“to ascertain if the applicant is still living”

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.