New York Public Library – What are you up to??

This article at The Nation freaked me out. There is a big plan (called the CLP, Central Library Plan) to change the 42nd Street research library, one of my favorite places in New York. From the article:

“The centerpiece of the CLP … is the construction of a state-of-the-art, computer-oriented library designed by British architect Norman Foster, in the vast interior of the Schwarzman Building. To make space for this library within the library, the seven levels of original stacks beneath the third-floor Rose Reading Room—stacks that hold 3 million books and tens of thousands of adjustable and fixed shelves—will be demolished (the exterior of the building is landmarked; the stacks are not). When the new library is completed, patrons will be able to leave the building with borrowed books and other materials; for decades, those materials had to be used inside the library.”

I agree libraries need to change and the more materials that are digitized and made available online the better, but this plan is all over the place. For instance, I don’t quite understand why this needs to be both a research and lending library. Why can’t it be made an even better research library? They’re closing some collections down, moving a lot of books offsite, which I can live with, but there’s not a lot of specifics about what we’re getting in return.

I decorated! As usual I decorated the bookshelf next to my desk and that’s probably it for me.