Wednesday, 03.19.08
A New Agora
Photo by Flickr user melanzane1013 under a Creative Commons license
Hitler's forgotten library
May 2003
Timothy W. Ryback examines Hitler's mind through the contents of his personal library.
The Gutenberg purge
10 May 2001
For a building guarded by marble lions, projecting an air of welcome is not easy. That is why library president Paul LeClerc, who proudly spearheaded the successful new Bronx Library Center, wants to bring a cafe, information center, and lending capacity to the austere Manhattan branch. "This plan," an official told the New York Times, "is the further democratization of that building."
Critics contend that the reforms endanger the main branch's focus on premier scholarship. Yet the crux of the matter is that LeClerc and his forward-thinking colleagues have not gone far enough. In the coming century, libraries will lose their primacy as reliquaries of knowledge. What they can still offer is a democratic forum for social contact that no virtual community can match.
Anyone who has recently visited an urban public library knows they serve as havens for many people: bookish teens, children, shut-ins, comic-book hunters, the homeless, stock-pickers, thinkers who scribble madly or simply vegetate. They are one of the few places that attract a true cross-section of society. Leading the nation by example, the New York Public Library should provide spaces at all libraries where speaking is not only permitted but encouraged -- loud new agoras for a polis where more of our lives are lived in the silent solitude of the Web.
See the budgetRead about the comprehensive plans for the whole New York Public Library system in a report by Robin Pogrebin. |
Pandering to the massesEdward Rothstein is concerned that "democratization" means grubbing for visitors. Do we want video-game nights at the library? |
Substance, not imageCynthia Nikitin and Josh Jackson profile some of the libraries that best serve their communities. |
Libraries for localsDisputing the opinion that libraries are obsolete, David Rothman says we should multiply neighborhood branches rather than downtown "library palaces." |
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Thanks for the correction, Ryan. I have fixed the wording of the original post.
Now that is a billion dollars well spent.
What say we cancel Dubya's new secret squirrel, uber helicopters and build 18 new libraries?!
Good recommendation, especially with the digitization of academic journals and archival documents libraries need to continue to put creativity and funding into redefining their intellectual comparative advantage in today's digital society.
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Paul LeClerc is not the "head librarian", but the President of the New York Public Library. Furthermore, he's not a librarian (i.e., has an MLS or MLIS degree), but an academic--holding a PhD in French Literature from Columbia.
Posted by Ryan | March 19, 2008 7:00 PM