Roger Federer has spent longer as a “still” athlete than any great player I can remember. You could even argue that it’s one of the signs of his greatness. Other top players hit the “still” moment, hang around for a little longer, and then whoosh, they’re gone, broken up into memorial clips and Hall of Fame inductions, classic rock bands who’ve sold their copyrights. Federer, after three straight years of diminished results – 11 to 12 singles titles a year from 2004 to 2006, then eight in 2007, and four to five every year since – is … well, still really amazing. He’s still near his best, which means he’s still playing some of the best tennis the world has ever seen. If anything, he’s improved his serve to compensate for what’s maybe been a slight decline in his movement and shot-making – although, as McEnroe pointed out during the French Open, his movement is “still great.”
Some things are great forever. Others, like the New York Public Library, work at it:
The project, like Lee’s vision for the Cage archive, highlights they key change in the way the library thinks about itself.
“A library is not just a place that collects information and processes information,” May said. “We create the tools and structure the information so that others can enhance the collections.” Another NYPLer, Doug Reside, Digital Curator of Performing Arts, put it even more simply, “The public library can be used to organize people to organize information.”