[originaltext] The New York Public Library is a very special place. Even tho

The New York Public Library is a very special place. Even though it is in the busiest part of the city, it has grass and trees around it, and benches for people to sit on. Even more unusual in crowded New York, its rooms are very large. The roof of the main reading room is 51 feet high. Here a reader can sit and think, and work and comfort. The library has 30 million books and paintings. It owns one of the first copies of a Shakespeare’s play, a Bible printed in the 15th century, and a letter written by Columbus in which he tells of the finding of the New World. Every New Yorker can see and use the library’s riches free, but the cost of running the library has risen rapidly in recent years. And the library does not have enough money to continue its work. In the past it was open every evening, and also on Saturdays and Sundays. Now it is closed at those times to save money. The library is trying in every possible way to raise more money to meet its increasing costs. Well-known New York writers and artists are trying to help, so are the universities whose students use the library, and the governments of New York City and New York State. But the problems remain serious. Yet ways must be found to save the public library. Because as one writer said, the public library is one of the most important buildings in New York city, it contains all our knowledge.