Reading PublicsOn May 11, 1911, the New York Public Library opened its marble palace for book lovers on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. This was the citys first public library in the modern sense, a tax supported, circulating collection free to every citizen. Since before the Revolution, however, New Yorks reading publics had access to a range of public libraries as the term was understood by contemporaries. In its most basic sense a public library in the eighteenth