[saalweachter]

I would definitely pay extra to have access to the library as a tenant in the library-apartment. I mean, granted, it's just a generic neighborhood library, so it wouldn't have specialized texts, but still.

Leave the cameras on, lock the librarian's office and password-protect the computers after hours, and require the tenants to return [or check out] any borrowed material by the next morning. Realistically, you'll probably have one or two bad tenants over the next few decades who leave their trash inside the library or try to steal the crappy old library computers and it will mostly be fine.

[iguy]

If they accepted slightly below market rent, they could have the pick of NYU's writing instructors, or sabbatical visitors, or whatever. That is, don't rent them on the open market, but hook up with one of the many institutes with a long list of underpaid people well-vetted for reverence of books.

[nullc]

> If they accepted slightly below market rent, they could have the pick of NYU's writing instructors,

It doesn't even have to be below market rate: They could pair it up with a grant program where someone else is picking up the market rate rent (or the difference between market rate and what would make it attractive for scholars) for the "in residence" person.

[ceejayoz]

Yep - set up a scholar/artist/author-in-residence program.