Book Collection
The James B. Carey Library book collection focuses on labor studies and employment relations, as well as human resource management covering topics such as labor unions, employee ownership, organizational behavior, corporate governance, workers, collective bargaining, benefits and compensation. The book collection can be searched using QuickSearch in the RUL Catalog.
Serials
The Library has an extensive collection of labor union newsletters and journals. Current issues are displayed on the first floor. Archival collections are located in the SMLR Archives. A selection of print serials includes:
- Employee Relations Law Journal
- HR Magazine
- Insight Into Diversity
- National Right to Work Newsletter
- New Jersey Business
- Postmasters Advocate
- The Utility Worker
Serials cannot be checked out of the Library.
Media Collection
The Library has a small DVD, video and CD collection, focusing on movies and documentaries dealing with related labor and HR topics, such as:
- How Can Management and Labor Extend Their Fields of Cooperation (Audio CD)
- Making America Work (VHS)
- Organizing America: the History of the Trade Unions (DVD)
- Salt if the Earth (DVD)
- The Wobblies (DVD)
Our media collection does circulate and can be searched using QuickSearch in the RUL Catalog.
Curriculum Library for Employee Ownership
CLEO, the Curriculum Library for Employee Ownership, is the largest global online library on employee ownership resources. The database includes a variety of teaching materials – such as journal articles, syllabi and videos – that can assist both faculty and practitioners explain, demonstrate and share the core concepts of employee ownership to their stakeholders.
We the Owners
What does it mean to have employee share ownership? In the documentary film We the Owners: Employees Expanding the American Dream, employee owners from New Belgium Brewing, Namaste Solar and DPR Construction answer this important question. SMLR makes the film and related teaching materials available to assist educators with educational resources for students.
Archives
The Carey Library Archives includes a variety of serial publications, official papers, and other archival materials. A selection of archival materials include bound issues of the AFL-CIO News, the Jack Chernick Papers, the Harry Stark Papers, the James R. Chelius Papers, the Sol Stetin Papers, and a variety of convention proceedings.
Archival Collections and Finding Aids
James B. Carey Exhibition: A Digital Collection
Hilda Worthington Smith Exhibit
Workers’ Compensation Research Collection - coming soon
- The Library is currently processing the records and papers donated by John Burton. The collection contains books, published research materials, and unpublished research materials provided by John Burton, Jim Chelius, and Monroe Berkowitz.
Labor Cartoon by Bill Crawford
Donated by the family of Raleigh Rajoppi, New Jersey Labor Leader
An original piece of cartoon artwork by award-winning cartoonist Bill Crawford has been 
donated to SMLR by the family of New Jersey labor leader Raleigh Rajoppi.
The cartoon artwork, which is a combination of pencil, pen, ink, and wash, humorously depicts a significant event in NJ labor history, the merger of the AFL and CIO in the early 1960s. In Crawford’s hands the merger, which was controversial, becomes a shotgun wedding, with the NJ AFL as the bride, the NJ CIO as the groom, and George Meany holding the shotgun.
The artist, Bill Crawford (1913–1982), was an editorial cartoonist who worked for the Newark News and whose cartoons were distributed to more than 700 daily newspapers during the 1960s and 1970s. He was president of the National Cartoonists Society, won prizes for “Best Editorial Cartoon” four times, and was also known as a sculptor and book illustrator.
According to Joanne Rajoppi, Mr. Rajoppi‘s daughter and Union County Clerk, the cartoon was given to her father as a gift commemorating his distinguished career with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. Mr. Rajoppi, who passed away in 1982, was also a generous supporter of SMLR (the namesake of the Rajoppi Pavilion at the LEC) and the mover behind the drive in which the carpenters union donated the Hutchinson Memorial Forest to Rutgers University. The Crawford cartoon was donated on behalf of the estate of his wife, Edna Rajoppi, who passed away.
