In Patience and Fortitude: Power, Real Estate and the Fight to Save a Public Library, Scott Sherman chronicles the twisted path of the New York Public Library's proposed Central Library Plan, a "wide-ranging reconfiguration of services" that "had been born in June 2007 and was announced to the public nine months later at a little noticed press conference." Some of the most critical decisions, which Sherman first exposed in a 2011 piece for the Nation magazine, were reached behind closed doors. 
Did CLP backers assume the deal could be railroaded through as long as the public--and NYPL's staff--was kept in the dark? "Yes," Sherman told me recently. "This is not in the book, but an NYPL staff member told me in 2012: 'We were made to feel old and against change.' A few trustees did call for open discussion at the start, but they were greatly outnumbered. The mission was to stifle discussion and get this thing done before anyone could stop them."
Patience and Fortitude reads like a suspense novel for bibliophiles, with power and big money acting unilaterally until being challenged by citizen's groups, prominent architects and researchers, along with an all-star cast of writers and celebrities. While there are plenty of villains in this tale, heroes abound as well: "Katz had an emotional attachment, colored by romanticism, to the library at 42nd Street," Sherman writes, describing legal historian (and much more) Stanley Katz, who co-authored a key protest letter shortly after the Nation article appeared.
How rare, I asked Sherman, is it for "emotional attachment, colored by romanticism" to win a battle over power and money? "Activism is about deep passion," he replied, "and the critics were deeply, deeply passionate about the fate of NYPL in general and the 42nd Street building in particular.... The takeaway for those who didn't follow the debate too much is that the public should be consulted before libraries and museums launch $500 million construction projects." --Robert Gray, contributing editor
