Library and literary miscellany from your pals at Library Journal.
(Maintained by Molly McArdle, Assistant Editor, LJ Reviews)
The library is peculiar in that it has no identifiable constituency other than all of New York, and the world.
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Neil L. Rudenstine, chairman of the Board of Trustees, New York Public Library, from “Firestorm on Fifth” in December Vanity Fair.
I read the article en route to London last night while my neighbor on the left hogged the armrest. It’s heavy on rehash and tries a little too hard to kindle scandale when things seem to have calmed down.
(via cloudunbound)
Davis came to LIVE in October of 2010 for one of our biggest landmark events to talk with Toni Morrison about the importance of libraries.
ANGELA DAVIS: I was in jail in New York—I don’t know, did you mention that I was in jail? Some people don’t know. And one of the first places I went, I was able to go, in the jail was the library, and I didn’t see very many interesting books there, all right? I mean, I had just finished my studies in philosophy, and I went to the library expecting something very different, so what I did was I had people send books to me when I was there, and I wanted to share those books with all of the other women, there was something like a thousand women there. I was not allowed to do that. As a matter of fact, in the library there was a big cardboard box.
I could receive the books and I could read the books myself. It was okay for me read them, but don’t share them. And one of them was George Jackson’s book, Soledad Brothers, that was not allowed at all, although we did—you know, one of the things I learned when I was in jail there was how to secrete certain kinds of things, so we were able to—so we had these clandestine reading groups with books that were smuggled out of that box in the library, and it kind of reminded me of Frederick Douglass and Frederick Douglass’s effort to get an education, to learn how to read, and his idea that education really was liberation.
Augusta Braxton Baker, librarian with The New York Public Library from 1937 to 1974, blowing out the story hour candle. Baker was a devoted storyteller who developed a groundbreaking list of stories that portrayed African Americans positively and established a collection of African American children’s literature at the New York Public Library. She became the first African American coordinator of Children’s Services at the NYPL in 1961, in charge of youth programming at all eighty-three branches. Her influence touched New York libraries, schools, community groups, the American Library Association, Sesame Street, and the works of authors like Madeleine L’Engle and Maurice Sendak. World-renowned novelist James Baldwin was one of the young men who sat in the children’s room at her first library job at the 135th St Branch.
She was born on this day, April 1st, in 1911. You can read more about her life and legacy from the New York Public Library, Wikipedia, and the University of South Carolina. Hear her interviewed and see more photographs of her at work at Speaking of History.
SpoOOOooky NYPL pumpkin for your Halloween today.
Andrew Carnegie’s remarks on investing $5.2 million into the NYPL system, as reported in the New York Times on March 17, 1901.
What an opportunity, indeed.
