The sentiment I hear most from the general public is that they used to put up with the library being shabby because the city was broke. But now that the city has come back in the last 10 years , the expectation has changed.

One of the reasons that I take such joy in being a trustee of the New York Public Library is the love of reading that I found as a child in the Saturday morning library events for preschoolers and first and second graders as I was growing up in Augusta, GA.

The public library is where I studied. It's where my grandfather taught himself English.

The notion of getting the general public into low-Earth orbit I don't think is far-fetched at all.

The public library system of the United States is worth preserving.

My first memory of the public library is of lugging home a volume of Norse myths as heavy as a thunder-god's hammer.