Libraries are important. An incredible amount of my privately-motivated education took place in dinky-ass public libraries on Staten Island...dinky, but they had stuff by Lin Yutang, Kant, Einstein, The Red Fair Book, Lewis Caroll (don't underestimate the boy - his Game of Logic and Mathematical Recreations of Lewis Carroll won't help you at all in your boolean algebra class but will help you get a near tactile understanding of logic and its application)...they had something on everything and would order the stuff they didn't have on hand if you asked.

You have no idea how much creativity has been sparked by this collectively owned reservoir of data...data no one (let me repeat...NO ONE) could predict would inspire a reader and that therefore no one (let me repeat...NO ONE) would buy for their kids.

Market forces would NEVER bring such an institution into existence. Losing large fragments of the library's catalog if like losing large chunks of you deep memory, th ememory you use to structure and interpret your current sensory experiences. And I just don't like the idea of them struggling.

Quote of note:

Over the last two decades, arts institutions in need of money have occasionally sought to part with valuable works to maintain their stated missions. For example, the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center sold of one of Leonardo's Codex manuscripts to Bill Gates for $30.8 million in 1994.

But to art experts, the library's attempt to sell its important artworks so it can devote itself more fully to acquiring significant books seems a turning point for the institution.

New York Public Library to Sell Major Artworks to Raise Funds
By CAROL VOGEL

The New York Public Library has decided to sell 19 works of art from its collection - including "Kindred Spirits," a widely admired landscape by the Hudson River School painter Asher B. Durand, and two seminal portraits of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart - so that it can better compete in acquisitions of important books and collections.

Sotheby's, which has been retained by the library, estimates that the works will sell for $50 million to $75 million. The transactions will be handled either privately or by public auction. Paul LeClerc, the library's president, said all of the money would go toward buying books, manuscripts and other works on paper and toward bolstering the library's endowment.

"We're not a museum," he said. "We don't have a staff devoted to paintings and sculptures. One of the thrills of running a great library is keeping up with the explosion of information. If we don't grow, we cannot maintain the claim that we are one of the greatest libraries in the world."

In the hope that many of the artworks can remain on public view in New York, library officials said, any New York institution that wishes to purchase a work will be given preferential payment terms. But it is unclear how much of a financial compromise officials are going to be willing to make to keep the artworks - paintings and sculptures by major American artists - in the area.