Lenin Loved the New York Public Library. Why can’t we?

Lenin loved the New York Public Library. (h/t Joanna Bujes)

I have before me the report of the New York Public Library for 1911.

That year the Public Library in New York was moved from two old buildings to new premises erected by the city. The total number of books is now about two million. It so happened that the first book asked for when the reading-room opened its doors was in Russian. It was a work by N. Grot, The Moral Ideals of Our Times. The request for the book was handed in at eight minutes past nine in the morning. The book was delivered to the reader at nine fifteen.

In the course of the year the library was visited by 1,658,376 people. There were 246,950 readers using the reading-room and they took out 911,891 books.

This, however, is only a small part of the book circulation effected by the library. Only a few people can visit the library. The rational organisation of educational work is measured by the number of books issued to be read at home, by the conveniences available to the majority of the population.

In three boroughs of New York—Manhatten, Bronx and Richmond—the New York Public Library has forty-two branches and will soon have a forty-third (the total population of the three boroughs is almost three million). The aim that is constantly pursued is to have a branch of the Public Library within three-quarters of a verst, i.e., within ten minutes’ walk of the house of every inhabitant, the branch library being the centre of all kinds of institutions and establishments for public education.

Almosteight million (7,914,882 volumes) were issued to readers at home, 400,000 more than in 1910. To each hundred members of the population of all ages and both sexes, 267 books were issued for reading at home in the course of the year.

Each of the forty-two branch libraries not only provides for the use of reference books in the building and the issue of books to be read at home, it is also a place for evening lectures, for public meetings and for rational entertainment.

The New York Public Library contains about 15,000 books in oriental languages, about 20,000 in Yiddish and   about 16,000 in the Slav languages. In the main reading-room there are about 20,000 books standing on open shelves for general use.

The New York Public Library has opened a special, central, reading-room for children, and similar institutions are gradually being opened at all branches. The librarians do everything for the children’s convenience and answer their questions. The number of books children took out to read at home was 2,859,888, slightly under three million (more than a third of the total). The number of children visiting the reading-room was 1,120,915.

As far as losses are concerned—the New York Public Library assesses the number of books lost at 70–80–90 per 100,000 issued to be read at home.

Why can’t we?

7 Comments

  1. Critical Reading December 12, 2014 at 10:07 pm | #
    • Corey Robin December 12, 2014 at 11:13 pm | #

      Fixed, thanks.

      On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 10:07 PM, Corey Robin wrote: > >

  2. Critical Reading December 12, 2014 at 10:12 pm | #

    If public libraries were being proposed for the first time today, they would be denounced by the political and media establishments as communist institutions that violate sacrosanct intellectual property rights. Of course they are and they do, which is part of what makes them so wonderful.

  3. xenon2 December 12, 2014 at 11:06 pm | #

    At the Brooklyn Library In the 1950’s, second most popular language, after English, was Norwegian.

  4. Dean C. Rowan December 13, 2014 at 8:57 pm | #

    It’s pretty common knowledge that the growth of public libraries in the U.S. during the late 19th century until the Great Depression was due to the iconic capitalist Andrew Carnegie. (I’m a librarian, but I didn’t know that he introduced on a broad scale the policy of open stacks. Assuming Wikipedia is correct.) I suppose no self-respecting capitalist these days would fund a similar project with as few strings as Carnegie attached, although he did impose constructive conditions for the awards. Working in a public library at the advent of the Web, I can attest to increasing community sentiment opposed to long hours, low fines, and ample staffing, the rationale being that the Internet would serve as everybody’s library and that taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize locals whose devotion to the library seemed, at the time, merely nostalgic.

  5. BillR December 15, 2014 at 6:31 pm | #

    A quote from Lady Bird Johnson that keeps reverberating in my mind:

    Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library.

  6. Mark January 23, 2015 at 7:36 am | #

    The New York Public Library contains about 15,000 books in oriental languages, about 20,000 in Yiddish and about 16,000 in the Slav languages. In the main reading-room there are about 20,000 books standing on open shelves for general use.

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