This was transformed in 1930 into the National Central Library, which continued to act as a lending library but also formed the centre of a network of regional library bureaus.
The company's muscle comes from its ability to report some library users to credit bureaus.
Mr. Kleinman, a lawyer from Uniondale, N.Y., represented a Queens man who sued Unique Management Services for reporting his $295 late bill from the Queens Library system to credit bureaus.
The Americanization movement that came into being was primarily a program of education propagated through schools, businesses, voluntary associations (such as the YMCA), libraries, and citizens bureaus.
The interior has those old municipal smells, like those in the public library or the marriage license bureau.
More than 40,000 Los Angeles County employees -- mostly clerical and service workers -- walked off the job at welfare clinics, beaches, libraries and the marriage license bureau to protest stalled negotiations on a new contract.
It is not clear how many library patrons are reported to credit bureaus, or how many of them have trouble getting credit as a result.
The Times put one of its girls on the job and, after a fruitless session in the Library, she called up the Marriage License Bureau.
She keeps paper files in an antique bureau, does research at the library and makes contact by phone calls or visits.
He said, for instance, that concerns about the bureau's power to monitor library checkouts under the Patriot Act had been "somewhat overblown" and that agents generally visited a library only "when we have a reason for going in". "We are going to have to agree to disagree on the Patriot Act," he said.
After 90 days, a more threatening letter warns that the library user will be reported to a credit bureau.
