Critical Essay About the Use of Libraries

 Critical Essay

            The New York City Public Library is a staple of New York City’s landscape.  What started out as a community necessity has now transformed into a tourist icon.  The shift in the meaning of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, itself is not too different from the meaning of libraries across the country today. The resource of a library can have varying value and varying meaning to each member of the community. Because of this, Casey’s term, “individual memory” that each person holds of a library will be vastly different. Elementary and high school students have always sought the library as a place for research, a one-stop shop for information to complete papers and projects on topics from Native American tribes to the Cold War. This specific memory of the library, in general, is one that is often taken for granted in today’s society with the advancement of the internet.  The library was once an essential stop for elementary and high school students when completing the staple research projects of American education.  For example, a sixth grade level paper on a topic about ancient Egypt used to involve a mandatory visit to one’s local library, a discussion with the librarian as to where the books on that period could be found, and the feeling of your fingertip dragging along the spines of books until you came along a title that might give you the information you need.  Then the process would be repeated until you gathered enough sources to properly describe the history of, let’s say, mummification to meet your teacher’s approval.  All this has been condensed to turning on a computer, the feeling of your fingertips flying across a keyboard and your eyes scrolling down a screen.  Though, arguably easier and faster this method shifts the narrative of the use of a community library.  To the book worm as well, the library can be seen as an adventure, a treasure trove of stories that can be swapped out biweekly for only a scan of a plastic card.  This activity too has been reduced to a novelty with the invention of e-readers and a plentiful amount of illegal pdfs to choose from online.

  To teens, the library is a place to hang out after school, and to the elderly, perhaps a place to pass a few hours and break up the day. Communities often hold events in libraries, viewing the space as neutral and public.  These versions of the library’s use are the ones that still hold strong today and are more often found in people’s memory of the space. The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building may still be actively remembered as a place of research to the college students that attend universities in one of the five Burroughs, but to the common public, the space stands to memorialize that rather than to foster it, the building is now a symbol.  Individual memories of the building are more likely to be mixed into sight-seeing trips for tourists than a place to engage with books.

Social memory is defined by Edward Casey as a “memory held in common by those who are affiliated either by kinship ties, geographical proximity in neighborhoods, cities, and other regions, or engagement in a common project.” (21) Through this lens, the social memory of the New York City Public Library can be remembered through the events held there.  The library holds approximately 93,000 events yearly in order to serve the public far past the rental of books.  This is now the main purpose of the building's functionality.  People who live in New York may share common memories of listening to speakers present on topics of interest from the history of photography to the love life of the iconic literary couple, the Shelley’s.  People may also share in the social memory of taking the various short courses available to take in the library.  These range from themes such as how to complete one’s taxes to learning how to read and write in braille.  The library also still exists to help the community by being a place where multiple benefit type events occur that would also be a part of social memory.  These events include dinners and luncheons to promote philanthropy and giving to the library so that it may continue being a resource to the public.  These events still hold true to the original purpose of a library, to act as a source of information, education, and recreation to the public, but that narrative has shifted from the individual and quiet process of reading text on one’s own, to the social process of meeting and coming together to discuss and learn information as a group, using the library merely as a space.

The third form of memory is collective memory; this term means the memory is remembered: “neither in individually in isolation from others nor in the company of others with whom one is acquainted.” (Casey, 23) This type of memory can best be compared with the physical appearance and architecture of the building.  To any that pass it, both tourist and locals alike, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building stands out amongst the buildings, skyscrapers, and bodegas that surround it. The building was designed with the intention to last physically for many years and to leave a lasting impression on those who see.  The Beaux- Arts architecture style it was modeled in takes its inspiration from Renaissance and Gothic architecture already existing in Europe. These styles were also shown by buildings that would have been considered important or tourist attractions even at the time of the libraries construction. The elaborateness of the design, from the impressive stone columns at the entrance to the marble that makes up the entire structure, was added to make the building more permanent and that its purpose holds significance. The result of the style of the building is that it was allowed to remain intact and untouched as time moved on and other structures around it modernized. Also, this appearance is what caused the library to be not only a place of education but also a place tourist would want to come and take a picture of. It is now able to live and function in the memories of those who have seen it as a beautiful piece of architecture in America that one can be prideful of and should be saved.

A part of the library that may serve in the public memory or the fourth memory in Casey’s essay is the twin pair of lion statues that guard the street in front of the main entrance. The two large lion statues on either end of the front entrance are not only the most iconic representative image of the library and what most people are first to think of when the idea of the library comes up. Public memory is defined as an “encircling horizon,” (Casey, 25) meaning that it is an interpretation that could be available to anyone even those who have not seen it or experienced it.  A public memory the New York Public Library has an association to is the Great Depression and the Lions have come to be a symbol of that time. Originally these sculptures, where just two pieces of art meant to heighten the aesthetic of the area. In the 1930s they were given the names Patience and Fortitude, during the Great Depression.  These names are representations of two qualities the nation needed in order to survive this devastating time in the economy.  These names are still kept by the lions as a memorial to what the city and nation as a whole went through in order to make it past that dark time, because of this all of America’s citizens are entitled to relate to the lions.

The library’s original purpose has changed from functionality to symbolism.  Although it is still remembered as a place to gather information, it is now used for the location, rather than the resources inside by those that live near it.  For those that are not from New York, it is merely something that can be looked at, no longer a place to experience.