Controversy …

… In Defense of the New York Public Library by Robert Darnton | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The shrill tone of the rhetoric—”a glorified Starbucks,” “a vast Internet café,” “cultural vandalism”—suggests an emotional response that goes beyond disagreement over policy. Practically every critic has a story to tell about his or her personal encounter with the city’s most precious repository of culture; every story conveys the danger of defiling something sacred. Those responses deserve respect. Some of the criticism may be valid. But aside from the merits of the arguments, I think it important to recognize that the polemics are driven by passions that run deep in the city’s collective sense of self.