Americans Want to Read. Give Them Books.; The New York Times, May 31, 2026

 Brian Bannon, The New York Times; Americans Want to Read. Give Them Books.

"More New Yorkers are borrowing books from the New York Public Library today than 15 years ago; borrowing is up 27 percent since 2010. And yet America is facing a book-reading crisis...

Libraries themselves were throwing up barriers to reading...

The reading crisis is real. But we don’t need new inventions to build a reading city. Exempt books from sales taxes the way we exempt prescription medicine. Invest in library collections and reduce wait lists for books. Open nonprofit and hybrid bookstoreswhen the market alone cannot sustain them. Build on the models that already work: reading in laundromats, libraries in transit systems, books in barbershops, classrooms, homes and pediatric offices."

A Librarian From Louisiana Fights Book Bans and ‘the Haters’; The New York Times, November 4, 2024

  James Barron , The New York Times; A Librarian From Louisiana Fights Book Bans and ‘the Haters’

"Amanda Jones of Watson, La., is sure to get a shout-out at the New York Public Library’s $5,000-a-person gala tonight. The library, which invited her to attend, is giving her a free ticket.

Amid a surge in book bans nationwide, Jones moved into the spotlight in 2022 with a brief speech during a meeting at her hometown public library — not the library she oversees at a local middle school. She said books with L.G.B.T.Q. themes should not be taken off the shelves. Almost immediately, she began receiving expletive-laden messages accusing her of being a pedophile.

Jones stood her ground, writing a memoir, “That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” She also started a group called Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship to lobby against restrictions on libraries.

“The backlash she faced is a testament to the urgent need to protect intellectual freedom,” said Anthony Marx, the president of the New York Public Library."

New York Public Library makes banned books available for free; NPR, April 15, 2022

Deepa Shivaram, NPR ; New York Public Library makes banned books available for free

"In response to the more than 1,500 books challenged to be removed from libraries in the last year, the New York Public Library launched an effort to make some banned books available for everyone — for free.

The initiative is called Books for All and allows any reader aged 13 and older to access commonly banned books through the library's app until the end of May. There are no wait times to access the books and no fines, the library said. Typically, access to books at the New York Public Library are only available to New Yorkers with a library card.

"The recent instances of both attempted and successful book banning —primarily on titles that explore race, LGBTQ+ issues, religion, and history — are extremely disturbing and amount to an all-out attack on the very foundation of our democracy," said Tony Marx, president of the New York Public Library.

"Knowledge is power; ignorance is dangerous, breeding hate and division ... Since their inception, public libraries have worked to combat these forces simply by making all perspectives and ideas accessible to all," Marx said."

Beneath New York Public Library, Shelving Its Past for High-Tech Research Stacks; New York Times, 11/15/15

Tom Mashberg, New York Times; Beneath New York Public Library, Shelving Its Past for High-Tech Research Stacks:

"As they skate or snack in Bryant Park, visitors might dismiss the stately New York Public Library next door as a dog-eared relic in an age of digital information.

But unbeknown to most of them, 17 feet below ground, in a concrete bunker worthy of the White House, the library is expanding and updating one of the most sophisticated book storage systems in the world.

Since March, after abandoning a much-criticized plan to move the bulk of its research collection to New Jersey, the library has been working instead to create a high-tech space underground for the 2.5 million research works long held in its original stacks.

The books will begin arriving in April, and by the end of spring library officials expect to be using a new retrieval system to ferry the volumes and other materials from their 84 miles of subterranean shelving, loaded into little motorized carts — a bit like miniaturized minecars carrying nuggets of research gold.

To fit all the books in the allotted space, the library will have to abandon its version of the Dewey Decimal System, in which shelving is organized by subject, in favor of a new “high-density” protocol in which all that matters is size."

Ann Thornton: Collaboration, Expansion, and Library Cred; Library Journal, 7/6/15

Lisa Peet, Library Journal; Ann Thornton: Collaboration, Expansion, and Library Cred:

"Ann Thornton was appointed as the new university librarian and vice provost of Columbia University in May, replacing university librarian emeritus James Neal upon his retirement. Thornton has a long history with prominent New York City libraries, having previously served for nearly two decades at the New York Public Library (NYPL). Since starting out at NYPL’s Science, Industry, and Business Library as its first public training coordinator in 1996, Thornton has occupied a number of senior leadership positions. Most recently she served as Andrew W. Mellon director, where she was responsible for collection development, preservation, reference and research services, and exhibitions for the system’s four research libraries and 87 branch libraries. Before coming to New York, she worked at the University of Houston Libraries as a systems librarian.

