On December 6, Urban Librarians Unite (ULU) announced a $1 million general operating grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The four-year grant, made through Mellon’s Public Knowledge program, is the largest ever received by ULU and will allow the grassroots library advocacy organization to expand operations, find other sustainable funding sources, and employ staff.

“ULU has been a labor of love for our community of library workers for over a decade,” said Executive Director Lauren Comito. “This support will allow us to build that community and work together to provide support and resources to urban library workers across the country.”

With the increased capacity provided by the grant, ULU will be able to continue its ongoing focus on library worker health and safety, expand its publications, and work to create policy models to address library issues at local, regional, and national levels, as well as renewing and expanding core projects.

Launched in 2007 as a meetup for library workers in the New York City systems, ULU has since grown to meet a range of needs, starting with creative advocacy campaigns in the face of citywide library budget cuts, and incorporated in the wake of the 2010 recession. A donation drive to replace damaged collections after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 received more than 20,000 books in its first three months. At the national level, the Libraries Serve Refugees project brings together information to help libraries and other organizations serve refugees, and the Unaccompanied Minors Book Drive, in partnership with the REFORMA (National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking) Children in Crisis Task Force, puts books in the hands of migrant children.

ULU has produced the day-long Urban Librarians Conference every year since 2013. Originally held at Brooklyn Public Library, and virtually beginning in 2020, the conference addresses up-to-the-minute issues faced by library employees.

With the help of a 2020 Institute of Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Grant, ULU collaborated with the New York Library Association and St. John’s University on the 2022 Urban Library Trauma Study to investigate the causes and outcomes of trauma in frontline urban library workers. The resulting literature review, survey, focus groups, and report offered insights into the experiences of library staff, and the in-person forum that followed, held in March 2022, further explored ideas for ways administration and employees can work together to address the issue.

For the work they’ve done through ULU, Comito and ULU founder and former Executive Director Christian Zabriskie were named Library Journal’s 2020 Librarians of the Year. Both have been LJ Movers and Shakers.