The students who fill the small library at the Center for Worker Education at 25 Broadway come for the usual reasons: to study, write a paper or do research. But many of these students come for another reason: the man in charge.

He’s Seamus Scanlon, the librarian. “Seamus walks us through things,” explained Taffy Elrod, a junior who works by day as a cook and at night
spends up to six hours each week in the library. “He’s patient. He explains where to begin.”

“I came to him by necessity,” said a 37-year-old student, a teacher’s assistant who had been laid off. “I needed help with basic computer skills. In the beginning, I couldn’t have turned in my assignments without him.”

Honors were bestowed last month on Scanlon, a modest man who speaks in the quiet lilt of his native Ireland. He and eight other librarians from around the country were recognized by the philanthropic foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the New York Times, for their “significant impact on their communities or schools and improving the lives of the people they serve.”

Marlene Clark, a City College associate professor, was one of people who noninated Scanlon.

“To walk by his bustling but quiet library,” she wrote in her recommendation, “makes the hearts of all library lovers sing,”Winners of the honor, called the “I Love My Librarian” award, were chosen from 3,600 applicants, and received $5,000 each.

The center’s dean, Juan Carlos Mercado, recalled that an award representative had called him several times before the decision was made.

“Later, she told me they wanted to know if we really existed!” Indeed, Mercado concedes, there is nothing traditional about this four-year college, a branch of the City University of New York. The center was begun 27 years ago by the Teamsters Union and City College to give working adults the opportunity to earn a college degree through night classes. Today, the school still offers only night classes to its students, 80 percent of whom are black and Hispanic women in their early thirties.

“A lot of the students here are so determined,” Scanlon said recently, as he helped one student after another during finals week. “Most of them are the first person in their family to go to college. Sometimes they have to bring their children with them to school.”

Many of the students have been out of school for over a decade, and some don’t own computers. For them, online research is one of the first challenges.

“I help them navigate the electronic system,” said Scanlon. “I teach how to do research papers, how to find articles, access databases, use citation analysis.”

Scanlon understands how they must feel, reaching out for a librarian’s help for the first time.

“I try to imagine what it would be like if my father came in here and wanted to find a book,” he said. Scanlon grew up in Galway, in a poor
working-class family.

“My father never went to high school,” Scanlon said, “but he had a fascination with reading and was always bringing home books.And every night he would spread the newspaper out on the floor so that everyone in the family could read it all at once.”

Scanlon’s mother went to high school, but couldn’t go to college. The cost—50 pounds—was more than they could afford.

“She insisted that her children go to college,” he said.

Scanlon, who went on to earn a master’s degree in librarianship at London's Thames Valley University, appreciates those who struggle to get a college education.

“I have a great affinity with the students,” Scanlon said. “I felt that from the day I came here.”