News & Events

  • Committee to Save NYPL Wins Grassroots Preservation Award! Join us to celebrate!

    We are pleased to announce that the Committee to Save the New York Public Library is one of the recipients of this year’s Grassroots Preservation Awards! Please join us as we celebrate this great honor at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery on Tuesday, May 24, 2016, 6:00 pm. Given annually by the Historic Districts Council, the city’s leading advocacy…

  • The Koch Brothers Really Don’t Like Libraries

    It turns out the Koch brothers think libraries (or at least government-funded public libraries) are a bad idea. As usual they are throwing their money around, this time dropping the big bucks in a small Illinois town to defeat a bond issue to support the local library – read the full article here. No, this isn’t a parody.…

  • More Information About the Mid-Manhattan and 42nd St. Renovation Plans

    On December 10, 2015, NYPL held a public meeting to introduce the architects of the upcoming Mid-Manhattan and 42nd Street Library renovations. Francine Houben, founder of Mecanoo, and Liz Leber, partner of Beyer Blinder Belle, gave a brief presentation about their backgrounds and their previous library projects. NYPL Chief Operating Officer Iris Weinshall presented an overview…

  • Rose Main Reading Room Scaffolding Tour

    The Rose Main Reading Room at the 42nd Street Library has been closed for repairs since May 2014, when a small piece of plaster fell off the ceiling. Last December, NYPL offered a tour of the scaffolding in the Rose Main Reading Room to interested members of the public. It’s an impressive structure, which holds…

  • Times Literary Supplement Reviews Patience and Fortitude

    The Times Literary Supplement (London) has published Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda’s review of Scott Sherman’s Patience and Fortitude. It’s an excellent read! Scott Sherman’s subtitle is slightly coy: his book isn’t about the fight to save just any old library. He’s talking about the revered New York Public Library, one of the world’s great scholarly archives and research institutions. Located at 42nd…

  • A Good Book is the Precious Life-blood of a Master Spirit

    New plans at NYPL leave millions of books in remote storage while using centrally located research library space for digital services that could be anywhere. As this article shows, this is as short-sighted as their premature and disastrous embrace of CD-ROM technology at the Science Industry and Business Library. New technology and print can complement…

  • Stacks, Not Snacks!

    NYPL plans to open upscale cafes at two of its research libraries. The rationale? “It is important that we offer the public what they want and need while they’re in our buildings, often for hours while doing important research,” says NYPL Chief External Relations Officer Carrie Welch. Ms. Welch seems to have missed the fact that what the…

  • Can a Closed Book Start a New Chapter?

    On September 16th, NYPL announced the selection of Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle as architects for the $300 million renovation of the Mid-Manhattan and 42nd Street Library. Unfortunately, the news came with complete lack of transparency in either the selection process or the renovation plans. NYPL revealed nothing about what other architects were solicited, how the various…

  • Upcoming Event: Scott Sherman and Caleb Crain Discuss Patience and Fortitude at Book Culture

      On Tuesday, June 23rd, at 7 PM, Scott Sherman will officially launch his new book Patience and Fortitude at Book Culture on 450 Columbus Avenue (between 81st and 82nd Street).As a journalist for The Nation, Sherman’s in-depth coverage of the Central Library Plan provoked a firestorm of criticism against NYPL’s attempts to sell off popular libraries and gut the…

  • NYPL: Big Spenders…. in New Jersey

    The three million books that were secretly moved from the 42nd Street Library stacks are still located 50 miles away at the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP) in Princeton, New Jersey. Library leaders have sought to justify the empty stacks as a cost-saving measure. They claim upgrading climate controls to the seven floors would…

  • Must-Read: Scott Sherman’s Riveting Patience & Fortitude Is Almost Here!

    The Committee to Save the New York Public Library is excited to announce the forthcoming publication of Scott Sherman’s new book Patience and Fortitude: Power, Real Estate and the Fight to Save a Public Library, a definitive account of NYPL’s aborted plan to dismantle one of the world’s most cherished public libraries and the Herculean…

  • When Will the Rose Reading Room Reopen?

    One year ago today, NYPL closed the Rose Reading Room after a part of the ceiling fell to the ground.  Since the last update in October, library officials have provided no word for when the reading room will re-open. And more than two years ago NYPL emptied its stacks of 3 million books without any…