Whose Library Is It Anyway?: A Visit to the Lenox
[tags]library, libraries, humor, lennox library[/tags]
**THE LENOX LIBRARY
**
**What is this?
**
This, dear, is the great Lenox Library.
**What is it for?
**
Nobody knows.
**But I thought you said it was a library.
**
So I did.
**Then there must be books in it
**
Perhaps.
**Why is it called the “Lenox” Library?
**
Because it was founded and given by Mr. James Lenox.
**Given to whom?
**
To the city of New York.
**Oh! then it is a public library?
**
Yes, dear.
**How delightful! Why it must be very useful to students and the reading public?
**
Very.
**But why are the doors locked?
**
To keep people out.
**But I thought you said it was a public library?
**
So I did.
**Then how can they keep people out?
**
By locking the doors.
**But why?
**
To keep the pretty books from being spoiled.
**Why! Who would spoil the pretty books?
**
The public.
**How?
**
By reading them.
**Gracious! What are all those brass things on the roof?
**
Cannon, dear.
**What are they for?
**
To blow the heads off students who want to get in.
**Why! and see those gallows!
**
Yes, dear.
**And people hanging!
**
Certainly, sweet.
**Who are they?
**
Students who got in.
**But is there no way of getting into the library without being shot or hanged?
**
Yes, sweet.
**How?
**
By writing an humble letter of application to the kind Lord High Librarian.
**Well?
**
He will refer you to the 1st Assistant Inspector of Character.
**And then?
**
It will go to the Third Deputy Examiner of Morals.
**Next?
**
He will pass it on to the Comptroller of Ways and Means.
**And he?
**
He will, after mature deliberation, send it to the Commercial Agency.
**What for?
**
To get a proper understanding of the applicant’s solvency.
**Well?
**
Then it comes back for the monthly meeting of the Sub-Committee on Private Inquiry.
**Why?
**
To ascertain if the applicant has any real necessity for consulting any particular book in the library.
**And suppose he has?
**
Why, then the paper goes to the Sub-janitor.
**And what does he do?
**
He finds out if the Astor or the Mercantile Libraries have the book.
**And if they have?
**
He tells the applicant to go there and consult it.
**But if they have it not?
**
Then the application goes to the Commissioner of Vital Statistics.
**For what purpose?
**
To ascertain if the applicant is still living.
**And if he is?
**
At the next annual meeting of the Board of Directors, if there is a quorum present, which sometimes happens, he will get a ticket entitling him to admission between the hours of two and three on a specified day.
**But if the applicant is busy on that day at that hour?
**
He forfeits his ticket.
**But how’s the public benefited by this “public” library?
**
Ask the Trustees.
Source: Life, 17 January 1884. Reprinted in Harry Miller Lydenberg, History of the New York Public Library (New York: New York Public Library, 1923), 113–115.