on a recent trip to new york city, booktv visited the new york public library, where we

spoke with the library's president and ceo anthony mark, about the hoyt of the institution as well as its current operations and future. >> let's start with numbers. how big is the new york public library? how many employees, budget, et cetera? >> guest: a public library combines the largest circulating branch library system in america, 88 branches, in every neighborhood in the burroughs, as well as four important research libraries, this one being the crown jewel at the center of the system and also the shop berg center in hard -- harlem. we have 2100 employees, a budget of $280 million a year, operating, about half from the city of new york, largely to pay

for the circulating library system in the neighborhoods. the other half comes from return of a billion dollar en.com that employs me, a trust, and that we raise somewhere between 80 and 100 municipal a year. there's also -- $100 million a year. there's also somewhere in the vicinity of 40 or $50 million a year of capital improvements, again mostly comes from the city but can also come from private sources. it's an amazing system. almost unique in the world, and combining a great research library system, like the library of congress, and the public library, neighborhood system, in washington, dc, the library of congress and the washington public library have nothing to do with each other organizationally. here, we are all within the new york public library system, and it's -- we have close to

18-19 million physical visits a year. we have 55 million items. it's really one of the great treasures of new york and of the world. people come from all over the world to use our system. >> host: when you say, items, is that books? >> guest: books is more probably in the vicinity of 20 million. and then it's archives, prints, maps, manuscripts. this building, for instance -- this ises true of the research library, so shomberg, library for performing arts, have unique testimonies. we have the archives, manuscripts of great authors, walt whitman, and charles dickens, and just recently added tom wolfe, and you can walk in to this building, go into one of those special collections, show no documentation, need to have no fancy job, ask to see

anything, and we will make it available to you. rather quickly. >> host: everybody can see that. >> guest: anybody. >> host: how many of those million books are available to check out and take home? >> guest: so, the majority of the books, something in the vicinity of 14 million books, circulate. and then there's, again, six or seven million books that are the core of the research collection, added to that is all this other material. we have one of the world's great map collections here, genealogy collection, but it doesn't stop, and we have been collecting for over 100 years. >> what would the new york public library system mean to an average new yorker? >> i think something like a third of new yorkers depend on the library to be able to read, because they can't or don't afford books.

something like a toward of new yorkers depend on the new york public library for having computer access because they don't have broadband or computers at home. you can't even apply for a job in this day and age without having that kind of access. so there's a core of folks, especially in the poorer neighborhoods, who absolutely depends on us to read, to go online, or to have a quiet place to sit to read to think to write, to create. so that's very powerful stuff. and it's also true in the better-off neighborhoods of new york that every seat is filled. the new york public library has never seen more traffic, meaning people coming in, more books circulating, more computer use, more educational programs, in our hundred-year history. we are at our peak, and that's incredible. had some budget cuts because of financial difficulties since 2008, obviously, and city

finances. we haven't cut our branches. in fact we have more branches than we have ever hard because every neighborhood wants one. we have not cut our hours and have nor use than ever. that's the way it's experienced for most new yorkers. i grew up using my local neighborhood library in a part of new york called inwood. 20 to 30,000 kids come into our branches after school every day. it's safe. they do homeworkment they use the computer. and actually we have now launched for the first anytime our history, after-schooling programs. we aim to become the largest after-school program possibly in the nation because we have the kids coming in and because everybody needs more help on education. all that is part of the general of library. we're also -- people don't know this. we're the leading free provider in new york of english language instruction. new york is half immigrants. we teach citizenship.

we are the leading free provider in new york of basic computer skills training. we'll be at 150,000 people enjoying those programs. we're also now starting to teach coding, so that kids in the south bronx or harlem who want to get jobs in the information technology industry, can come to the library. we're the leading nonuniversity partner with corsara, the online university program so people can come into the libraries and have group sessions and we'll find instructor bz for them so they aren't trying to learn only online. we're doing the same thing with cohn academy. so, educational programs, quiet places, opportunities to read, take out books, and to use computers, and that is just in the circulating library, which is the majority of where our people are coming into. and then there's the research

library, where people come from all over the world, who are writing books, doing research to use our archives, our material, but also our incredible spaces. if you go up to the rose main reading room, one of the most beautiful spaces in new york, and you'll find every seat is filled. >> tony marx, why do you think the new york public library is at its apex? >> guest: i think there are butch of reasons. one, i think, after the economy had its difficulties in 2008, more people had to come in, particularly to the branches, because they couldn't afford an extra room or quiet at home or air condition organize computers or books. so partly an economic driver. it think that's not all that is going on. as it is increasingly possible to do more of the work of the mind alone in front of a screen, the more people actually want to come in and be with each other.

