The New York Public Library, replete with buildings and rooms named after major benefactors, is struggling to find balance between naming rights and cluttering the institutions with inscriptions, reports The New York Times.

“There are at least three families with six places of recognition within the building,” said Paul LeClerc, the library’s president, who called the institution “a billboard to philanthropy,” as he walked through its main branch.

However, a proposal to name a building in honor Stephen A. Schwarzman, chief executive of the Blackstone Group, who announced a $100-million donation to the library in March, is generating opposition. A community-advisory group in New York recently voted against the most prominent proposed carving of Mr. Schwarzman’s name on pedestals flanking the library’s Fifth Avenue entrance, even as it approved other placements for his name.

Howard Mendes, chairman of the community group’s landmarks committee, called the proposal “excessive.”

The Landmarks Preservation Commission, which will make the final decision on this issue, is holding a public hearing today. Its decision could have an impact on fund raising: When the commission rejected the proposed name placement for the developer Samuel J. LeFrak on the Guggenheim Museum in the 1990s, his $10-million donation to the museum fell through.

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