NYPL and FreshDirect

In this installment of my love/hate relationship with the New York York Public Library: a partnership with FreshDirect a company many New Yorkers claim to be an urban and environmental menace, bike lane usurpers, and union busters.

NYPL staffers are urged by the marketing department to put this brochure into patrons' hands in order to "guarantee a successful partnership."

Why does this bother me? (Besides the environmental, labor, and quality-of-life concerns.) Mostly because I am skeeved by any alliance between a big corporate entity and okay, a big corporate, yet public, entity like NYPL. I don't trust the bastards, either of 'em. As one friend puts it, "public library sells soul to corporation, scrapes bottom of integrity barrel."

Personally, I don't want to walk into my local branch and feel like people are trying to get me to buy stuff. That's why I use the library--to borrow instead of consume. I also count on the library to select its partners with as much care as they do the the materials they buy and the content they put on their website. By partnering with FD, they are adding their authority to the company's. It's not like I stand behind every book in the Barnard Library, but I certainly don't put the ones I don't trust into patrons' hands.

PS Someone thoughtfully added the coupon code info to RetailMeNot, so if you must patronize FD (and I discourage you from doing so), you can at least get a discount.