A TON of interesting historical stuff about New York and the New York Public Library is in here. I learned a bunch of stuff. Many of the locations can be viewed in Google Street View.
In an email query to the NYPL I found out that the call numbers in the research libraries are unique for each item, pretty much, and so the question on page 144, "So how does the clerk know which copy of Alice In Wonderland to fetch?", probably could have been answered by "The call number from the catalog".
deaccession (pg. 82) -- To sell or otherwise dispose of an item in a collection.
welsh (pg. 117) -- To avoid payment.
faites comme chez vous (pg. 121) -- Make yourself at home.
puttanesca sauce (pg. 123) -- The word puttanesca is derived from puttana, a colloquial term for 'prostitute.'
exsanguination (pg. 127) -- To be drained of blood.
hondel (pg. 221) -- Yiddish, to bargain.
À tout a l'heure, ma princesse (pg. 265) -- See you soon, my princess.
profiterole (pg. 275) -- A cream puff.
whole magilla (pg. 357) -- Derived from the Hebrew word Megillah, a word for scroll, it now means "the whole thing, all that can be expected".
"You can't close the public library."
"faster than you can say Dewey decimal system, lady."