New York Public Library

"Oblivion" will make you remember, not forget. This Tom Cruise vehicle is a throwback to the days when on-screen science fiction was about speculative ideas rather than selling toys to tots - think of it as the most expensive episode of "The Twilight Zone" ever made. "Oblivion" is not perfect. Its dystopian story makes no apologies for its familiarity, echoing such films as "The Planet of the Apes," "The Matrix," "2001" and even "Wall-E. " And expecting the wheels not to eventually begin to fall off its pleasantly complicated, head-spinning plot (based on the director Joseph Kosinski's graphic novel)

"Oblivion" will make you remember, not forget. This Tom Cruise vehicle is a throwback to the days when on-screen science fiction was about speculative ideas rather than selling toys to tots - think of it as the most expensive episode of "The Twilight Zone" ever made. "Oblivion" is not perfect. Its dystopian story makes no apologies for its familiarity, echoing such films as "The Planet of the Apes," "The Matrix," "2001" and even "Wall-E. " And expecting the wheels not to eventually begin to fall off its pleasantly complicated, head-spinning plot (based on the director Joseph Kosinski's graphic novel)

The New York Public Library is putting hundreds of thousands of its images online, allowing free downloads of material including maps, Civil War photos and illuminated medieval manuscripts. The digital gallery will have 275,000 images available beginning today, and the collection will grow to 500,000 images over the next several months, library officials announced.

If you've got a moment, you've got just enough time for “A Minute Away,” a new video offering from the Travel section. This week's destination is sleepy little June Lake , Calif., about 20 miles from the Mammoth Mountain ski resort. You may have seen this one here before, but it's 60 seconds of bliss that bears repeating. Last week's Minute, the first of the series, was Moscow in a snow storm. Whether you click June Lake or Moscow , you get a little slice of wordless, brain-cleansing, off-the-clock atmosphere.

THE ANIMAL ILLUSTRATED, 1550-1900, text by Joseph Kastner with commentaries by Miriam T. Gross (Harry N. Abrams: $35; 128 pp.) Animals do not bring out the beast in us, but rather the child, full of awe and amazement at the mysteries of the universe. Especially wonderful is this collection of 103 woodcuts, etching, engravings, lithographs and watercolors, many in the most delicate hues and all culled from the apparently bottomless holdings of the New York Public Library.

The Rev. Timothy S. Healy, who has led Georgetown University for 13 years, announced his resignation to become president and chief executive officer of the New York Public Library. Healy, 65, will become head of one of the world's largest research libraries, as well as a library system that operates 82 branches around New York City. He succeeds Vartan Gregorian, 54, who will become president of Brown University.

Cisco Systems Inc. said it was selected by the New York Public Library to be the sole supplier of network infrastructure equipment. The network is used by the public to access the library's digitized collections, online electronic resources, catalogs and the Internet. The San Jose-based company said more than 2.5 million electronic sessions will be initiated annually. Cisco said the network will create a "virtual single site." Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

A collection of 250,000 images -- including maps, Civil War photos, illuminated medieval manuscripts and historic menus -- became accessible online Thursday, the New York Public Library announced. "By opening the doors of our acclaimed collections to users over the Internet, we are plunging fully into an exciting new era of library service," library President Paul LeClerc said.

After 76 years of slovenly housekeeping, the New York Public Library announced Tuesday that it will spend $1 million to take vacuum cleaners and dust cloths to its 3.5 million books, thousands of which are crumbling from neglect. A team of about half a dozen Soviet and Polish emigres will devote the next five years to dusting the library's 88 miles of bookshelves--the distance between New York and Philadelphia.

NEW YORK -- Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire chairman of leveraged-buyout firm Blackstone Group, has pledged $100 million to the New York Public Library, which will rename its main Manhattan building on Fifth Avenue after him. The guaranteed donation, the largest to a New York City cultural organization, will be the cornerstone of a $1-billion plan to expand the institution, Paul LeClerc, the library's president, said Tuesday at a news conference.

