{"id":25083,"date":"2011-07-05T23:58:30","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T23:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/a-library-sans-livres\/"},"modified":"2011-07-05T23:58:30","modified_gmt":"2011-07-05T23:58:30","slug":"a-library-sans-livres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/a-library-sans-livres\/","title":{"rendered":"A Library Sans Livres"},"content":{"rendered":"

thenewinquiry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vintage library poster from the New York Public Library Archives<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Will the library of the future be a reliquary of precious artifacts or the information processor that obliterates them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Olivia Rosane<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect that the human species\u2014the unique human species\u2014is on the road to extinction, while the Library will last on forever.\u201d \u2014Borges, \u201cLibrary of Babel\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

If you had visited the New York Public Library\u2019s website during the two months between the announcement of Mayor Michael Bloomberg\u2019s proposed budget cuts and the final New York City Council budget vote on June 29, you might have feared that the institution would flake apart in the city\u2019s hands like the page of a rare book. As you entered the site, the screen went black, and a white message emerged from the darkness, imploring you to \u201cFind the Future \/ Fund the Future.\u201d No funding, no future. Unless you donated or wrote your New York City Council representative, the message warned, the library could face $40 million in budget cuts. It would be open only four days a week, children\u2019s programs would be slashed, one-third fewer books and DVDs would remain on shelves, job help and computer time would be reduced, and many branches would close. Make the wrong choice, and the library could disappear.<\/p>\n

But now the library is safe\u2014or so it seems. The final budget granted the library $36.7 million of the $40 million it had threatened to take away, and Public Relations Director Angela Montefinise was eager to reassure any frantic website visitors: \u201cThe people of New York will still have access to the critically important free services we offer that are being used now more than ever\u2014computers and Internet, books, programs, classes, job search resources, and more.\u201d Yet into her reassurance sneaks another danger. The Merriam-Webster<\/em>\u2019s definition of a library is \u201ca place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale.\u201d Books form the root of the library\u2019s very name, but when Montefinise jubilantly listed the services the library could still provide thanks to the restored budget, they come in third after computers and the internet. Saved from the Council\u2019s knife, is the library itself cutting away at its own definition?<\/p>\n

The introductory placard to an exhibit at the library\u2019s iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building\u2014\u201cCelebrating 100 Years\u201d (open through December 31), which marks the famous main branch\u2019s centennial by displaying some 250 treasures from its research collection\u2014seems to think so. It reads:<\/p>\n

As the Internet makes information increasingly easy to obtain and more experiences become virtual, direct encounters with the Library\u2019s books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, and objects reveal the collections as an indispensable public resource.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While Montefinise celebrates the social utility of free computer access, the exhibit purports to defend the physical objects in its keep against the virtualization of everyday life.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

thenewinquiry: Vintage library poster from the New York Public Library Archives\u00a0 Will the library of the future be a reliquary of precious artifacts or the information processor that obliterates them? By Olivia Rosane \u201cI suspect that the human species\u2014the unique human species\u2014is on the road to extinction, while the Library will last on forever.\u201d \u2014Borges, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-6wz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}