we're human beings. we dope want to just sit in a cave by ourselves, even a cave with a screen. we want to actually be inspired by beautiful spaces, and by seeing other people who are working, and actually if we do our job right, want you to find the other people who are in the room working on the same thing. community is still part, a powerful part, of human nature, and the library is the centerpiece, the foundation of that, in the world of ideas and information, in any city or town, and certainly on this one, which happens to be the capital of the information age. >> host: do you serve all of new york city? >> guest: so, this system ises three bur rows. i didn't know this when i took the job, this is manhattan, staten island and the bronx, brooklyn and queens which which were once separate cities, have

separate public library systems but we cooperate with them and coordinate and try to do things together as it should be. so, for instance, we became recentfully effect the circulating library system for the public school system of new york. so for hundred years, we lived side-by-side but didn't actually really cooperate, and for 100 years, the public schools depended for their libraries in a room this size with maybe 10,000 books, increasingly out of date, and a card catalogue. a sweet idea, one i grew up with, but in the 21st century that can't possibly work. now, we're at about 600 schools. we aim to be at all of them. with computers in the libraries and a teacher or student -- a teacher can order up to 100 books at a time from our 17 million books. the three systems together, and

we'll deliver right to the school. so you get the efficiencyies of huge systems spreading around the city and that's an example how ultimately 1.2 million school kids will use the library on a daily basis. teachers who assign a paper will be able to construct their own great library on that topic in the classroom for the month that the paper is being worked on, and then send it back to another classroom, doing that paper topic later. so, we are increasingly serving all new yorkers, and doing it across all five burrougls. >> host: what's the history of the number public library. >> guest: the new york public library began in 1859 as the coming together of three private libraries created by wealthy new

yorkers, astor, tillman and williams. they said let's make it available to the public. they came together, and ultimately constructed this building, for -- to house the research libraries that were their libraries coming together. fast forward 15 years, and a along comes the richest man in the world at the time, andrew carnegie, and carn anything guy had grown up poor and depending on the library as his school, as so many people all around the world, and certainly new yorkers, have. and he said, let's create a great public circulating library in new york. he gave a gift for the three libraries that i think it was $5 million or thereabouts, to create 60 libraries, the beginning of the public library system. it was, and remains, the largest

single gift in the history of philanthropy in today's dollars. billions. so, because of carnegie's generosity, he made a deal with the city. i will build you libraries. the city needs to identify operate them as a public service, the branch libraries, and i will ask -- carnegie will ask the new york public library and brooklyn and queens to operate them as private agencies, funded by the city to do so, but with some independence. it's a complicated public-private partnership inch our case it means literally half our budget comes from the city and half from private sources. and -- but i think it actually serves the public well. it creates interesting checks and balances. makes my life a little more complicated but that's a good thing. and that is -- since that history, so what started with 60 branch libraries in the city of

new york, the three systems together now, all the city, we're at 205 branches, plus the four research libraries. >> host: what's the history of this building we're in. >> guest: this building is 103 years old. it was constructed with the support of the citizens of new york as well as private dollars. it was built to be the new york public library. i think it's fair to say it's the most famous library building in the world. those lions out front, everybody knows, patience and fortitude. it was build on the original reservoir of new york city so before the library was built, a little over 100 years ago, there was on this whole area where the library and the park behind it is can that area in mid-town, was a reservation. it was built here because it was the highest point in mid-town so

