Through The Windows of Privilege (Like Karl Lagerfeld’s) The Enduring Value Of Physical Books And Libraries With Big Collections Can Readily Be Discerned

Lagerfeld loved to pose and have pictures taken of his library that appeared in many, many, many, many, many, many  promotional stories.  Take a peek: Can you spot the two-volume set related to a semi-obscure poet who lived in the south of France?

After renowned and prolific fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld died in Paris, Tuesday, February 19th there was so much written about him, and there were commemorative full page tributes paid for in the New York Times by Chanel one of the fashion houses he most famously deigned for.  For us, one of the most fascinating descriptions about the man published was in the New York Times obituary (Karl Lagerfeld, Designer Who Defined Luxury Fashion, Is Dead), which commented that “he estimated his library at 300,000 volumes.”

Confirming that Lagerfeld loved and valued his books, we can relate that three of the volumes in Lagerfeld’s collection were given to him by the mother of Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White who worked for Chanel when Lagerfeld was designing for that fashion house.  Two of those books were a two-volume set that Lagerfeld wanted (and couldn’t find) because of his interest in a semi-obscure poet who lived in the south of France.  Lagerfeld took the time to personally extend his thanks when the book was given to him.

Lagerfeld “estimated his library at 300,000 volumes”!   That library of volumes personally collected by just one privileged individual is almost equal in size to the 400,000 volumes that the  NYPL sometimes talks about the new downsized version of its Mid-Manhattan Library holding. Mid-Manhattan (now to be rechristened “SNFL,” the “Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library”) was designed to hold far more books than that, 700,000 books.  That downsized 400,000 number at the NYPL’s largest circulating library in New York City is what is supposed to represent, after a consolidating shrinkage, all the volumes that were also in SIBL, the Science, Industry and Business Library from which more than a million books have gone missing, and another 175,000 books from just one of Donnell’s collection when that central destination library was shut down.  Moreover, the NYPL’s architects for the shrunken Mid-Manhattan Library have represented repeatedly, including assurances to the NYPL trustees that the shelves meant to hold the 400,000 books can always be removed is the collection is shrunk still further.

This shrinkage of physical books in the NYPL’s libraries is occurring when circulation, mostly physical books is way up, nearly 70%, and the public still prefers physical books rather than the (more expensive) digital books that library administration officials are pushing at them.

We have supplied information about how with huge and overwhelming percentages of our countries population agreeing quite sensibly about what they want (and could and ought to be able to have), elected officials representing corporate and monied interests are not delivering those things.  Tim Wu wrote an op-ed that appeared the New York Times Wednesday offering up the same stark observation about the thwarting of democracy (See: The Oppression of the Supermajority-  The defining political fact of our time is not polarization. It’s the thwarting of a largely unified public.)

What’s happening in New York with the real estate deals dismantling libraries and the elimination of books is another prime example of the way the public is not getting what is a top priority for a huge majority of citizens even though what the public wants is entirely affordable and makes sense, especially as a public commons . . .

. . . The other side to this is to see, via the expression of of privileges of wealth and rank in our society, how those in a position to make their own personal choices (like Lagerfeld) value books and their own private libraries.  So, for instance, the NYPK sold the Donnell Library in a book-eliminating shrink-and-sink deal that netted the NYPL perhaps less than $23 million for the for the drastic shrinkage of what was once a beloved five-story, 97,000 square foot central destination library . . . The double page color advertisements in the New York Times advertising the luxury condos featured the penthouse apartment on the market for $60 million.  In the color advertisement you looked through the windows of the penthouse condo to be allured by the private library therein. 

Adding to the embarrassing contrast, that penthouse apartment devotes a far, far higher percentage of its floor space to luxury owner’s private library as a amenity than New York City devotes in its budget to public libraries as a shared resource serving all New Yorkers.  See- What’s Wrong With These Numbers?: The Baccarat Tower’s $60M Penthouse and NYC’s Library Budget, April 29, 2014.

Real Estate News: Even While Sacrificing NYC PUBLIC Libraries To Create Real Estate Transactions, Developers Use The Creation of PRIVATE Libraries To Promote Their Projects.

Similarly, we have written about how developers apparently are adding private libraries to their their developments as selling points to market them better.  See: Real Estate News: Even While Sacrificing NYC PUBLIC Libraries To Create Real Estate Transactions, Developers Use The Creation of PRIVATE Libraries To Promote Their Projects.

The Brooklyn Heights Association, which once fought for a bigger and better Business, Career and Education central library in Brooklyn Heights reversed course to side with the development community coming out in favor of selling that library in a development deal that generated a windfall for the Private Saint Ann’s School.  Until just recently the Brooklyn Heights Association raised money with neighborhood house tours that afforded the public tantalizing views of the select interiors of many of the magnificent homes in the neighborhood. One of the most spectacular hits on the BHA house tour the year before the BHA started promoting the sale and shrinkage of the local public library was a was a townhouse equipped with its own two-story private library customized with magnificently detailed yellow-green wood bookshelves . . .  (In retrospect we can only wonder whether it was the home of a Saint Ann’s school family.)

The architect hired by the developer and Brooklyn Public Library for designs respecting the shrink-and-sink deal selling of that Brooklyn Heights Library in downtown Brooklyn Marvel Architects headed by Jonathan Marvel.  The firm refused to produce numbers describing the number fo books being eliminated from the libraries by its redesigns.  However, when the firm needed some good PR to counter the negative news about its involvement with the library sell-off and the shady calculations that resulted in the oversized Pierhouse impairing the view from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, the New York Times obliged with a Matt Chaban authored puff piece that generated some of its warm and fuzzies plus gave the architect’s cred by posing Jonathan Marvel and his father in front the shelves holding their library of architectures books. . . many of those books are likely to be hard, if not impossible to find, in a New York Public library.  See: It’s Marvelous To Have Books!- Indeed, But Architect Jonathan Marvel Designs a Library Seemingly Oblivious To The Tradition of Finding Books In The Library.

It endears Karl Lagerfeld to us that he so loved books.  No doubt his easily accessible library contributed heartily to his wide ranging productiveness.  We’d love to love everyone who loves books, and when you peer through the windows afforded when the privileged make the choices that they are free to make, it is clear that there are many who love and value their books.  It’s just that we’d like it if all those who have such privilege to have their own libraries would also love for the rest of us to have books in our public libraries of New York.  Please.  Please.

Some other tidbits about Mr. Lagerfeld and books.  To accommodate his growing library, Lagerfeld planned a facility underneath the tennis court at his house in Biarritz the centerpiece of which was a 10,000-square-foot, 20-foot high library space.  And Mr. Lagerfeld ran "his own bookstore, 7L, on the Rue Lille in Paris."

One last surprise, while New York library officials take pot shots at "dusty" physical books (calling them "analogue books" and "artifactual originals," while they speak dismissively about “old time" versions of libraries that are not "twenty-first century" "Libraries of the future"), Mr. Lagerfeld perceived the world differently– Rumors came true, and Mr. Lagerfeld, who one must think of as quite intimately linked to the renowned fragrances of Chanel, helped produce a new perfume based on a loving evocation of the scent of books.  It was named  “Paper Passion.”