For my birthday, my daughter surprised me with a flight to New York, along with two nights stay in a hotel, and tickets to see "Jersey Boys." We spent three days in total self-indulgence: eating, shopping, and sight-seeing. It was a wonderful trip and the quality time with my busy daughter (mother of two) was the best part of it all. But one of the real thrills for me as a librarian was seeing the New York Public Library. If you know libraries at all, your mind has already conjured up the image of two lions guarding the steps of the Stephen A. Schwarzman building. Stepping into the library, it was suddenly 1911 again, the opening year of the library. We walked along the mosaic floors through halls of heavy carved paneling. There were beautiful murals on ceilings and old wooden tables with individual lamps. Although I love the library I work in, with its computer workstations and trendy patterned carpeting and furnishings, the NYPL is the library of my dreams. Leather bound books, people reading newspapers on sticks (I didn't really see the sticks but I bet they were there!), and the warmth and comfort of being around readers. It was Library Heaven.
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