a city reader

The Teton County Library here in Jackson, Wyoming opens at 9:30 and stays open till 8:30. And it's open on Sunday.  That’s earlier and later and more days than the libraries in Manhattan. The kids section and the teen section and the adult section are spacious and bright and curated by alert-looking book people.  Hispanic books are plentiful. The magazine section takes up more than a big wall. There are rooms you can reserve to work alone in or with classmates in privacy, or you can have a planning meeting about something.

That New York City’s hours and services fall short of a town in Wyoming is sinful. The city has more needs for a library than anywhere else in the country, with kids living in apartments.  The guy who started Starbucks talks about his shops being a third place. He’s smart. Too bad the city's leaders haven’t thought about libraries that way.