Daily News from New York, New York • 153

"-r- 1 fj I cn I. -V- k' pq 4 X'v. J-" ifr imi hi it 0 rrjAUs? iftv wan flat. Katherlne O'Brien (left) head of the Library has been working to develop it since her appointment in 1967. The branch, an attraction for students doing research (top left), features such conveniences as coin-operated shopping bag dispenser (top right) at checkout counter, microfilm-readers in every department.

1 I ll MB inmiiir mm in rl tl Till ITagJ-gf. A library designed for people as well as books By MARY ENGELS It's one of New York's newest in places. Barely opened a month, it gets both the lunch bunch and the Saturday night crowd. It's the Mid-Manhattan Library, 8 40th just off Fifth Ave. The library, on the fourth, fifth and part of the sixth floor of the Arnold Constable building, is a great place to visit for research and sheer enjoyment of its colorful "College students, executives, too, have been commenting on the psychedelic color scheme of oranges, yellows, blues and greens," said Katherine O'Brien, the library's chief.

"Personally, I'm sick and tired of the old stereotype image people have of a library. Why shouldn't it be "bright and gay After all, it isn't only a place for books. It's for people too." coin-operated reader-printers. The latter is a boon for the researcher who wishes to take a along with him. Miss O'Brien pointed out that a New York reader often finds that every library copy of a current hook has been borrowed.

So, she said, "at the Mid-Manhattan one copy of most nonfiction books will be designated as a consultation copy and kept for use by readers within the library." Miss O'Brien, who joined the New York Public Library in 1JKU, had been the first head of innell Library Center, 20 W. when that innovative branch opened in 1945. "It seems I'm the person who's always given th job of opening new librar ies, and I love it," slie said. "It keeps you very much alive." Asked if she had a favorite book, she replied: "Well, I did love 'The Year of the Whale. In fact.

I even collect minature whales. Hut "Moby that was a tough one to read." Miss O'Brien is especially pleased at the number of visitors the branch library has been getting. "We offer undergraduate college students, businessmen, professional workers and general adult readers a comprehensive collection of books, periodicals, pamphlets and microfilms on open shelves, she noted. "The latest count includes an astonishing 275,000 books for reference and home borrowing; 1,800 periodicals and 10,000 microfilm reels of periodicals, including copies of the major New York City newspapers." The library consists of a general reference service and science department on the fourth floor and the history and social science department, including business and economics section, on fifth. Administrative offices are an the sixth.

The branch is open Monday through Saturday from 9 aan. to 10 p.m. Seating capacity is 1,033. Every department has microfilm readers, as well as MOX1QVE From the massive to the miniature in Paris etones or "added decor, relying on the pure forms evolved in her sculpture. She used white gold, polished to mirror-like brilliance, as a base to splintered nuggets of yellow gold.

Some of their facets are dull, rough and burnished, others sharp and smooth to catch the light from every angle and give the jewels a vibrant, mobile, almost alive quality. Besides their intrinsic beauty, the Penalba pieres are attracting knowledgeable art collectors aware of the rising value of her sculpture. They concentrate on heavy bracelets in polished white gold that bounce the light onto a super-structure of yellow gold rocks inspired by a strange and maenificent fountain "My first jewels were those I made at the age of 7," says Argentinian-born woman sculptor Penalba. Since then, she has risen to fame in Europe and the Americas; her monumental creations stand in dozens of parks, squares, museums and private homes. Now, with success behind her, she has turned back from the massive to the miniature, with a stunning show of all-gold pieces, at 25 Rue Bonaparte in the pace-setting Galerie Gennari.

As a child, Alicia Penalba based her baubles on broken violin strings left around by her music-loving father. She threaded onto them colored glass beads, bottle stoppers and copper wire ti tie standing in the Park of Vincennes, Paris, and originally sculpted a newxmg to her tiny fingers each morning. by the artist in White and yellow braceler by Penalba. rofumted in, similar orms above a For her second" career, as si iewpIerJ "Pp'nalLa 'pmriTovpd tin stiff rpffr-t'ino' rtool Jj'l i i.