Ottawa needs a new
central library.
The existing facility
– home to 2.3 million items –
isn’t enough.
I remember visiting
the New York Public Library.
An all-marble architectural masterpiece,
stretching across two city blocks
on Fifth Avenue.
Over 100 km of book shelves.
The Rose Reading Room was largely empty.
Tourists were taking pictures.
I recall the bronze reading lamps,
the paintings on the 52-foot-high
ceiling.
By one of the oak tables,
a man reading from his
laptop.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
