TOPIC

Libraries

Shelf Life

Unpacking His Library

Rehoused by friends and colleagues in a reading room for new generations of students, Michael Sorkin’s books keep his legacy in circulation.

Well-Placed

Teenage Dream

At the annual Anti-Prom, queer and trans teens refashion the New York Public Library’s marble-lioned flagship into a kinder, gentler world.

Cleaning Up?

Learning Environment

With origins in a massive underground oil spill, the new Greenpoint Library and Environmental Education Center is seeding future generations of neighborhood activists.

The Location of Justice: Futures

Reentry: Start Here

People returning to city life after time in prison will soon be able to find help at some branch libraries. How can designers help librarians create life-saving connections?

The Location of Justice: Systems

Where Corrections Meets Connections

People trying to stay connected to their loved ones in New York's jails and prisons must travel great distances and navigate intimidating rules and requirements.

Shelf Life

Has Any City Ever Planned for Love?

For Shelf Life, a film made in 1964 provides an enduring lens through which to look at density's delights.

Shelf Life

Architecture in the Basement

In the first installment of Shelf Life, Janet Parks, curator of the Avery Drawings and Archives at Columbia University, takes us through its architectural underworld, uncovering the collection's treasures.

Urban Memory Infrastructure

A city needs memory like it needs streets, trees, and people. But how do we build an infrastructure to contain and deliver the city's history? Ben Vershbow, former director of NYPL Labs, talks with Shannon Mattern about libraries as stewards of the past in the age of Google Maps.

Middlewhere: Landscapes of Library Logistics

Shannon Mattern takes us inside two examples of the extensive, yet relatively invisible, infrastructures that drive New York's libraries and explains how their logistical systems shape our physical, political, and intellectual landscapes.

Reading Room: A Catalog of New York City's Branch Libraries