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Today I presented to the acquisitions staff of Vernadsky national library. Instead of focusing on technology, I talked about the three New York City public libraries: New York Public Library, Queens Library and Brooklyn Public Library. I gave a comparison of their services and specialties. For example I talked about Queen’s Library in context of it being the most culturally diverse county in the United States and QL’s record breaking circulation. I spoke about New York Public Libraries separation of branch libraries and research libraries and spoke about their many rare and valuable special collections. And of course I spoke about Brooklyn Public Library and the emphasis on providing access to computers, and providing services and materials in multiple languages among other services. An interesting discussion followed my presentation. A few questions included:

• What is an average US librarian salary?


• How do I find library services in Ukraine?


• Do these libraries own one copy of every book published?


• Do librarians send patrons books etc electronically?


• Are more European journals or more American journals purchased?


• (And my favorite question) Which set of patrons is more cultured Americans or Europeans? (I didn’t quite know how to answer this one since I wasn’t sure what was meant by “cultured" in this context .