Malcolm Gladwell attacks the New York Public Library

In a Q&A session at BookExpo America today, Malcolm Gladwell laid into the flagship New York Public Library branch, which is located in Manhattan at 42nd and Fifth Avenue, cost millions of dollars to build, and is about to undergo a $300 million renovation.

Calling the NYPL "extravagant," Gladwell commented that "Luxury condos would look wonderful there."

But before you sharpen your knives in Gladwell's direction, his scathing attack was focused on that branch specifically, and the funds that it has (in Gladwell's view) taken away from other, smaller, struggling library branches in less affluent neighborhoods.

Gladwell identifies the neighborhood library branch as being not just a place to check out books, but a way to reach "people who do not have access to books," as well as being "a safe haven for people who are not from privileged backgrounds, who do not have access to books and where there is no quiet place to work."

This is an excellent framing of the library debate. Too often, people think of libraries as "a place to borrow books." But libraries are more than book vending machines. They also offer solace to children whose lives are chaotic, provide free computer and internet access to people who can't afford either, and free access to a place to drop your books and get some homework done.

Libraries are a safe haven, the "third place" that every neighborhood so desperately needs. It seems that we have largely given over that task to private companies like Starbucks, but that doesn't help people in less affluent neighborhoods. And who has more need of a quiet place to study than a kid from a poor family in a bad neighborhood?

I often dislike Gladwell's easy, glib explanations that are often just plain wrong. But in this case, he is 100% correct.

Image courtesy Flickr/Pop!Tech