Silence, Please!

Archival photos of four children's reading rooms in the New York Public Library system appeared as a back page feature in the New York Times Book Review (November 12, 2023). The photos were gathered by Erica Ackerberg, the Book Review's photo editor.

Out of the four photos, the one that especially caught my attention is the photo taken in 1903 in East Harlem's Aguilar branch, named, said the caption, for Grace Aguilar, a 19th-century Anglo-Jewish writer. Above the checkout counter was a sign that said in big letters SILENCE.

I'm old enough to remember the days when libraries were quiet sanctuaries for bookworms like me. They were places where speaking loudly was unthinkable. Not anymore. And it's not just the patrons. The library staff, not setting a good example, are just as loud.

The only time a patron is admonished is when their mobile phone starts to ring. "Please turn your phone off in the library," a library staffer will announce. Otherwise, the loud talk is ignored and not a word of disapproval is uttered by the librarian or other library employee.

Pushing Back Against Book Censorship

The banning of literature by civic and religious groups and government officials can have unintended consequences like arousing the public's interest in the banned books and potentially driving up their sales, thereby undermining the ban.

But despite that risk, there are still individuals and groups willing to remove books from classrooms and library shelves in an effort to control what others can read.

To push back against book censorship, the Columbia University Libraries, in conjunction with the New York Public Library, is conducting the 12th annual Morningside Lights The Open Book procession in the Morningside Heights area of Manhattan. The participants will carry 50 plus handmade lanterns honoring various "Great Books," including, no doubt, books that have been banned or challenged as being inappropriate like The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

The event, scheduled for Saturday, September 30, at 8 pm, is "a celebration of the free exchange of ideas," declares a flyer, "and an homage to the libraries that preserve access to knowledge and affirm our freedom to read."

The procession route begins inside Morningside Park at 116th Street and Morningside Avenue. The participants will proceed to the outside of the park, heading north and then west until it reaches its final destination, the campus of nearby Columbia University, probably gathering at the steps of Low Library.

Reminder: Banned Books Week is October 1-7, 2023.

The New York Public Library Eliminates Overdue Fines

Better Late Than Never by Jenn McKinlay (Berkley Prime Crime, 2016), is part of her series called Library Lover's Mysteries, featuring Lindsey Norris, a young woman who is director of the public library in Briar Creek, a small town on the Connecticut shore.

The Briar Creek Public Library is holding its first annual fine amnesty day event, which brings a flood of overdue books, including one that's twenty years overdue and was checked out by a popular high school  English teacher around the time of her death. The book, after twenty years, is in pristine condition. Was the killer responsible for returning the book? Lindsey, who's also an amateur sleuth, intends to find out.

In the meantime, Ms. Cole, "an old-school librarian," who is "nicknamed 'the lemon' because of her puckered disposition," fervently disapproves of the fine amnesty day.

Ms. Cole comes across to Lindsey as "a punitive sort who enjoyed using fines and shushing to curb their patrons' naughty behavior."

I can only imagine how Ms. Cole, the "old-school librarian," would react to the New York Public Library's recent decision to follow other library systems by doing away with overdue fines altogether. The library felt the fines were burdensome to its low-income patrons and prevented them from adequately using the library and its many services.

Unpublished Books Set Aside For Unborn Generations

 There is a fascinating art project mentioned in an article about the English novelist David Mitchell that was published in The Wall Street Journal (July 18-19, 2020 weekend issue). Unfortunately, no one now alive will get to experience it. It's called the Future Library and was described in the article as "the World's Most Secretive Library." Located in Oslo, Norway, the Future Library will contain the unpublished manuscripts of contemporary novelists like Mitchell, whose most recent novel is called Utopia Avenue, about a fictional 1960s rock band. The unpublished manuscript he contributed to the library is called From Me Flows What You Call Time.

These manuscripts won't be published until the year 2114 when, according to the article, they will "be printed from paper derived from the Nordmarka forest, outside the Norwegian capital." That's assuming books will continue to be printed on paper.

I'm curious about who came up with this idea, what they had in mind when it was created, how contributors to the project were selected, what is special about the Nordmarka forest, whether or not the Norwegian government was involved, etc. These are questions to which I hope to get answers.

The New York Public Library's Most Checked Out Books

The New York Public Library, of which I am a longtime card-carrying member, celebrates its 125th anniversary this year.

As part of the celebration, NYPL's librarians have listed in the winter/spring 2020 issue of The New York Public Library Now magazine the ten most checked out books "ever since [they] opened [their] doors" in 1895.

Among these books are To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1984 by George Orwell, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss.

Below is a list of the ten books:

1. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
2. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
3. 1984 by George Orwell
4. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
8. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
10. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

And one Honorable Mention: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

The Little Free Library Revisited

When I saw an article in a back issue of the Christian Science Monitor Weekly magazine (September 8, 2014) called "Little Free Libraries Add Charm to Neighborhoods," I felt my journalistic instincts had been vindicated. I wrote in this blog (see "A Library in the Park", October 29, 2014) about these free-standing house-shaped structures containing books to be lent and/or donated before I saw the article which is in an issue I picked up outside a Christian Science reading room on 112th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue, in Manhattan, on January 14, 2015.