A Providence Library Becomes a Sort of Secular Church

At the opening of the Providence Athenaeum's Benefit Street building in July 1838, Brown University President Francis Wayland gave a two-hour speech which, in the overwrought style of 19th-century oratory, described the new institution as "a fountain of living water, at which the intellectual thirst of this whole community may be slaked." Although the Athenaeum was a membership library—readers had to pay an annual fee for the privilege of borrowing books—it was, in an era before the proliferation of public libraries across America, designed to serve every stratum of Providence society.

Today, there are only about 18 membership libraries left in America, most of them located in those Northeast cities that are generally more inclined to hang onto relics. And perhaps more than any other institution, libraries in general are grappling with their place in a society that is increasingly dependent on and obsessed with technology. Many have coped with the shift away from printed books by becoming neighborhood computer labs, after-school centers, and even social-service clearinghouses.