Library Stuff

via NY Times – “The New York Public Library’s plan to turn part of its flagship Fifth Avenue research center into a lending library has unleashed a torrent of commentary, with scholars, writers, artists and students signing a petition and writing articles, many of them critical. But one highly informed contingent has been notably silent: former curators, department heads and librarians.”

NY Times – “The New York Public Library came under fire Tuesday night during a panel discussion held to debate its $300 million plan to remake its flagship Fifth Avenue branch. We’re being told that the only way to save the library is to rip out its innards,” said David Nasaw, a panelist and a history professor at the City University Graduate Center, who called the plan “fatally flawed.” “It might be best to start over again,” he said. “This boat doesn’t float.”

NYT Editorial – “For over a century, New York’s majestic central library on Fifth Avenue has drawn grateful scholars and dazzled tourists. Faced with financial uncertainties and a pressing need to modernize, the president of the New York Public Library system, Anthony Marx, has put forward a $300 million proposal to renovate the flagship building. The plans, which are still evolving, sound both necessary and forward-thinking in this digital era. But the library’s overseers have to take care that they preserve the essence of this cultural landmark.”

NY Daily News – “Beloved as a crown jewel of world culture, the New York Public Library’s stately main branch is up for a historic makeover that promises to well serve the city. The building, outside which the lions lounge on Fifth Ave., houses 5 million volumes, most of them on 90 miles of shelving spread across seven floors overlooking Bryant Park. It’s time to move the books, which couldn’t give a Dewey decimal about the view, to make way for people.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education – “Nothing disturbs print-centric researchers like the idea of kicking books out of a library to make room for computers. The New York Public Library set off a fierce debate recently with its plans for a major reorganization. The proposed overhaul, known as the Central Library Plan, includes selling two midtown branches and moving many of the three million books now housed under the main reading room at 42nd Street to a remote-storage facility in New Jersey. The library shares the facility in a consortium arrangement, called Recap, with Columbia and Princeton Universities.”

NYTimes.com.

“Letters written by George Washington, Henry David Thoreau’s pencil-drawn map of Walden Pond and Mark Twain’s manuscript of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” are among the items from the New York Public Library’s American collections that will soon be digitized and made available to the public online, the library announced on Thursday.”

WSJ – The National Archives releases census records once a decade, and on April 2 it is making available the information from the 1940 census. But the records won’t immediately be searchable by name. For those whose relatives lived in New York City, the New York Public Library is aiming to make it simpler to search this holy grail of information about what life was like during periods such as the Great Depression and the lead-up to World War II.”

NYT – “The New York Public Library on Wednesday rekindled its ambitious $1 billion plan to overhaul its branches and renovate its Fifth Avenue flagship. The plan, which will now involve selling two of the system’s best-known libraries — the Mid-Manhattan branch and the Science, Industry and Business Library — was announced in 2008, when it was expected to be substantially completed by 2014. But the plan languished because of the economic downturn and changes in the library’s leadership.”

Press Release – “Vartan Gregorian, President of Carnegie Corporation of New York, today announced a grant of $5 million to the three New York City public library systems: the New York Public Library, Queens Library and Brooklyn Public Library. The grant will enhance the libraries’ ability to serve the public in general and the city’s 1.1 million public school children in particular.”

WSJ – “One of the more incongruous aspects of the drunken-driving arrest of the New York Public Library’s president recently was his car: a library-owned Audi. For many New Yorkers, the discovery that the library had a German luxury car in its fleet didn’t quite jibe with its image as a city-funded nonprofit with the most democratic of missions. “Why an Audi?” said Kola Adeyemi, a 27-year-old accountant who was studying for an exam Thursday at the main branch on Fifth Avenue. “Why can’t it be a regular sedan? The public library? That just doesn’t jell.”