NEW YORK – The Hellenic American Project Library has been renamed “Argonauts” Library, to recognize a major donation of $10,000 from the association Syllogos Nomou Magnesias Argonauts.

The Library is part of the Hellenic American Project (HAP), Department of Sociology, Queens College, CUNY, and is located on the Queens College campus at 65-21 Main Street, Queens Hall, Room 015, Queens, NY.

Nicholas Alexiou, Queens College Department of Sociology and HAP Founder/Director, on behalf of HAP expressed “our heartfelt gratitude for this major donation. The naming of the Argonauts Library is a token of our appreciation.”

The Argonauts Library houses over 3,000 volumes, at this moment, and all the volumes are works by Greek-American writers, poets, or are about Greek-Americans. The library showcases the contributions of Greek-Americans to academia, the arts, business, literature, medicine, politics, science, sports, and more. Furthermore, HAP is working to digitize the volumes. Digitization increases access to materials, including rare and fragile prototypes, and allows for search-based information retrieval across the entire collection. Access to the volumes creates opportunities for new knowledge for scientists, researchers, and students of all disciplines.

Argonauts Library is part of the body of knowledge that HAP makes available to the public. The mission of HAP is researching, documenting, presenting the Greek-American community from the first wave of mass immigration in 1900 to the present. The purpose of HAP is to cultivate a seamless narrative that encompasses the Hellenic-American experience through an innovative, multifaceted approach of combining primary and secondary sources while making them available to the public on the HAP website, www.hapsoc.org.

HAP not only documents the immigration experience of Greek-Americans; it includes the history of Greek-Americans in American society. Although Greek-Americans comprise a small number of the total population of the United States, they have made major contributions in social, cultural, scientific and labor movements, and these contributions need to be systematically studied. Promoting an understanding of the Greek-American community builds bridges to the experiences of other immigrant communities and Diasporas.

HAP organizes Book Club readings and literary events. Book Club readings and literary events will be held at the Argonauts Library again when it is safe to do so and following the CUNY and Queens College instructions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Access virtual events organized by HAP during the COVID-19 pandemic online: https://hapsoc.org/gallery/.

For registration or to participate in the HAP Book Club, email: [email protected]

HAP is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization registered in New York State, and therefore all donations are tax deductible.