Noble Task : Magers & Quinn Booksellers, Discount New and Used Books

Publisher's Comments (cont.)
The story of Saint Paul's Public Library, from its founding in 1882 by a determined band of public-spirited citizens, to its exuberant presence today, is a roller-coaster account of both public enchantment and public neglect. Until recent years, the library system was the last public institution to be funded and the first to be cut when municipal budgets were tight. Often treated as the orphan of city government, the Saint Paul Public Library survived and prospered largely because the institution was blessed with the dedication of a cadre of extraordinary librarians. Saint Paul's first head librarian became one of the nation's most famous early authors. Another, unbeknownst to residents of Saint Paul, was the bearer of an English knighthood who, in Europe, was addressed as “Sir.” During the dismal years of the Great Depression a courageous library director, with perseverance and pleading, held the institution and staff together—only to die and be buried alone and unheralded when normalcy returned. A creator of the famed Muppets gained his early proficiency with puppets in the Saint Paul Library's puppet theater. The library director, who oversaw the renovation of Central Library while suffering from what she suspected was a fatal cancer, delayed her departure and treatment until the restoration was completed and the building opened. Once considered the bastion of the male elite (men and women had separate reading rooms) Saint Paul's libraries are now the people's universities. Students access research on the library's computers; immigrants check on news from homelands on the other side of the globe; homework help centers, staffed with volunteers, assist teens with school assignments; new arrivals study for citizenship tests at the library; neighborhoods look on their libraries as their community centers.A trail 125 years long, marked by drama and striving, with many heroes and only a few villains, has brought us to this birthday of an institution uniquely beloved by the citizens of Saint Paul—its public library system.