“One of the five greatest public libraries in the world” is the boast made at a new exhibition celebrating the centennial of the New York Public Library’s august building graced by stone lions on Fifth Avenue. And if we are inclined to question the claim, it is only because the institution’s distinctiveness is scarcely suggested by putting it in a class with the Library of Congress, the British Library, the National Library of France and the Russian State Library.

As we learn in this show, “Celebrating 100 Years,” on display through December 31, the New York Public Library is the only one of this group that was not established by a national government. It was not established, as many such libraries were, to reflect the character of a nation; it was intended to help shape that country’s character.

That public mission gained its force from private visions. The Public Library was built on collections assembled by individuals of wealth or passion. The Astor and Lenox libraries formed the core of this new library in 1895; artifacts gathered by Arthur Alfonso Schomburg in the 20th century’s early decades form the core of the library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Many of its other research collections have similar origins.

The show’s curator, Thomas Mellins , has said that his primary goal was “to show the depth and breadth of the library’s remarkable collections.”

There are cuneiform tablets and typewriters, a Gutenberg Bible and 1960s political publications; Kepler’s diagram of the structure of the universe and women’s dance cards from 19th-century balls; T. S. Eliot’s typescript of “The Wasteland” with emendations by Ezra Pound, and a Russian translation of Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital.”

But what ties the library’s collections together? And what themes does the exhibition itself reveal? That is less clear.

Some artifacts are of profound historical importance, like Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten manuscript of “The Declaration of Independence.” Others are of interest because of associations with recent political history, like a collection of condoms distributed by the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in the 1990s.

Two central displays are used to emphasize the collection’s variety with playful comparisons, noting that the library has items ranging “from art that changes how we see the world” (a 1936 Picasso etching of a turkey) “to art we see every day” (a swatch of cloth from Wesley Simpson Custom Fabrics); everything “from images that invite us to look” (a magazine about pornographic videos) “to images that cause us to look away” (an 1863 photograph of the dead lying on a Gettysburg battlefield).

The problem is that these comparisons put all objects on the same level. How important is that Picasso etching? What was special about that fabric company? As for the magazine’s
“Nasty XXX Pix!” images and the bodies at Gettysburg, the juxtaposition inspires more queasiness than insight.

It is possible that there has been a subtle shift in the library’s sensibilities, placing increased emphasis on relevance and popular appeal. If so, it may be worth recalling the institution’s founding ambitions.

Traditionally, the library collected artifacts and manuscripts because of their importance and because of where they could lead the public and scholars. It served generations as an incubator for cultural and intellectual aspirations.

And while there are many astonishing objects on display here that reflect that ambition, the exhibition seems to suggest that it may no longer be as powerful as it once was.


EDWARD ROTHSTEIN