Thornton had been in office just over two weeks when LJ caught up with her to talk about the differences and overlaps between the two renowned New York institutions, and her plans."

New York Public Library Rethinks Design; New York Times, 8/27/13

Jennifer Maloney, New York Times; New York Public Library Rethinks Design: "The New York Public Library, responding to outcry over its plans to demolish century-old book stacks, will this fall unveil a new design that preserves a significant portion of them, its president, Anthony Marx, said Tuesday. The library disclosed its plans in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal about alternatives it had considered to the $300 million renovation, which has sparked two lawsuits brought by scholars and preservationists, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, aiming to block the stacks' destruction."

The Education of Tony Marx; New York Times, 10/10/12

Jacob Bernstein, New York Times; The Education of Tony Marx: "As the dispute over the central library plan dies down, Mr. Marx is choosing to see the sunny side of things. “The good news,” he said after leaving the Doris Duke Foundation event, walking toward the nearby Time Warner Center, “is that people are talking about the library. What they want it to be and what they don’t want it to be, rather than taking it for granted and letting it sink. Right?”"

Sacking a Palace of Culture; New York Times, 4/21/12

Edmund Morris, New York Times; Sacking a Palace of Culture: "Mr. Marx says soothingly that all those dislocated volumes will be retrievable on request within 24 hours. I remember when you could call up a big old tome, speckled and redolent of the 19th century, in 40 minutes. I remember drawer after heavy drawer of card catalog, wherein you could see and feel with your fingers the comparative outputs of say, Daniel Defoe and Isaac Asimov — to the latter’s disadvantage. I remember when the library elected to spend its budget on the enrichment, rather than the impoverishment, of cultural resources."

New York Public Library President is Taking Reader Questions; New York Times, 4/16/12

Robin Pogrebin, New York Times; New York Public Library President is Taking Reader Questions:

"[N]agging questions remain among many of the library’s loyal users: Will the main branch become overcrowded? Would a possible new cafe increase the amount of distractions and create spill issues? Would the money be better spent rehiring the library staff laid off during the recent recession?

Mr. Marx has recently tried to address these kinds of concerns in articles, on the radio and on TV. Now he has offered to take reader questions about the plan here. Submit them in the comments field below and a selection will be answered later in the week on ArtsBeat."

New York Public Library Defends Plan to Renovate; New York Times, 4/15/12

Robin Pogrebin, New York Times; New York Public Library Defends Plan to Renovate:

"The New York Public Library is engaged in a public-relations blitz to address criticism from scholars and writers who object to the library’s plan to reimagine its Fifth Avenue flagship building at an estimated cost of $300 million.

In the past few weeks the library’s president, Anthony W. Marx, has written articles for The Huffington Post and Inside Higher Ed, appeared on radio and television and assembled an advisory panel that includes people skeptical of the plan."

Upheaval at the New York Public Library: The Nation, 11/30/11

Scott Sherman, The Nation; Upheaval at the New York Public Library:

"The man who must contend with the NYPL’s budget difficulties is its new president, a tall, amiable, casually dressed political scientist named Anthony Marx, who started at the library on July 1. Marx had been the president of Amherst College, where during his eight-year tenure he raised great sums of money and did much to diversify the student body. But obtaining the financial resources to sustain the NYPL in these lean and mean times is a task that’s sure to keep Marx tossing in his bed at night. (Personal reasons may also keep Marx from sleeping soundly: on the afternoon of November 6 he was arrested in Upper Manhattan for driving while intoxicated; his blood alcohol level was 0.19. He is scheduled to appear in court on December 9.) He faces an additional challenge with the CLP, devised by his predecessor and scheduled to be completed in 2015.

The centerpiece of the CLP—expected to cost anywhere from $250 million to $350 million—is the construction of a state-of-the-art, computer-oriented library designed by British architect Norman Foster, in the vast interior of the Schwarzman Building."