Volume 11 / Number 2 FROM THE PRESIDENT CARNEGIE CONVERSATION Fall 2019 02 10 Power Houses Vartan Gregorian pays tribute to Reassessing U.S.-China Relations Competition American libraries. But do we deserve them? … confrontation … or collision course? An Asia Society Can we keep them? Andrew Carnegie’s visionary report proposes a strategy of “smart competition.” philanthropy points the way. Chief Communications and FEATURE FEATURE Digital Strategies Officer Julia Weede 18 32 Executive Director of Communications The Boundless Library Technology has brought to Saving the Bits Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian and Content Strategy much of the world a true “digital commons,” creating at the University of Oxford, warns that libraries must Robert Nolan a virtual public square. rise to the challenge of the digital era. Editor/Writer Kenneth Benson Assistant Editor CARNEGIE RESULTS CENTER POINT Anita Jain Principal Design Director 38 46 Daniel Kitae Um The Kids Are Alright At a time of heightened Librarians? What’s not to love? A colorful port- Researcher tensions between the United States and Russia, the PIR folio of portraits by artist Sean Qualls celebrates 10 of Ronald Sexton Center is “keeping the conversation going.” the most downright inspirational librarians in America — winners of the 2018 I Love My Librarian Award. Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philan- thropic foundation created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to promote the advancement and diffusion CARNEGIE ON THE GROUND of knowledge and understanding among the people of the United States. Subsequently, its charter was amended to permit the use of funds 54 for the same purposes in certain countries that There’s Hope Could social-emotional learning (SEL) are or have been members of the British Overseas foster the “soft skills” needed to direct students toward Commonwealth. The goal of the Carnegie a thriving adulthood? Reporter is to be a hub of ideas and a forum for dialogue about the work of foundations. BOARD OF TRUSTEES CARNEGIE ON THE GROUND CARNEGIE ON THE GROUND Thomas H. Kean, Chair Janet L. Robinson, Vice Chair Vartan Gregorian, Ex Officio 60 64 Numbers Game The citizenship question will not The Deeper Danger In the Middle East, hundreds Pedro Aspe Caroline Kennedy appear in the 2020 Census. But has the very partisan of millions of people are ensnared in a cycle of poverty, Lloyd J. Austin III Maria Elena Lagomasino debate surrounding the question fundamentally changed despair, and hopelessness that will haunt the region for Lionel Barber Marcia McNutt the way the census will be conducted? generations to come. Jared L. Cohon Louise Richardson Kevin J. Conway Anne Tatlock John J. DeGioia Ann Claire Williams CARNEGIE ON THE GROUND FROM THE ARCHIVES Edward P. Djerejian Judy Woodruff 68 72 Helene L. Kaplan, Honorary Trustee African Libraries Are Bridging a Digital The Evidence of Things Unseen Syreeta Newton N. Minow, Honorary Trustee Divide Expanding broadband and smartphone McFadden explores the early history of the world-famous access presents a transformative opportunity Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. There is for African scholarship. a crucial if little-known Carnegie connection. FEATURE CARNEGIE BOOKSHELF 79 82 The “Brainy Awards” The Andrew Carnegie Books of Note Murder and Memory in 437 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10022 Fellows Program continues the Corporation’s more than Northern Ireland | An Immigrant’s Manifesto | Phone: 212.371.3200 Fax: 212.753.0584 100-year history of supporting serious scholarship. The Death of Expertise carnegie.org On the Cover NOTABLE EVENTS CARNEGIE CORNER “La Salle des planètes” (Room of the Planets) is one of a suite of 11 illustrations by Erik Desmazières for an 94 98 edition of Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Library of Babel.” Gregorian honored with Carnegie Hall Dinosaur Diplomacy Dippy, the world’s most For a more detailed description of this image, see Medal of Excellence | Brooke Jones makes Crain’s famous dinosaur skeleton and beloved icon of the p. 104. PHOTO: © 2019 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), 40 Under 40 List | Is political science relevant? | The Carnegie Museum Natural History in Pittsburgh, NEW YORK/ADAGP, PARIS next technology revolution | Geri Mannion honored continues to awe crowds at home and abroad. CARNEGIE REPORTER | 1 Documenting Life “The Constant Visitor” is one of the hundreds or perhaps thousands of images of library patrons taken across New York City by the American documentary photographer Lewis Wickes Hine (1874–1940) in the early decades of the 20th century. This image of a young reader, taken in 1914 in the main children’s room of The New York Public Library’s recently opened flagship building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, is typical of Hine’s sympathetic approach to his library subjects, many of whom were immigrants or first-generation Americans, as