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I've been busy with a some interesting consulting work and so have had little time for the library visits I've enjoyed so much. However, a family wedding brought me to New York City a few weeks ago. I wandered its noisy, vibrant streets, amazed by the city's joyous energy. Eventually, my perambulations brought me to the renowned New York Public Library. How could I not venture inside for a brief visit?
It is a jaw-dropping experience. In case you've never had the pleasure, I offer a telling glimpse of the building's opulence by showing you a lowly drinking fountain on the main floor! The famed Map Room wasn't yet open, so I ducked into the Genealogy Division on the first floor whose windows look out onto Bryant Park in early spring. Note the graceful London plane trees which shade the park in summer.
You can imagine what it must have felt like to be an immigrant in the early part of the 20th century and to enter a place such as this: a veritable palace of learning, open to everyone. Every bit as much as the Statue of Liberty promised freedom, this library has promised hope.
Like many of the rural libraries I'm familiar with in Vermont and New Hampshire, the NYPL was born in an era between the late 19th and early 20th centuries when public libraries were taking hold of the public imagination.
Although the founding bequest that helped to build the NYPL was from another philanthropist (former governor Samuel J. Tilden) Carnegie followed up by donating the funds to develop a system of neighborhood branch libraries in New York.
Carnegie famously said, "There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration."
Here's a link to more information on the founding and building of the NYPL: http://www.nypl.org/help/about-nypl/history
I thought about this era, with its unprecedented construction of beautiful and well-stocked library buildings, and about the philosophy which inspired them. Clearly, the concept had its detractors. But the many benefactors who donated the funds to erect public libraries in their communities, both urban and rural, had the same message in mind: "If you work hard and educate yourself you too can realize the American dream."
Sadly, that time in our history has passed. It's unlikely, in the push for ever lower taxes, that public institutions such as these will enjoy the support that they did at their founding. But interestingly, when requests for library funding are put directly before the voters, the voters almost always say yes. People still believe that public libraries are one of the most important institutions in our democracy.
This leads me to wonder about the disconnect between governments and the governed. If our local governments listened to their constituencies there would be a great deal more money available in this country for the building and stocking of public libraries. Failing that, perhaps there are some modern Carnegies waiting in the wings to build a lasting monument to the concept of hope through learning.
