New forums for communication and debate the newspaper, the circulating library, even the coffee-house sprang up.

ECONOMIST: European political history

The Mid-Manhattan circulating library is heavily used, while its quarters have deteriorated badly.

WSJ: New York Public Library | Undertaking Its Destruction | By Ada Louise Huxtable

In recent decades, it hasn't served as a circulating library.

WSJ: Libraries Rethink Their Role in City

Because Internet businesses are increasingly about building a community of loyal users, record companies must learn to be loved if they are to flourish like booksellers rather than go the way of the circulating library.

ECONOMIST: A new song

Starting as early as next year, the planned renovation would transform the stacks into a public area containing a new circulating library looking over Bryant Park with bookshelves, rooms for people to work together and, perhaps, a cafe.

WSJ: Libraries Rethink Their Role in City

The plan would consolidate three libraries moving the popular Mid-Manhattan circulating library (just across Fifth Avenue at 40th Street) and the underused Science, Industry and Business branch (in a 34th Street building that runs from Fifth to Madison Avenues) back into the main building to eliminate substantial operating costs.

WSJ: New York Public Library | Undertaking Its Destruction | By Ada Louise Huxtable

Indeed, a petition is now circulating from a group calling itself the Public Library of Science, urging scientists to boycott any publisher that will not relinquish the rights to published bio-medical papers after six months.

ECONOMIST: Publishing