Talk:New York Public Library

Size? I don't really know...

I like to go with the American Library Association's factsheet. Arguments about library sizes frequently come up in Wikipedia articles on colleges and universities, which are subject to a lot of boosterism. The University of California makes the claim, for example that the "University of California library" contains 32 million volumes, which would make it much larger than Harvard. The problem, of course, is that the "University of California library" consists of buildings in Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, etc. which are many hours' drive from each other and undoubtedly contain many, many duplicates.

The New York Public Library's website says that "consists of 86 libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island." Another site says that they collectively have 19 million volumes.

Personally, of course, when I think of the New York Public Library I'm thinking of the building with the lions, and when I think of the Boston Public Library I'm thinking of the beautiful McKim building with the ugly Philip Johnson wart on the side. Dpbsmith 11:00, 10 February 2007 (EST)