Reading Susan Spano's story ["Ancient Rock, Eternal Truths," Sept. 11] brought back memories of 30 years ago. I had a Norwegian student visiting, and we were staying at El Tovar in Grand Canyon with my husband and kids. One morning after breakfast, the student and I decided to hike a little ways down the Bright Angel Trail. It was a beautiful day, and we were full of energy. We had an apple and an orange for nourishment, and off we went after leaving a note for my husband. Enjoying the lovely scenery, we did not realize that we had passed the ranch, garden and plateau until we found ourselves overlooking the Colorado River, where we met three Swedish students, to my guest's delight.

THE BEST WAY TO NEW YORK From LAX, nonstop service to JFK New York is available on Virgin America, Delta, JetBlue, United and American, and connecting service (change of plane) is offered on Delta and US Airways. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $378. Into Newark, N.J., nonstop service is offered on Continental, United and American and connecting service on American, United, Us Airways, Continental and Southwest. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $418. WHERE TO STAY Algonquin Hotel, 59 W. 44th St., New York; (212)

In my family, we've never recognized a distinction between happiness and the handling of books. Books in libraries, books in shops. Books that take you places, and books you can steal from - like Norman Maclean's memoir, "A River Runs Through It," whose opening sentence (about religion and fly-fishing) has been ransacked for the benefit of that first paragraph. My father, a journalist and professor, haunted bookstores, collected first editions and briefly ran his own tiny bookshop.

In the long term, does it really matter if books are a thing of the past? So long as the book-length texts that used to appear within printed covers are still available in some form, so long as we can still summon the attention to follow many-chambered sentences and access the privacy and reflectiveness of a Thoreau, the intricate feelings and psychological acuity of a Proust, it hardly matters what kind of medium is bringing us our words. But if the library disappears, then we're really in trouble.

NEW YORK -- "Does she or doesn't she?" "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." "Where's the beef?" Before these slogans became lodged in our brains, they were dreamed up by advertising copywriters and executives with a knack for tapping into the spirit of the times.

NEW YORK -- Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire chairman of leveraged-buyout firm Blackstone Group, has pledged $100 million to the New York Public Library, which will rename its main Manhattan building on Fifth Avenue after him. The guaranteed donation, the largest to a New York City cultural organization, will be the cornerstone of a $1-billion plan to expand the institution, Paul LeClerc, the library's president, said Tuesday at a news conference.

Carolyn See's column misstates Barbara Tuchman's aim and achievements (Editorial Page, Feb. 11). She also exaggerates the importance of the "academic historians" who snapped at her heels. See writes as if the carping of academics was destructive to recognition. Nothing could be further from the truth. Among the 23 honorary degrees she accepted were ones from Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Brown, Notre Dame and William and Mary--all leading institutions of learning. She refused scores of others because of time constraints.

If you've got a moment, you've got just enough time for “A Minute Away,” a new video offering from the Travel section. This week's destination is sleepy little June Lake , Calif., about 20 miles from the Mammoth Mountain ski resort. You may have seen this one here before, but it's 60 seconds of bliss that bears repeating. Last week's Minute, the first of the series, was Moscow in a snow storm. Whether you click June Lake or Moscow , you get a little slice of wordless, brain-cleansing, off-the-clock atmosphere.

A collection of 250,000 images -- including maps, Civil War photos, illuminated medieval manuscripts and historic menus -- became accessible online Thursday, the New York Public Library announced. "By opening the doors of our acclaimed collections to users over the Internet, we are plunging fully into an exciting new era of library service," library President Paul LeClerc said.

The New York Public Library is putting hundreds of thousands of its images online, allowing free downloads of material including maps, Civil War photos and illuminated medieval manuscripts. The digital gallery will have 275,000 images available beginning today, and the collection will grow to 500,000 images over the next several months, library officials announced.