What are two of my favorite things? This isn't a pop quiz, but it also won't come as much of a surprise to anyone who actually knows me, or who even just follows this blog. (BTW, who are you who don't know me, but follow this blog? I'd love it if you would say hello. You can do it in the comments section which I moderate, and I won't post it. Promise.)
Anyway, I digress. Two of my favorite things:
1) libraries
2) books
No, they aren't, anymore, coextensive. So many people in the library these days are there for things other than books. Sometimes, I think this is wonderful: newspapers, events, films, warmth, high speed internet for folks who often can't afford it, classes and education, available bathrooms, mostly non-judgmental staff who don't expect you to buy anything, and many other things.
Sometimes I think it's just a little sad: e.g., a couple nights ago I visited the main branch of the Boston Public Library to check out a copy of the Raymond Chandler classic
The Big Sleep. P met me there, and on the way out I pointed out the longest line in the main lobby. She explained it is for DVD holds.
On the one hand that I'm very glad that libraries continue to be viable and important third places, and much of this is through making digital media and services available. On the other hand, when I sit in reading rooms and see more than half of the people on their devices, it's a little sad to me.
Wherein comes the comparison between the main reading rooms in the Boston Public Library, and the New York Public Library. This kind of isn't totally fair: when I lived in NYC last year and early this year, the gorgeous
Rose Main Reading Room at the Schwarzman Building (main branch) was closed (and remains closed) for renovations. As a result, I spent most of my time in the
Periodicals Room, a gorgeous but much smaller room than Rose. I liked it because electrical outlets were, as far as I could tell, non-existent, putting an inherent limitation on the number of people on laptops. The library rentacops would wander through on the regular, but mostly leave people alone. (This compared to another reading room in the Schwarzman Building, third floor IIRC, where the rentacops stand around imperiously and meanmug people, and where I watched a rentacop almost make a young lady studying a
TOEFL guide almost cry for drinking out of a closed coffee travel mug.)
In the BPL, I migrated toward the great big and beautiful
Bates Hall reading room. I appreciated the very clear norm of people being silent. Almost eerily silent: with probably 75-100 people in the room, you could hear the rustle of newspaper pages being turned. Unlike most libraries these days, almost nobody was on an electronic device.
So, it's kind of a comparison-not-comparison. On balance, I'll take Bates Hall at the BPL any day over pretty much any room in the NYPL Schwarzman Building. But I need to go back after the reopen the Rose Room and update the comparison.
And local branch comparisons? There is none: BPL wins hands down. I'll take any part of either of my two local BPL branches,
Honan-Allston, or
Brighton, over any part of what used to be my local branch in NYC,
Seward Park, and don't even get me started on the
Hamilton Fish Park, surely in the top ranks for
Loudest Public Library in America.
But comparing libraries is a little like deciding which of your children you like best, and that age-old (and often untrue) claim that most parents fall back on: that they love all of their children equally.
Ahhh, libraries. I love all of you. I just like some of you better than others.