as you can imagine, that helps with gravity, sending water around to wherever it needs to go from the reservoir. they filled -- they took the reservoir down, they built in the library and built bryan park, and then 25 years ago, we excavated under bryan park, down to the foundation 37 feet down of the reservoir, and built there the largest basement in the island of.écc?xbmrg, which we have used half of for the last 25 years, and our plans are in the coming months to put three million more books under that space. it's a sort of amazing gift of history, that the reservoir was here, that created that basement and the foresight of the trustees of the library create that space. imagine being able to find storage for three million more books at 42nd street and fifth

avenue the place of the most expensive and demanded real estate in the world. libraries are always looking for more space, and we have it because of that amazing history and that reservoir. >> host: walking through the library, that's many of the rooms and areas are named after people. >> guest: sure. look, we, as i said, we are very grateful to our private donors. last year we raised about $100 million just in that year of coming in. that makes the library work. it pays in large part for the research side of the library, and increasingly private dollars are also going to add educational programs in the branches, which is great. but we're happy to recognize the generosity of our donors. i was a college president before this. we certainly did it at amherst and at most colleges and universities i know. not only is it a way to say thank you, it's also a way to

encourage other people to think about becoming more serious philanthropists. interestingly, mr. carnegie is one name you don't find, even though historically he was our largest benefactor. that was just who he was. >> host: who is on the board of directors of the foundation and is there a separate board of directors for the library? >> guest: for the library board is the astor, lennox, and killedden foundation board, known as the trustees the new york public library. the chairman of the board currently is neil reuben stein, president of harvard, provost of princeton. vice-chairman include evan chesler, the champion of one of at the great law firms in new york. abby millsteen is the other vice chair from a great new york family. we have tony morrison and david

remnick, the editor of the new yorker, and skip gates from harvard, and people who come from all different industries and academics. george stephanopoulos and anthony apie ya previously of princeton, major school, one of most recent additions to the board, with beth kojima in the investment world. it's a great mix, which is what you would want it to be. let's put it this way. what makes new york amazing? what makes america amazing? is the mix of people. the mix of background, of talents, of experiences. the library is the place where that mix of people comes together with all the information and ideas of the world. it has always been most explosive of combinations. it's where creativity comes from. the library is the foundation of

that. it's where everyone can do that and does do that. in new york, as in elsewhere in the country, and the trustees similarly are this great mix of experience and bring their ideas to provide the stewardship and leadership of this institution. >> host: president tony marx, you talked about new york city being at its apex, et cetera. when what is not? when was it at it lowest. >> guest: we had some very rough days. one of my predecessors came here as president in 1981. much of this building was closed. beautiful rooms that are now open to the public, used as back offices and storage. bryant park was best known as a drug den. it was not a safe place to be. under his 12-year presidency, brook astor, major society

figure, joined with him, and the high school chairman of the board, has been ceo of item-time-life, the dominant corporation in the media world. they, together, and with gregorian's incredible leadership, turned the place around, opened those spaces back up, found more resources for this building, for all the other buildings, did the renovation of bryant park and turned it into what is now i think per square inch the most incredible urban park in the world. on a sunny day, and now in the summer, it's chockablock, just luke the library is chockablock. so, those were dark days, and we turned it around. i'm sure there have been other dark days but that's the one i remember, because i lived through it. i remember when my branch libraries were closed, too many days of the week. we have still had some rough times. this library system, the

libraries of new york, have seen a 17% reduction in city funding over the last six years. we're just coming out of that. working with the mayor, with the city council to see if we can restore more that city funding so we can do more for new yorkers and for people who come from all over the world. i'll give you an example of something we hope to do. this collection has some of the most amazing things in the world in my opinion. we have the original declaration of independence in jefferson's hand with a slave trade paragraph crossed outment we have one of the original copies george washington had drawn up of the bill of rights to get it ratified. we have the only copy in the world of the -- the oldest company of the letter from christopher columbus to king ferdinand in 1492 saying, i think i found something. we have winnie the pooh.

the book and actually have the bear. and most of this stuff has been kept safely in lock and key for the occasional scholar or researcher, and very rarely shown to the public. we want to put all of our treasures out, on public display, in the main exhibition gallery right off fifth avenue. you walk up between the lions, new are in through the door, pay nothing because we do not charge for anything. and see some of most amazing material you'll ever see, and use that to introduce people to the library to say, oh, you think this columbus letter is interesting? let us tell you how you can read more, tell you about other programs, show you some computer apps, have scholars talking about it. we want to use our material to draw in more people.

