Main Library - San Francisco Public Library
Landmark public library with soaring atrium, six floors of collections, and a history center above Civic Center Plaza.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Main Library in San Francisco uncovers what happened behind the scenes as the current building went up in the early 1990s: librarians color-coding the old collection's books for disposal, with a red slip meaning the landfill. It follows writer Nicholson Baker, who went public in 1996 calling the purge a hate crime against the past, and the outcry that followed his New Yorker exposé that October. Look up at the shelves around you, restocked under rules written after that uproar.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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