The NY Public Library’s main branch is going to get rid of three million books

The NY Public Library’s main branch is going to get rid of three million books

Considering that the source is the New York Post, it is a surprisingly thoughtful article about the end of the era we boomers grew up in, an era of printed words and the stately buildings which housed them. That epoch included revered memories for many of us, and I for one, while recognizing the inevitability of change, feel sad to see a once-treasured part of my life disappearing, replaced by the beginning of another era as yet not fully defined.

That lack of definition is the real problem. Should we be turning libraries into internet cafes? NYPL President Anthony Marx says the chief idea behind the Central Library Plan is the desire to “replace books with people,” since “that’s the future of where libraries are going.”

But the article continues:

"Actually, he’s not replacing books with people but with computers — which are, the logic goes, irresistible magnets for eager new readers, who are apparently disenfranchised from the library by the space devoured by those darn books. The NYPL will spend at least $250 million on this project — at a time when it has slashed its workforce by 27 percent since 2008 and its acquisition budget by nearly as much. The resources lavished on the renovation of the Schwarzman building come at the expense of the 91 other branches, many starving for funds. But these are minor issues compared to the rewriting of the NYPL’s core mission. The twin pillars of the project, we’re told, are 1) modernization, meaning the digitization of books, and 2) democratization, understood as the increasing accessibility of the library as a physical space. Both require a seismic reconsideration of the central function of the library within society."