we want to send our material out into the world. again, for a hundred years you had to come into this building to see our special collection. now, we can put it all online. that columbus letter, every school kid in america should be reading that letter. it's only four pages long. it's an amazing letter. as part of -- because what would be more interesting than actually hearing columbus' words for himself at the time, rather than just reading a text book. we can do that. we can do that for every school, classroom, in america. >> host: how far are you along in that transition? >> guest: well, we're increasingly working with teachers and getting our material online. and creating units that will help with common core.

the exhibit will take another year or two to have it up and running. we have to plan it, get it rightment i think it will be the most visited per square inch room in the city of new york, but we have to get it right. we're going to open 50% more of this building to the public in the years ahead. we're going to bring business library back in. we're going to create for the first time a space for students and teachers to use the research library. we're going to double the exhibition space. this is the people's palace. we want the people to fully use it the way they use their local libraries. but, you know, we're a big institution. everything takes time. when i arrived, we decided it was time to take the three million books stored in this building and bar code them. you would have thought we would have done that before. no. it was done with little slips of paper. just that took us a year,

because it's three million books. actually turned out to be two and a half million. we didn't know exactly how many books were back there, so web you're working at scale -- arguably this is by some measures the largest, we like to think the greatest, public library in the world, appropriately enough. i'm a new yorker so appropriately enough for new york. so, it's not a small operation by any mean, and as i say, millions of people rely on it. >> host: has there been controversy about changing the mission of the library? >> guest: people love the library, and we're all scared about change. we see change around us all the time. we had some controversy of late about the renovations in this building because we're a public institution, we engaged with the public. we heard from them. we revised our plans. that's appropriate because we're

interested in meeting the public's needs. so, we're going to do things also differently than we had thought seven years ago. the world has changed. we're, for instance, we're going to take the largest circulating library our system, across the street from her, and rennovate it completely and add more education space and computer space. all that came out of the commentary we heard as well as our own analysis and the leadership of the board of trustees. i think everyone is uncertain about the future when it comes to books, when it comes, therefore to libraries. i remember even my 16-year-old son, when i told him we were coming to do this next after heaving been president of ham hertz college, and his first comment was, dad, didn't you get the memo that libraries are going out of business? nobody actually believes that. the numbers all suggest the opposite. never been used, more books

circulating, more computer use, more educational programs. but the world is changing. we have to get more material online, as more material comes online, we don't want people swamped with information. so we have to help people navigate it. we need too curate it for people. lie libraries have always done this but now at scale. we also remain committed to our physical collections, the historic, unique material as well as the circulating material, and to our great spaces. this building being one of them, because people love it. so, there's some concern and fear built on love and admiration and need for this institution. i think that's true in every library across america. whenever there's a debate about, shall we add books, shall we rye

place with computers? should we add a wing. >> guest: should we buy more books instead? those choo be in a democracy usually heavily debate. this is new york so we love to argue and that, again, as it should be, and appropriate particularly because at least in my view, this institution is the bedrock of civil society, and this city, as libraries are, in every town and village and city in america, it's the only place where people can come from kids, immigrants, homeless, students, teachers, pulitzer prize winners, nobel lawyer already -- laureates, all in the the buildings, i'm sure. a cross-section of america and the world and this where is the come to do the life of the mind

which has is not only not dead but stronger based on the numbers we have seen. that means people are heavily invested in it. that helps us to plan and get it right. >> host: how do you get your books? what's your relationship with publishers. >> guest: we buy books through agents. we are the largest library purchaser of books in america, certainly, possibly in the world. because -- >> host: every book that is published every year. >> guest: we're not the library of congress, which severs those. so there are probably books that are published or self-published we do not have in our collection. though if people ask for it, we'll buy it. and if five people are waiting for a book, we'll buy another copy. so, we have expert librarians who are talking to our patrons, who-watching demand and

