An Interview With New York Public Library President and CEO Anthony Marx

Forbes has published an excerpt of an interview with Anthony Marx, President of the NYPL. The full length interview appears in the Forbes/Wolfe Emerging Technology Report (a fee-based publication).
The excerpt runs about 1000 words and consists of seven questions by interviewer Josh Wolf and seven answers from Marx.
Here’s one of those exchanges.

Q. (Josh Wolf): What attracted you to the New York Public Library?
A. (Anthony Marx): I, like so many New Yorkers, grew up using the library system. The public libraries of New York get close to 40 million physical visits a year – more than all the museums, cultural institutions and professional sporting teams combined. There’s probably no other institution that has the same reach to all New Yorkers of all different backgrounds. Its central mission is the preservation and sharing of knowledge and the encouragement of learning, which is a mission that I believe in powerfully. Its history is great and must be preserved, but this is also a moment of unprecedented transition regarding what a library can do and the tools it has at its disposal.
There are people who think that the Digital Age is a mortal threat to the library. I think it’s the greatest opportunity in the history of libraries, and that means that this institution of huge scale and beloved by millions of people is also at a moment of revitalizing itself fundamentally. In my line of work, that’s an unbeatable combination.

Direct to Complete Excerpt (and Link to Access Complete Interview)

Filed under: Interviews, Libraries, Preservation, Profiles, Public Libraries