NYPL

[Anthony Anemone]

Hi Mary Anne,

Call me a cynic, but I find it very hard to believe that the real reason to
close the reading room was to make books more available to readers.  That's
obviously the line that the library is taking, but I can't help feeling that
this is just another sign of the post-cold war downgrading of the Slavic
field.  Ironic that it's happening as the new cold war heats up (thanks to
the situation in Georgia).

And while I'm not concerned about getting access to books in the main
reading room, I am concerned about the future growth of the collection -
does this move signal reduced budget for buying books in Slavic field?  What
about the other activities of the Slavic bibliographers? research help for
readers, exhibitions, NEH summer seminars?  WIll they continue? No word from
the library about any of this (yet).

All the best,

Tony

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 11:52 PM, Mary Anne Cosentini <socam3 at yahoo.com>wrote:
Hi, Tony!

I was a frequent patron of the Baltic/Slavic reading room at the 42nd Street
Library and was also very upset that the reading room was closed. I asked
one of the librarians who was usually on duty there why it was being closed
and he had no explanation to give me.

Afterwards,  I spoke to one of the librarians in the 3rd floor main reading
room and expressed my dismay about the closing  She explained that another
reading room (the Asian reading room) had also been closed and, according to
her, the reason for the closures was not financial, but to make books more
accessible all the time, and not just when those reading rooms were open.

The same librarian said that a request could be made to have reference
materials (certain dictionaries, for example) that were on the open shelves
in the Baltic/Slavic reading room placed on the open shelves in the main
reading rooms.

In any case, for a city like New York, and a library like the New York
Public Library, this was a very sad decision.

Regards,
Mary Anne Cosentini



-- 
Anthony Anemone
Chair & Associate Provost of Foreign Languages
The New School
212-229-5676 ex. 2355

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