship, A Rare Affair Gala
Fundraising event for Library’s 175^th Anniversary year, November 2011

Lead sponsorship, The Map That Changed the World
Exhibition and Gala surrounding the history of geology as represented by William Smith’s 1815 original map “Delineations of the Strata of England and Wales…” and Simon Winchester’s book on Smith’s map. Fall 2005

Additional Project Support for:
Specific acquisitions to enhance the Library’s Rare Books & Special Collections.
Underwriting for programs in libraries supporting literacy.
Specific furnishings, equipment for library enhancement and display.

Donations to the Library Foundation are always accepted.

For further information on giving options, please call 716-858-8050.

Checks (payable to Library Foundation of Buffalo & Erie County) may be mailed to:
Library Foundation of Buffalo & Erie County
1 Lafayette Square
Buffalo, NY 14203
bflolibfoundation@gmail.com