Indian Time - A Voice from the Eastern Door

The Akwesasne Cultural Center first opened its doors in 1971 in the lower floor of Saint Regis Mohawk original tribal building. It was where everyone went to study, read books, and meet with friends. The Akwesasne Library is known to be the first Native American Library east of the Mississippi River. Sixteen years later in 1987 the lirary moved into the expanded facility it occupies today on Route 37 with the library on the upper floor and the museum on the lower floor.

On Saturday, September 17th, the Library had a full day of celebrations with free hot dogs, a huge book sale, local crafts people and artisans set up on the lawn. They also held celebrations throughout the week starting on Monday by serving anyone who stopped in fruit cups, courtesy of the Cree Family and taco Tuesday was sponsored by Degrahadungee George and family. On Wednesday, free ice cream was handed out, courtesy of Mary Lou Phillips' Family. On Thursday, Tarbell Management Group donated doughnuts for everyone who stopped in at the library. To wrap things up on Friday CAA Management donated sandwiches. And of course, Akwesasne Library board members, past and present, served hot dogs with all the fixings to everyone.

Justin Cree said, I remember the library would hold 'hot dog fundraisers.' So, we went back to original fundraisers where board members and community volunteers sold hot dogs to raise funds for the bookmobile – hot dogs!

Cree was a Akwesasne Cultural board member before becoming the director. He said, "It's been a very busy and very exciting time since then. We've rearranged the library's space to better utilize every inch. We will now hold all classes on the main floor, instead of in the museum. We are host to a variety of services for the community members and we plan on expanding our services to include a notary and a free printing center, which will include a 3-D printer. We've mainstreamed our hours to make them more consistent everyday – from 9am to 6pm. And in our future plans, we are looking at bringing back the bookmobile, in some type of form and capacity.

Working in partnership with Salmon River Central, 'busy' aptly describes the library serving over 500 meals a week this past spring, working with Akwesasne Travel to provide tours in the museum and re-opening the gift shop under new management.

In addition to regular books, the library has large print books, audio books, DVDs, magazines, and newspapers. Currently, for a small fee, faxing, photocopying, scanning, and laminating services are available. There are public access computers and free wi-fi and a small meeting area library patrons can use.

Karmen Miller, Akwesasne Cultural Center staff member organized their book sale.

Cree stated, "If there is anything our youth would like, just let us know. We had some young guys ask for DND – Dungeons and Dragons, we set that up within a few days. We are also looking into a Lego center and providing STEM activities."

A large amount of material on native history and culture (both fiction and non-fiction) can be found in dedicated native sections of the children, juvenile, and adult areas of the library. While the Akwesasne Cultural Center library's primary interest is Haudenosaunee history and culture, information is available on a variety of Native peoples.

The library is part of the Clinton, Essex, Franklin County (CEF) library system, Akwesasne library patrons enjoy access to downloadable books, magazines, foreign language study materials, and a variety of reference items. If the Akwesasne Library doesn't have the book you seek, the library staff will try to order it through another library within our system.