LIBRARY NOTES
From the Head Librarian: Summer 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
News on the First Charging Ledger
My March/April 2007 column mentioned the Library's exciting plans to conserve and digitize our 1789-1792 charging ledger. Thanks to the generous support of an anonymous donor and trustee emeritus Christopher Gray, we were able to contract with the Northeast Document Conservation Center to perform this work. The conserved ledger is now back in the Library, and staff members are working on related web pages, biographies of the members listed in it, and transcription of the handwritten entries. We hope to hold a public launch of the ledger later this year.
While reviewing some of our holdings on New York in the eighteenth century, I discovered the 1943 book
This Was New York: The Nation's Capital in 1789 by Frank Monaghan and Marvin Lowenthal.
The authors did much of their research for the chapter "News and Reviews"
here in the Library, including analysis of the first ledger's entries. I like to think that Monaghan and Lowenthal would be proud that we are now circling back to their book and benefiting from their research.
National Library Week 2008
Our National Library Week celebration was a highlight of the season in many ways. It was this Library's first-ever observance of a fifty-year-old nationwide event to celebrate libraries and librarians and promote library use and support. It was also the first time we held three member events and the Annual Meeting of Shareholders in the same week, and it was our trial by fire with a new digital audio- and video-recording system.
Coming Soon: Library Event Recordings
With the speakers' permission, we will now record every event held in the Members' Room. These recordings will soon be available as streaming audio and video on our website and on circulating CD alongside our audiobook collection. We know it it not always possible for all those who want to attend to make the times of our events or to fit into the room. We hope that an archive of event recordings will compensate for this and be of interest both to members and to the general public. Watch this newsletter and the website for the imminent announcement of these recordings' availability. Thanks are due to Sara Elliott Holliday, Ingrid Richter, George Munoz, Keren Fleshler, and Joel Blaha for their work on this new initiative.
More Good Thought About Books and Libraries
Last week a Library member handed me the June 12 issue of the New York Review of Books, saying,"Read this Darnton article - it's important." Robert Darnton, an internationally renowned scholar on the history of the book and the literary world of the French Enlightenment, became the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library in 2007. His reflections on the past and future of libraries and other themes raised at our April 15 panel "The Book Is Dead! Long Live the Book!" are well worth reading. Ask for a copy at the front desk.
Summer Reading
With summer underway, many of us are finding new time to immerse ourselves in a book, or two, or three. I recently put together a short stack of books for this summer. Among the titles I'm looking forward to: Kiran Desai's
The Inheritance of Loss,
The New York Stories of Henry James (a 2006 collection selected and introduced by Colm Tóibín), Joyce Johnson's memoir
Minor Characters,
Don Domanski's book of poems
All Our Wonder Unavenged (2007 winner of the Canadian Governor General's Award for Poetry), and Joseph O'Neill's novel
Netherland. May your reading choices be equally fruitful - and if you could use some suggestions, our June New Books list is available at the desk or on the website, and our circulation and reference staff are always happy to offer ideas in person or by phone.
I wish you all a restful and book-abundant summer.
Mark Bartlett
Head Librarian
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