Photo by Dave Nelson Design by Robin Roemer LYNN ANDERSEN, director of the Durland Alternatives Library at Cornell University, organizes the collection Tuesday afternoon.

There is something almost mystical about entering the Durland Alternatives Library. Hidden in the many corridors of spiritual Anabel Taylor Hall, the center for Cornell United Religious Work, the dimly lit library invites with the familiarity of comfortable burgundy armchairs and the smell of coffee brewing in the nearby café.

Durland provides a sobriety and silence that comes with most resource facilities, but its resources speak out through the humble confines of its one large room. The walls of Durland are lined with periodicals ranging from the British “Economist” to the feminist “Bitch,” and books on anything from Western spirituality to global perspectives.

No matter what medium its resources take, be it a CD of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Milestones and Jazz” or a book on esotericism, there is a sense that all these resources have been carefully chosen to provide an alternative to traditional learning devices.

The Durland Alternatives Library prevails as one of the most coherent alternative libraries in the United States, yet many do not know of its existence. It has been open to the public since the ’70s, when it became a living memorial to Anne Carry Durland, recognizing her desire to promote the progressive issues of ecology and community.

Lynn Andersen, a woman whose hazel-green eyes and hearty laugh match the familiar aura of the library itself, has been the director since 1991. Under her direction, the library’s collection has grown to include more than 7,000 books, 900 audio tapes, 300 current periodicals and more than 300 video tapes.

Andersen described Durland as very integrated into her life.

“There is no limit to what you can create from a library like this,” Andersen said. “The possibilities are endless, and I am a person who likes to dream up new ideas.”

In fact, Andersen was involved in a number of projects before coming to Durland. She started a noninstitutionalized graphics and photography business and developed vegetarian cuisine at a New Age center in the Catskill Mountains before deciding that it was time to try to make people more aware of what is going on in the world.

“Our mission is to offer information on current events as well as social and political issues and activist movements,” she said. “Sources that we look for come from independent publishers and media, which give the reader information beyond the mainstream.”

Dan Meyler, 20, a history and philosophy major at Cornell, is a student worker at the library. He said the selection of resources at Durland is not as great as in other libraries but it has materials you could never find elsewhere.

“It serves a specific interest very prevalent in Ithaca,” Meyler said.

Anyone who lives in Ithaca can get a free membership card when they go to check out materials. Durland has more than 5,000 members, and Andersen said that because of the international political situation, more community members and students have come to take out materials.

“Anytime there is insanity in the government, people get creative about solutions to problems and long for other sources of information,” she said. “This is mostly a nonfiction library, very strongly focused on culture, politics and global issues.“

Andersen said people need to take in information beyond the nondescript, no taste, commercially produced “white bread news.”

To spread the word of these resources, Andersen has worked over the years with John Hochheimer, an associate professor of television-radio at Ithaca College who is on sabbatical this semester. She has spoken to his Alternative Media and Introduction to Mass Media classes. Junior Julian Mackler, a video production major, took Hochheimer’s Alternative Media class last fall and has also taken out materials from Durland.

“The Alternatives Library has an extremely diverse group of publications,” Mackler said. “The videos are free to rent, and they have really good documentaries and books about counterculture.”

Together with the library’s board members, Andersen is trying to expand services of the library and to reach out to under-served communities, such as the prison population across the country. In fact, library board members have for more than two years worked on a “Books in Prison” project with the local MacCormick Secure Center, a juvenile facility. They have worked with residents to help publish their poetry and are finding instructors who could teach juveniles college-level courses.

“I hope for an open exchange of information and resources, an exchange about what is going on in the world,” Andersen said.

Having started out as a part of Rev. Paul Gibbon’s Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP) at Cornell, the library is involved in many of CRESP’s programs, including cooperation with a library in Yoff, Senegal, that promotes fund raising and developing the resources for the Senegalese library. This specific partnership is a part of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) program that brings together libraries around the world, and Durland was the first U.S. library to join the program.

Durland also has a partnership with the Women’s Community library downtown. Andersen said it is essential to have these partnerships because individual library resources are always shrinking in size.

Emily Selove, a Cornell freshman who wants to major in poetry composition, often comes to the library because it has a good selection of music and poetry.

“I also like to work on these chairs,” she said, pointing to the burgundy seats.

Andersen is happy to accommodate the diverse needs of community members.

“My hope is that people will take advantage of all kinds of information,” Andersen said.