LIBRARY NOTES
Mark Piel
Reflections on Twenty Years at the Library
Wednesday, April 1, 1998
What are the differences between your previous posts and this?
For an administrator, one difference between an academic library and this library is the freedom to take an active part in book selection. In a college this privilege resides mostly with the department heads. Also, the trustees have a far more important role than their counterparts do in college libraries. Happily, there have never been the same budget constraints here as I experienced in academia.
What was the Library like when you arrived?
Physically, it seemed more intimate, and, at the same time, more spacious. There were fewer card cabinets, a smaller circulation desk, less shelving, and fewer books in the reference room and circulation hall. This changed with the 1980-1983 renovation. Fortunately, the Library was able to retain its ambience throughout.
Has the membership changed noticeably?
We have a greater number of members with young children. You see baby carriages parked in the cloakroom every day now. Apart from this, the demographics haven't altered.
What do you enjoy doing at the Library? And what do you find the hardest?
What I particularly love is book selection. As satisfactory as it is to be able to work with an existing excellent collection, it's even more fun to be able to add to it. Jacques Barzun (who was a trustee from 1968-1997) gave me some useful precepts for acquisitions. My own selections are not usually new books but the worthy older titles we somehow miss getting, such as Frederick Jackson Turner's The Significance of the Frontier in American History, works of Leopardi, the nineteenth-century Italian poet, and Kierkegaard's Either/Or. I also relish the discovery of special books in the circulating stacks. We recently turned up the first edition of a book by Ann Radcliffe, an English Gothic novelist. Journey through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany is an account of a trip she took with her husband in 1794.
And then there's work at the Reference Desk, helping our readers find their way through our collection. It's rewarding to see the successful use of the Library's holdings acknowledged each year in serious publications. Most recently, I've come across acknowledgments in Barbara Goldsmith's biography of Victoria Woodhull, Other Powers, and in Thomas Fleming's Liberty! The American Revolution, based up on the PBS series. He writes -- quite correctly -- about our "superb staff"!
Anything to do with numbers is a hardship for me. What a great help it is that we now have a part-time bookkeeper. With this bookkeeping burden removed there had, of course, to be a new one. It's Emerson's Law of Compensation at work. The book space problem has been solved only temporarily by compact storage. I'm back to dealing with numbers -- of volumes and linear feet.
What was an important success for you? And what was a failure?
Let me start with the latter question. I'm glad you only asked for one. It was a disappointment that the position of Children's Librarian, which we started in my first year, somehow didn't pan out. However, the Library is redoing the children's area this summer and we do have ongoing children's programs both within and outside the Library.
I'm proud of the grant the Library received from New York State to conserve the Hammond Circulating Library Collection. It has books not available in any other library.
What are some big events of the past twenty years?
Three come immediately to mind. First, there was the complete renovation of the building in the beginning of the 1980's. Then came computerized cataloging. We're now about to complete the third major event -- the introduction of an on-line catalog and computerized circulation. And so we join other libraries, like The Boston Athenaeum, in availing ourselves of the new technology.
But that's not all. Other major innovations have been the literary lectures and programs. We've been able to attract notable speakers. And this is the third year the annual prize will be awarded for the year's best book about New York City. An important addition to the Library operation is the employment of a part-time book binder, Howard Stein, on the premises. One should also mention the Annual Appeal. Our members' response has made this a great success, which allows the Library to do all the other things I've talked about.
What do you see in the future of the library?
I trust we will continue to expand and conserve our holdings and carry on the literary lectures and programs. We should be able, through future computerization, to make our holdings known to more non-member readers in other parts of America -- and perhaps the world. The existence of the Library, let alone the quality of its collections, is still not sufficiently known. Our participation in "New York is Book Country" on Fifth Avenue in September and David Halberstam's recent New York Times article have introduced us to people who live a block away and to others all over the country.
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