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DIALOGUERS

Curated & Moderated by:
Anna Kynthia Bousdoukou
Tony Marx SNF Dialoguer Profile

Anthony Marx

President of The New York Public Library

Anthony W. Marx is President of The New York Public Library, the nation’s largest library system, with 88 neighborhood libraries and four scholarly research centers. Since joining NYPL in 2011, Marx has strengthened the Library’s role as an essential provider of educational resources and opportunities for all ages. Under his leadership, the Library has created new early literacy and after-school programs for children and teens, dramatically increased free English language classes and citizenship support for immigrants, and improved services for scholars and students who rely on the Library’s world-renowned research collections. Under Marx, the Library has also become a national leader on bridging the digital divide through its efforts to increase access to e-books, expand computer classes and coding training, and a groundbreaking program that provides home internet access to families of low-income students.

Before joining the Library, Marx served as president of Amherst College from 2003 to 2011, during which time he tripled enrollment for low-income students. Before Amherst, Marx was a political science professor and director of undergraduate studies at Columbia University. Marx has a BA from Yale, an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a PhD, also from Princeton.

It is the symbolic power that people experience, of being welcome, without any papers, without any credentials, respected, in a space that is majestic. When I started this job, somebody said to me: ‘Oh that’s where the homeless go’. We should be proud of that, that’s where everyone can go: the Nobel laureates, the homeless, and everyone in between.