requests, and are making great choices about what to buy. partly those are -- those differ by neighborhood, so we have neighborhoods in new york where most of the books are in chinese or spanish or russian, because that is where people are living who are -- want to read in those languages. the research library is a different separation in the sense that we seek to continue to have these amazing books as complete as possible. and we're also buying electronically. the new york public library, because we're the largest circulating library and because we're headquartered where the publishing industry is headquartered, in fact within ten blocks of here, we were able to negotiate two years ago for the first time that all the commercial publishers would be willing to sell electronic copies of books to libraries, to lend for free, so you can now read a book from the new york public library by downloading it

on to your device, anytime, anywhere. that's a great thing. the change of the world in terms of information technology, is not a threat to the library. it is the most incredible opportunity in our history, because we're in the business of providing access, free access, to all the world's information. gutenberg helped 500 years ago but actually the electronic possibilities could nick gutenberg revolution look puny by comparison. the day will come -- can't tell you when -- when anyone in the world will be able to read anything, anytime, potentially for free, though obviously we want authors and publishers to be compensated in some way so that people continue to create and are paid for their work. that has to happen. what's what we are doing with

pushers in terms of ebooks. but there is now a possibility of an access, an explosion in, as to the world of ideas and information the likes of which we have never seen before and what is so powerful about that is it means everyone should be able to read and to learn, and we hope to contribute to the world -- to create, so that shouldn't just be a few people who have access to that kind of material and can contribute to it with their own books. the world is open to creativity, and that is fabulous. god knows we can use more creativity. we have problems to solve again, library needs to be in the forefront. >> host: that is all available everywhere. does that spell an end to circulating libraries? >> guest: i don't think so. i think actually people are

continuing to require on demand many more physical books than electronic. i don't think that's going away anytime real soon. if people want to read electronically, they will still need us to help make that possible, especially people at the bottom of the economy who can't afford it otherwise, and depend on us, and have for 100 years. and they will continue even more to depend on our physical spaces, as places to come ford indicational programs, english language, computer skies, afterschool, coding, citizenship, what have you. and they'll continue to rely on the expertise of librarians because in fact more information means you need more help to navigate it. it's no longer the librarian looking in the card catalogue saying, well, these 100 books, this one. now we need to do that at scale, and we can. so, actually, think the future

of the library is -- couldn't be brighter, and that makes me quite optimistic about the future of our civil society, because you can't have an informed work force, which is what carnegie was after. you can't have an informed citizenry for an effective democracy unless you have the kind of foundational work that happens in america's great libraries. >> host: how did you get here? >> guest: so, i grew up in new york, using the public library, as i said. sort of part of the life of growing up in new york. i didn't come from a fabs fancy family. my dad didn't go to college. the library was the life blood, the saving place in terms of access to ideas and books. so we had those at home and were fortunate in that way. i end up, i guess, becoming more

of an academic than i expected. i ended up as a professor at columbia, writing books. there are probably some of my books in this library building somewhere, and then much to my surprise, became the president of amherst college, a great liberal arts college, without any background or experience i should have had for that job. it was an amazing eight years. a great college. did great things. and then it was time to think about the next thing. of course coming back to new york was fabulous possibility. new york has always been my home. i hadn't really thought.the library other than as a place i grew up in and used, but hadn't really thought about it as something that might be a place for me. i'm not a librarian by training. but the more i thought about it, after they came to see if i was interested in talking to them,

the more i thought, wow, free and public access to ideas. at the largest possible scale. what could be more powerful in this moment in history when we're driven by information, right? drowning in and it driven by it. what could be more powerful than that, and the very fact that the world of information is changing means that libraries have to change. we have to preserve what we have always done and people rely on us 0, checks, expertise. but we can't sit still. for someone in my line of work that makes this really interesting, exciting, and worthwhile. doesn't make it easy but who needs easy. >> host: what's your ph.d in. >> guest: i have a phn political science. i -- my first work was on south african politics. i lived in south africa in the middle of the civil war in

effect in the 1980s. did in education work there that i'm still very proud of. set up a college that sent about a thousand students, black students, on to a university at a tame when apartheid made that almost impossible. for me that was life-changing not only because it set me off into an academic career but for me what was powerful was that i saw for those students in south africa that just one year of quality education could reverse 12 years of purposefully bad education, because that's what apartheid was providing black students. and that says to me the power of the mind to repair the damage that can be inflicted, to open possiblities to make it possible for talent to be used for the

