First Books for the New Library

As an archivist, I love surprises amid piles of undiscovered archival materials. It takes “digging” and examining each document. It is a time-consuming, yet necessary process. I have the patience of a saint. I came across the black book with no title. I opened it and found it to be an inventory book for library acquisitions. It was stored in the library office for decades and then transferred to the archives for preservation.

The black book records the books purchased for the empty library.   The list contains the book titles, authors, publishers, costs and publication years.   According to this black book, the new library started with 250 books for the fall semester.

A close inspection of the first page of the black book reveals a couple of things. Two religious books were purged later in 1971.  I wonder whether the librarian was trying to separate religion from the state, as the US Constitution stipulates.  The oldest book on the page was published in 1925.

The picture below shows the yellow sticker for state property number for the black book. I infer that the black book is the 2,487th item recorded on campus.

Florence Schornstein (Deaf) was the first librarian to pack the new library with both used and new books in 1953.  After three years, Schornstein returned to New Jersey.

Teddy Kubotsu (Deaf) was appointed as the second librarian in 1956 and remained in charge until 1969 when she asked for a teaching assignment.

Helen Johnson (Deaf) with a BS degree in library science from Gallaudet took over the library, where she stayed for the next 33 years until 2002, the longest tenure of all librarians.

Mary Kopcho with a master’s degree in library science continued the tradition of being the Deaf woman librarian who enjoyed her work for the next twenty years until 2024. 

Currently, the librarian is Scarlett Bernstein Valencia, ‘97, a CSDR alumna. She remember her high school years for frequenting the library for research projects.

Over the course of 73 years, all the librarians have shared the same responsibility of maintaining a well-stocked collection of books with a wide variety of interests for middle and high school students.

In closing, behind a good school is a good library.

Kevin Struxness, ‘76, MA

Editor, CSDR Old Times

20 February 2026