As for the research-level books, most of them are leaving. Of the 5 million books currently housed at the main building, only 2 million will remain. The chance that a book you want will be in Manhattan will drop from around 70 to around 20 percent. The administration says the standard turnaround time for books from the New Jersey facility will be twenty-four hours. This strains credulity. The small number of books already housed at Princeton typically take closer to three days to make it to Manhattan, and the new system will be dealing with many more books and requests.
Please read Charles Petersen’s two-part chronicle of the New York Public Library’s crisis in the latest issue of n+1. Part two is here.