Social Libraries

I caught a few minutes last week of the reprehensible new reality show High Society starring New York socialite Tinsley Mortimer.  I happened to hit on the moment when her mother enters the New York Society Library to look up the ancestry of Tinsley's arrogant and supposedly aristocratic German boyfriend.  The show tries to intimate that the Society Library is a snooty social club, or a library full of books about genealogy and social history, but this isn't the case.  I remember visiting when I went to college in New York.  The library, while private, was very welcoming and had a low yearly membership fee for students.

All circulating libraries used to be private, limiting books to those of means. In the early 20th century, Andrew Carnegie gave an astounding $60 million to found nearly 3,000 free libraries in the United States and all over the world, bringing "books and information to all people."  But private libraries still have their uses today, and are adapting with the times. 

Here in Chicago, we have the wonderful Newberry Library, which houses a collection of rare books for researchers but is open to the public. On the other end of the spectrum, the Chicago Underground Library collects independent and small press media, including books, magazines, journals, and "zines."  The Underground Library accepts and archives everything submitted by everyone. 

(Except, one guesses, Tinsley and her pals.)