individual's benefit and for society's benefit, i really much more robust than anything else i can think of, and that's why i decide to become an outside indicator and why i'm playground to be still a part of -- i'm proud to be still part of the educational community. >> host: as president over the new york public library hutch of your job is administrative, however is fundraising, how much is schmoozing. how much is librarian? >> guest: well, luckily, not so much as a librarian william hey great librarians who are well-trained and expert at that. i'm blessed to work with a great staff. obviously the senior staff i work with most closely, but also working together with 2,000 employees. a great board of trustees. donors on the board and also not on the board. important part of what spend my time on, the board as governing authority, the donors making it

possible for us to do what we do. i also spend fair amount of time with the city administration, with the mayor, the city council, again, half of our funding comes from there. they are very interested in the future of the library system because they understand how foundational it is for jobs and democracy and the civil life in new york. and i also get to do some fun things. we have amazing authors come into the building to read or discuss their works and i get to listen to them, sometimes meet them. we have some -- there are parties sometimes in the building. i know that's shocking. it's the library. we have some beautiful spaces here. it's -- what's amazing about my job is it will take me on any one day, from talking to a student in the south bronx, -- i

remember one literally asking her about what she was doing and she told me her name was miracle. like, oh, my god. students in the south bronx, in a place of great need, and then some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in new york who want to be supportive of everything that the library stands for and that's just -- it means i get to live the diversity of experience that i think is the secret sauce of american success. that we're all in this together. it's one of the great privileges of my life to be able to serve in this job. >> host: ten years from now what will we have? >> guest: in the library? i bet we'll have every seat filled. i bet we'll have many more educational programs for free, to meet the needs in the neighborhoods. i think we'll have more of the -- people will be still in this building and in the library

for performing arts and the business library, but much more of that research material will be sent out into the world. at some point we will also reach what i call the holy grail, which is everything being available online to anyone, and navigable and lanked. imagine a world -- going to take partnership with wikipedia and google and everybody engaged and the publishers and the authors, but imagine a world in which you do start looking up something you're interested in and you're reading about tables, and then you're interested in the wood and where cost it come from and who -- what this history of slavery there and this person, and be able to chart your own

course of creativity through all the world's knowledge. that would be amazing. to do it with the touch of a screen, even easier, even better, even more explosive. the library will always be in the centerpiece of that world, and meeting oeducational needs, the curating needs of the public at large, and my guess is that we'll always be the place where the full array of new yorkers, and of people from around the world, all different economic, racial, ethnic, religious backgrounds, come together. that doesn't happen very much in our society at this point, which is sad, and worrisome. it happens in the library. and even more incredibly, they come together to think to read, to write, to create. we sometimes think those days are gone.

they're not gone. they're happening here. what could be more powerful than that? >> was quite clear to me, many, many years ago, that power structures believe in dividing and ruling, and if they can distract attention from the areas where different groups agree to where they disagree, they can pretty much change that strategy of divide and rule into an institutional awareness level, and so you see all these arguments and all these descriptions about red state, blue state, conservative, liberal, you see the polarization word used all the time, and it is true. left-right do disagree rather

interminably on things like reproductive rights, balanced budget, school prayer, gun control, with variations on the margins. those are generally areas of disagreement. but the areas of agreement are extraordinarily numerous and very fundamental. they're fundamental in terms of the procedural rights of any society that calls itself democratic, such as civil liberties. they're fund. al in terms of the misuse of taxpayer dollars, for example, into the military industrial complex, the president eisenhower warned us against. there are very fundamental in terms of preserving local, state, and national sovereignty from excessive surrender to unaccountable transnational systems of corporate govern attendance, like nafta and the world trade organization. they are fundamental in terms of law and order for the rich and

powerful, not just for street criminals. they are fundamental in terms of giving voters more voices and choices. that means lower ballot access barriers. we have the highest ballot access barriers the world. it means more choice and more voice for voters and if we give ballot, we are irrevocably giving voters more rights to have the choices of both agendad and candidates. now, those are pretty important areas. and there are more areas of convergence between left and right. this book is for serious people who read, think, and are very serious about our country's future, and its place in the world.