I doubt it’s possible that the library will ever be able to deliver books from offsite storage within 24 hours, as its publicity materials promise. When I asked Mary Lee Kennedy if she knew what could be causing delivery problems of the sort experienced by Swan, she said that the closing of traffic around Times Square in preparation for this weekend’s Super Bowl had interfered with the ability of the trucks bringing books from NJ to get near the library. So the books had to be delivered instead to a remote location and then brought in smaller shipments to 42nd Street. The Super Bowl probably won’t be striking in our area again for some time, but there are certainly enough other events that regularly restrict traffic in the vicinity of Times Square. Is anyone surprised that this might be a recurrent problem?
There is also the issue of damage the research materials may sustain while being transported back and forth. Every book one requests now from deep storage has a long journey ahead of it, including a truck ride down the NJ Turnpike and loading and unloading on either end. Researchers who work with older materials (as do I) are familiar with the experience of having books delivered in fragile or damaged condition. Here’s one image of a book with a detached cover from the NYPL collection encountered recently by a Medievalist doing research there. Shipping a book like this back and forth to NJ is hardly going to improve its condition.
After yesterday’s tour, I remain convinced that the plan to demolish the stacks has nothing to do with making the library a better library and everything to do with a grand real estate scheme involving the sell-off of the Mid-Manhattan Library and SIBL. The sale of the Donnell Library a few years ago was part of this same plan and is now pretty much universally believed to have been a debacle: The sale raised very little money for the library compared with the actual value of the property, and as a result of the transaction, this once thriving neighborhood library with five floors of books and a nice auditorium is being replaced by a mini-library housed in two basement floors of a hotel tower, with very little room for books. This new neighborhood library will probably be a good place to check out DVDs and not much more.
Even though NYPL has already applied for building permits to begin work on the demolition of the stacks as well as securing all the necessary state and local permissions, there is still no final plan or budget for the renovation. The most recent images released by the library show a vast atrium replacing the stacks, with seating areas to accommodate what looks to be between 100 and 130 people; given the structure of this open area, it is likely to be quite loud and not suitable for actual study, more a place to have coffee and chat with friends than somewhere to read and write.
I asked Mary Lee Kennedy about the current status of the plan yesterday, and was told that it was still evolving and that she couldn’t reveal anything further about it. Although NYPL is a public institution, the plan has been shrouded in secrecy since its inception. In fact, there’s so much secrecy surrounding the plan and its progress that Kennedy and Weine forbade me to take any photographs of the stacks during the tour. Why not? I asked, this is a public institution, what the stacks look like shouldn’t be a secret. Weine referred me to the NYPL’s “policy” prohibiting photography in the library’s “non-public spaces.” When I asked where I could find a record of that policy, it quickly became clear there wasn’t one.
I guess NYPL leadership is afraid that if enough people see actual images of the stacks in their current state—they give an impression simultaneously of vastness and solidity—they might have too many questions about why in the world the library is proposing to tear them down.
Also see Susan Bernofsky’s previous op-ed about the future of the New York Public Library, and visit the website of the Committee to Save the New York Public Library.
Also from Untapped Cities: Secrets of the New York Public Library.