Andrew Rimby (he/him/his) is a Ph.D. Candidate and queer activist at Stony Brook University researching nineteenth-century literature from a queer transatlantic perspective. He is the 2019 inaugural recipient of the Guiliano Global Fellowship, a 2019-2020 Public Humanities Fellow, and a 2019 Stony Brook Graduate Fellow in the Arts, Humanities, and Lettered Social Sciences. He is the Executive Director of The Ivory Tower Boiler Room, a literary and artistic podcast/writing community. He is the curator of the Whitman Tane Library and a board member for the Walt Whitman Initiative. He is the Associate Editor for the Watchung Review.

A view of the new Walt Whitman Initiative Tane Research Library

I welcome you all to the Whitman Tane Library page, and I’m quite excited to interact with you all as the newly appointed curator/librarian of the Whitman Tane Library.

During the fall, I’ll be visiting our new library space, housed at the Fulton Stall Market (thanks to Bob Lewis), and I can’t wait to show you all photos of our library nook. But in the meantime, here’s a creative vision teaser for this space and what being the curator/librarian entails.

The library nook will be a cozy space for researching and browsing the Whitman Tane collection which is all due to Susan Tane generously gifting us part of her private Whitman collection. Of course there will be bookshelves housing the collection, but also a comfy rug and chairs for you all to enjoy the collection. In the winter, I’ll be working on cataloguing the collection so the library can be easily accessed and available online. This will allow for Whitman scholars and Whitman aficionados to schedule a time to see the collection. More on how to make your appointment in a few months!

As the Executive Director of The Ivory Tower Boiler Room, it’s so exciting to share that The Ivory Tower Boiler Room and the Walt Whitman Initiative will be collaborating on Whitmanic podcasting, and I’ve heard that Stephen Dima, who has a spot at Fulton Stall Market, also hosts a podcast so let the podcasting forces unite! All of this creative energy will culminate in a summer launch party (perhaps around the same time as the “Song of Myself” marathon…you’ll have to wait) where I will open up the library to host a Whitman Initiative poetry event!

There are many thanks to go around including Jesse Merandy who created and is maintaining this page, Karen Karbiener for entrusting me as the curator/librarian, and to my fellow board member colleagues, specifically Brad Vogel, Deirdre Lawrence, Ann Kaiser, and Stefan Killen who have all been amazing collaborators.