is probably the case with this boy. Hine is best known for his photographs of child labor conditions taken while he worked with the National Child Labor Committee from 1911 to 1918. His unflinching images of children, many of them very young, at work in factory and field and in often harrowing conditions, shocked legislators into passing child labor laws. Beyond legislation, Hine’s work directly inspired a new generation of photographers interested in social realism. PHOTO: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, MANUSCRIPTS AND ARCHIVES DIVISION 2 | FALL 2019 FROM THE PRESIDENT Power Houses American libraries have shown an amazing ability to reinvent themselves — even as they work quietly and diligently to transform lives while bringing together and strengthening the communities they serve. But do we deserve them? Can we keep them? Andrew Carnegie’s visionary philanthropy points the way he rise and resilience of our nation’s libraries is the medieval age, from printed leather-bound tomes to the a unique phenomenon. Today, we so often take e-books of today stretch more than 5,000 years of human- for granted the existence of free public libraries ity’s insatiable desire to establish written immortality. that their extraordinary history and significance Books allow us to realize that knowledge requires others, is almost lost to us. Yet, libraries, as we under- to learn from as well as to ensure the continuity of knowl- Tstand them, would not exist without Andrew Carnegie, edge, culture, and memory. We read to know we are not the “Patron Saint of Libraries.” As this year marks the alone. When we read, we place ourselves in a continuum of centennial of Carnegie’s death, I would like to reflect on history and in community with our fellow human beings. the significance of Carnegie’s role in the development of A book becomes a link in that great chain of the human the American public library system. experience, wherein one can learn from the past and share in the wisdom, strivings, fantasies, longings, and experi- Libraries are the critical component in the free exchange ences of past, present, and future generations. of information, which lies at the heart of our democracy. They hold our nation’s heritage, the heritage of humanity, The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, one of the classic the record of its triumphs and failures, and of its intel- authors of 20th-century literature who spent part of his lectual, scientific, and artistic achievements. American career working as a librarian, paid tribute to mankind’s public libraries grant all people access to an ever-growing tireless ingenuity: “Down through the ages, Man has imag- compendium of human knowledge. Libraries provide ined and forged no end of tools. He has created the key, a us with books, periodicals, and other tools for learning, tiny metal rod that allows a person to enter an enormous understanding, and progress. They represent the link palace. He has created the sword and the plowshare, between the solitary individual and the community. After extensions of the arm of the man who uses them. He has all, the library is the most natural, capable, and democratic created the telescope, which has enabled him to inves- institution for centering and connecting diverse communi- tigate the firmament on high.” And the ne plus ultra of ties of people not just in a physical space but also through this ceaseless questing? The book. It is the book, Borges the free and open provision of books. In both the actual observes, that is “a worldly extension of his imagination and symbolic sense, the library is the guardian of freedom and his memory.” He goes on to say, “I am unable to imag- of thought and freedom of choice, standing as a bulwark ine a world without books.… Now, as always, the unstable for the public against manipulation by various dema- and precious world may pass away. Only books, which are gogues. Hence, it constitutes the finest emblem of the First the best memory of our species, can save it.” Amendment of our Constitution. Thanks to the printing press and the computer, the book At the heart of the library is the book, one of mankind’s remains the world’s most powerful invention. That power most imaginative and extraordinary inventions. From the tends mainly from the way the book has democratized clay tablets of Babylon to the illustrated manuscripts of access to knowledge. Beginning with Johannes Gutenberg, CARNEGIE REPORTER | 3 Years later, Carnegie wrote that the “treasures of the world which books contain were opened to me at the right moment,” and he was determined to make free Carnegie wrote that the “treasures of the library services available to all who needed and wanted world which books contain were opened them. Beginning in 1886, he used his personal fortune to to me at the right moment,” and he was establish free public libraries throughout America, and by his death he had built over 1,600 libraries in the United determined to make free library services States.