The New York Public Library’s Young Lions benefit party Monday night got off to an innocuous start. Library donors in their 20s and 30s gathered under the glass dome of the Bartos Forum in the main branch at 42nd Street, avoiding the dance floor while the DJ spun hits from their youth (Whitney Houston, etc.).

The night was optimistically titled “A Bright Future,” and a giant inflatable light bulb suspended from the dome’s peak reinforced the theme.

“I think everyone’s hoping for a rebirth of the city,” said Emma Bloomberg, one of the party’s co-chairs. On the eve of Election Day, the young Bloomberg said she was looking forward to the future. “What’s the point of living if you’re not?” she asked.

Ms. Bloomberg had a long day ahead, handing out campaign literature in the subway and getting voters to the polls.

Standing with her was Jessica Tisch, also a co-chair. Asked if she had read any good books lately, Ms. Tisch looked uncertain.

“You’re going to start the new Joyce Purnick!” (That would be Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics, which was published by PublicAffairs in September) “I’m not sure I want people reading it,” Ms. Bloomberg continued. “I’ll let her tell me if its O.K., and then I’ll read it.”

Novelists Colson Whitehead and John Wray stood by, looking dapper. Despite gloomy forecasts for the future of literary publishing, Mr. Wray said he wasn’t worried. “It may be a smaller wedge of the pie than it was in 1962, but frankly there are only so many smart people in this country,” he said. As for the anticipated End of the Book, Mr. Wray said, “Anybody who says that that’s the case is just a drama queen.”

Mr. Wray was wearing a black suit jacket with epaulets. “Colson is the one person at this party with a distinctly skinnier tie than mine,” he said. “I really should have busted out the bolo, but then I would have had to wear my rhinestone-encrusted 10-gallon hat.”

As the evening progressed, the dance floor started filling with less inhibited Lions, who sang along with Rick Springfield’s 1981 Grammy Award–winning hit “Jessie’s Girl” and Buster Poindexter’s 1987 calypso appropriation “Hot Hot Hot.” Backbeats and bass lines rumbled throughout the normally hushed main branch. One Lion’s discarded glass got crushed under stomping paws, and its shards were rapidly ground into the room’s carpet.