By Jeffrey Page

Mischief is afoot at the New York Public Library, where the management wishes to redesign the grand old building at 42nd and Fifth and turn much of it into a huge circulating library – “the crown jewel of the branch system” – the breathless president of the library says.

In doing so, the Daily News reports, roughly 3 million books and papers would have to be relocated out of the stacks in midtown and housed in Princeton, N.J. This means that if you’re doing research in the main reading room at 42nd Street – known as “Room 315” to everyone who’s ever worked at the library – it’s possible you’d have to wait 24 hours for the material you need to be delivered to New York.

Management is focused on that crown jewel business, plus the availability of $150 million from the city to spiff up a world class research facility that needs no spiffing. Serious users of the library see the project as a diminishing of its importance.

Some library stories.

–Let us return to the early Sixties when I worked in NYPL’s Current Periodicals Division – known simply as “Room 108” – in the southeast corner of the first floor. Room 108 housed the most popular magazines of the time such as Life, Time, Consumer Reports, Ramparts, the Saturday Evening Post plus any number of social sciences and medical journals. It also was the repository for some famously obscure, less-in-demand publications. I don’t recall specific titles in this last group but every so often a patron would fill out a call slip asking for something like the Journal of Guernsey Cattle Management in Southwestern Manitoba.

–Life and the other favorite titles were available at the call desk unless Patron No. 1 was already reading an issue that Patron No. 2 requested. We drew some interesting characters in those days such as a slightly crazed Patron No. 2 who’d sit down and stare Patron No. 1 into hurrying up.

–Many of the less popular titles were shelved in the stacks, which were closed to the public. One of my jobs was to find requested publications in the stacks and bring them to the reader in Room 108. It was a pleasant break from the routine of refiling magazines that had been returned to the call desk. Once, it became a little more complicated.

I was wandering through the miles of stacks looking for the American Journal of 18th Century Northwestern Anthropological Studies (which did not, and does not, exist) when I heard a noise that sounded like a suppressed groan. As I rounded a corner, I encountered a most remarkable sight. It was a man, on top of a woman, both on a large wooden desk. Flesh was visible. I believe the expression is in flagrante delicto. I stopped on a dime, turned, and returned to Room 108 to inform the patron that the number he requested had been sent to the bindery and was not available – the standard explanation for periodicals we couldn’t find.

Others have related such stories. I saw it.

–The job didn’t pay much, but Room 108 was a great place to work. My supervisor was a tall, gray-haired Russian émigré named Mrs. Patterson, whose first name for me is long lost. We liked Mrs. Paterson because whenever there was a complaint about a clerk – “He didn’t say, ‘Good morning,’” or “She didn’t get my magazine quickly enough” or “Whaddaya mean someone else is reading it; there’s no one else here” – she almost always took our side.

–The boring part of the job was reshelving all the magazines that had been returned. Every so often, I’d see something interesting and start reading. This annoyed Mrs. Patterson.

–The summer heat in Room 108 could be brutal and there was no air conditioning in Current Periodicals. We had a device that was a combination thermometer and barometer. When the combined readings reached a certain number – I think it was 100 – the library closed Room 108. On especially bad days, one of the clerks would stand by the weather instruments and surreptitiously rub the little bowl of mercury to make it go a little higher a little faster. I think this scam worked once.

–The marble lions guarding the façade on Fifth Avenue were placed in 1911 and were never named Leo or Lena. In fact for their first 20 years they had no names at all. But during the mid-Thirties, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia named them Patience and Fortitude, two traits he believed New Yorkers would need to get through the Great Depression. The other story about Patience to the south and Fortitude to the north is that they are reputed to growl every time a virgin walks past.

–The reason you sometimes had to wait more than a half hour for the books you requested to be sent up from the stacks – when there was no one ahead of you on the call line – was occasionally because the clerk took an interest in your material, or because he was napping.

–Short take: The library’s whimsical telephone number in those days before all-numerical numbers also provided its location – OXford 5-4200.

jeffrey@zestoforange.com

Red Barn, Route 17A

By Carrie Jacobson

By Michael Kaufman

The extent to which corporate polluters of the environment influence government policy in this country was dramatically illustrated last week at a Congressional hearing that received scant media attention. Republicans who control the House Small Business subcommittee, as well as the peculiarly named House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, took aim at the latest “Report on Carcinogens” issued by the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences (NIEH), a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

“This is an out-front attack on the ROC and the NIEHS,” lamented environmental activist Lin Kaatz Chary, PhD, MPH, of Indiana Toxics Action. “It represents a continuation by Republicans of the Bush Administration’s efforts to undermine science.” Chary noted that the list of witnesses at the hearing was dominated by representatives of the chemical industry, who joined Republicans in an attempt to discredit NIEHS director Linda Birnbaum.

“Linda Birnbaum is probably the best NIEHS director that agency has ever had,” says Chary. “She is a brilliant scientist and has been an advocate for recognizing the health impacts of exposures to many hazardous chemicals.” Birnbaum, she noted, led the review of dioxin that began in the 1980s but was only recently released because of obstructive opposition from industry.

Paul Broun (R-Ga.), chairman of the “Oversight” committee, complained that the listings in the latest report could have a negative effect on commerce and small business “with no appreciable benefit” to the safety of the public. Charles Maresca, testifying on behalf of  the Small Business Administration, chimed in, saying “substances have been listed in the [report] based on inaccurate scientific information.”

Birnbaum defended the report, reminding her inquisitors that it was mandated by Congress to help people avoid potentially hazardous substances. “We have both a legal and a moral obligation to identify substances that are cancer hazards,” she said.

Brad Miller (D-N.C.) defended Birnbaum, beginning with an anecdote from his days as a student studying abroad in London. After a long search for a pickup basketball game, he finally found one. But most of the players were professionals playing in Europe.  “It became clear I was out of my depth,” Miller told Maresca. “That is probably how you should feel sitting next to Dr. Birnbaum talking about the subject before us.”

Miller pointed out that Maresca is not a scientist, and there are no scientists at the SBA charged with the responsibility of protecting public health. He and other Democrats charged that Republicans called the hearing at the behest of the styrene industry. That industry has spent $1 million on lobbying on the issue over the past two years and took credit for the hearing in a recent newsletter.

“We are really examining the objections of one industry to the listing of one chemical,” said Paul Tonko (D-NY) the “Science” subpanel’s ranking member. Tonko, who represents the 19^th district, including Albany, Schenectady, Montgomery and several other counties, termed the hearing “very disappointing.”

The chemical industry has aggressively challenged the cancer report’s conclusions. The Styrene Information and Research Center, an industry group, has a lawsuit pending against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), claiming the report “lacks transparency.” And the American Chemistry Council issued a statement accusing the report of falling “well short of meeting the benchmarks of objectivity, scientific accuracy and transparency…”

But environmental and public health advocates have a different view. “The attempt of the chemical industry and House Republicans to ‘ Swift Boat’ the Report on Carcinogens ran into a brick wall of facts and truth at today’s hearing,” said Daniel Rosenberg of the Natural Resources Defense Council.  Unfortunately, few people noticed because of the lack of coverage.

Meanwhile, as part of the $1 trillion omnibus spending package passed last year, Republicans succeeded in pushing through authorization of $1 million for the HHS to contract a National Academy of Sciences review of the styrene and formaldehyde listings. “I realize that $1 million out of a trillion is a very small amount relatively speaking,” says Chary. “But the fact that Congress would spend even a dime on this ‘review,’ while cutting back severely on so many programs that truly protect the health of  the American people is outrageous.” Nowadays, she says, “the chemical industry clearly considers itself part of the government.”

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.