This last weekend we were in Bryant Park in NYC for the Tartan Day Parade.  We got there a little early (intentionally) to hear a pipe and drum concert.  When it was over, we wandered a bit around Bryant Park and came across this Reading Room.

We knew that Bryant Park was actually built over the New York City Public Library stacks so this was especially cool.

Bryant Park is located entirely over an underground structure that houses the library’s stacks, which were built in the 1980s when the park was closed to the public and excavated; the new library facilities were built below ground level while the park was restored above it.

In addition to the LFL part, they had books to be read there only, a newspaper section, a magazine section, a section of Oxford Classics, a children’s section… just like a “real library”.

What a great way to spend some time waiting for the parade to start!

Four million books are stored underneath Bryant Park. Twenty-seven feet below the grassy patch in mid-town Manhattan are miles and miles of bookshelves at the New York Public Library’s (NYPL) Milstein Research Stacks.  Here’s how they get books from those stacks under Bryant Park to the main library.

The New York Public Library announced they have completed its conveyor system for requested media. The $2.6 million system uses 24 carts to truck books through the library’s 11 levels to the Rose Reading Room. Here’s how it works, and what it’s like to ride inside one.