"In Library's Back Pages, a Vivid History Unfolds"

A friend directed me to this fascinating article in the New York Times: "...reports were compiled annually by the librarians of the 95-year-old Seward Park branch to let the New York Public Library's central administrators know how better to meet the neighborhood's needs. But in doing so, the librarians' observations - sometimes in prosaic bureaucratese, sometimes in vivid, tender fashion - chronicled changes in the neighborhood's ethnic makeup, economics and schooling."

I especially liked the observation of the librarian who noted, "The public here lives with their books... This is the branch where a former librarian once found a fried egg in a book."