NYPL sells art to raise money for books, sort of

Posted on by jessamyn

I rarely get my news, library or otherwise, from the Drudge Report. But when the headline blares NYC PUBLIC LIBRARY TO SELL ARTWORKS; MONEY FOR BOOKS… I just had to click that link.

“We’re not a museum,” [NYPL president Paul LeClerc] said. “We don’t have a staff devoted to paintings and sculptures. One of the thrills of running a great library is keeping up with the explosion of information. If we don’t grow, we cannot maintain the claim that we are one of the greatest libraries in the world.”

[lj]

sold out @ your library, Lessig & Tweedy, Who Owns Culture?

Posted on by jessamyn

Our very own Fiona from Blisspix got one of the sold out tickets to the NYPL Who Owns Culture shindig. Here’s what the NYTimes had to say about the event. Note the very very high profile of the library in all of this.

“What does it say about our democracy when ordinary behavior is deemed criminal?” he asked. Mr. Lessig and the moderator, Steven Johnson, a contributing editor at Wired, made much of the fact that the discussion was taking place in a library, where much of the Western cultural canon is available free.