Amazon.com Review
For worshipers of books, the library is the ultimate temple. It is also, perhaps, the most democratic of institutions, "one of the very few . . . on earth," writes photographer Diane Asséo Griliches in her introduction to
Library: The Drama Within, "where any soul may walk through its doors free, and depart enriched." This collection of Griliches's black-and-white photographs of libraries, full of those rich gray tones that bring to mind late-afternoon sun streaming in on the stacks, is a testament to the sacredness with which we imbue these keepers of the book. Griliches captures quiet intensity at an array of libraries, from the grand Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris to the humble-storefront Emma Yates Memorial Library (formerly Emma Yates's hat store) in Pocahontas, Virginia; from the rare book conservation section at the Library of Congress to the law library at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution; from a tattered seminary library in Split, Croatia, to the Beverly Hills Public Library's sparkling children's wing. The text is complete with an introduction by former Librarian of Congress
Daniel Boorstin and bookish quotes strewn throughout.
You could start your next presentation to the library board or school district with some of the photographs, anecdotes, and quotes in this celebratory volume of what libraries mean to people. The focus in Griliches' photos is on rooms and reading--the children's corner where a storyteller reads to enthralled preschoolers; the prison library where Malcolm X discovered books. There's also lots about buildings and architecture and public space, from the glory of the Library of Congress Reading Room to a desolate shot of a branch library closed for lack of funding. An entertaining introduction by Daniel Boorstin underlines the book's power to reach the individual in a mass-market society. At the same time, some of the most powerful images show libraries connecting us across time and culture: in one memorable picture, a scholar in a Jerusalem library is using the latest technology to examine an eleventh-century manuscript of a Hebrew translation of an Arabic commentary on the logic of Aristotle.
Hazel Rochman
