The in,Established1895LocationBranches92CollectionSize53 million books and other itemsAccess and usePopulation served3.5 million (Manhattan, The Bronx and Staten Island)Other informationBudget302,208,000 (2017)Endowment: $1,448,838,000Director,William P. Kelly, Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research LibrariesStaff3,150WebsiteThe New York Public Library (NYPL) is a system in.
With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the ) and the (behind the ). It is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing.The library has branches in the boroughs of, and and affiliations with academic and professional libraries in the. The city's other two boroughs, and, are not served by the New York Public Library system, but rather by their respective borough library systems: the and the. The branch libraries are open to the general public and consist of.
The New York Public Library also has four, which are also open to the general public.The library, officially as The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, was developed in the 19th century, founded from an amalgamation of grass-roots libraries and social libraries of bibliophiles and the wealthy, aided by the philanthropy of the wealthiest Americans of their age.The 'New York Public Library' name may also refer to its, which is easily recognizable by its lion statues named Patience and Fortitude that sit either side of the entrance. The branch was declared a in 1965, listed on the in 1966, and designated a in 1967. The New York Public Library main building during late stage construction in 1908, the lion statues not yet installed at the entranceAt the behest of, placed a in his will to bequeath $400,000 (equivalent of $11.6 million in 2018) for the creation of a public library.
After Astor's death in 1848, the resulting board of trustees executed the will's conditions and constructed the in 1854 in the. The library created was a free reference library; its books were not permitted to circulate. By 1872, the Astor Library was described in a New York Times editorial as a 'major reference and research resource', but, 'Popular it certainly is not, and, so greatly is it lacking in the essentials of a public library, that its stores might almost as well be under lock and key, for any access the masses of the people can get thereto'.An act of the incorporated the in 1870. The library was built on, between 70th and 71st Streets, in 1877. And philanthropist donated a vast collection of his, art works, manuscripts, and rare books, including the first in the. At its inception, the library charged admission and did not permit physical access to any literary items.
Copy of the Gutenberg Bible in the New York Public LibraryFormer and presidential candidate believed that a library with citywide reach was required, and upon his death in 1886, he the bulk of his fortune—about $2.4 million (equivalent of $67 million in 2018)—to 'establish and maintain a free library and reading room in the city of New York'. This money would sit untouched in a for several years, until, a New York attorney, and, both trustees of the Tilden fortune, came up with an idea to merge two of the city's largest libraries.Both the Astor and Lenox libraries were struggling financially.
Although New York City already had in the 19th century, almost all of them were privately funded and many charged admission or usage fees. Bigelow, the most prominent supporter of the plan to merge the libraries found support in, a member of the Tilden Board, as well as, on the Astor board.
Eventually, president of the Lenox board came to support the plan as well. On May 23, 1895, Bigelow, Cadwalader, and agreed to create 'The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations'. The plan was hailed as an example of private philanthropy for the public good.
On December 11, was named as the library's first director. The newly established library consolidated with the grass-roots in February 1901.In March, tentatively agreed to donate $5.2 million (equivalent of $157 million in 2018) to construct sixty-five in the city, with the requirement that they be operated and maintained by the City of New York. The Brooklyn and Queens public library systems, which predated the, eschewed the grants offered to them and did not join the NYPL system; they believed that they would not get treatment equal to the Manhattan and the Bronx counterparts.
Later in 1901, Carnegie formally signed a contract with the City of New York to transfer his donation to the city in order to enable it to justify purchasing the land for building the branch libraries. The NYPL Board of trustees hired consultants for the planning, and accepted their recommendation that a limited number of architectural firms be hired to build the Carnegie libraries: this would ensure uniformity of appearance and minimize cost. The trustees hired, and to design all the branch libraries.
Search NYSL Digital Collections. The New York State Library began digitizing New York State government documents in 1995. Today the State Library's Digital Collections includes a substantial number of New York State publications, both contemporary materials from 1995 to the present and selected State publications from earlier years.
Cross-view of classical details in the entrance portico Collection development The notable New York author was a close friend of Astor for decades and had helped the philanthropist design the Astor Library. Irving served as President of the library's Board of Trustees from 1848 until his death in 1859, shaping the library's collecting policies with his strong sensibility regarding European intellectual life. Subsequently, the library hired nationally prominent experts to guide its collections policies; they reported directly to directors (who also developed the ), Ralph A.
Beals, and Edward Freehafer (1954–70). They emphasized expertise, objectivity, and a very broad worldwide range of knowledge in acquiring, preserving, organizing, and making available to the general population nearly 12 million books and 26.5 million additional items.
The directors in turn reported to an elite board of trustees, chiefly elderly, well-educated, philanthropic, predominantly Protestant, upper-class white men with commanding positions in American society. They saw their role as protecting the library's autonomy from politicians as well as bestowing upon it status, resources, and prudent care.Representative of many major board decisions was the purchase in 1931 of the private library of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich (1847–1909), uncle of the last. This was one of the largest acquisitions of Russian books and photographic materials; at the time, the Soviet government had a policy of selling its cultural collections abroad for gold.The military drew extensively from the library's map and book collections in the world wars, including hiring its staff. For example, the Map Division's chief Walter Ristow was appointed as head of the geography section of the War Department's New York Office of Military Intelligence from 1942 to 1945. Ristow and his staff discovered, copied, and loaned thousands of strategic, rare or unique maps to war agencies in need of information not available through other sources.
Research libraries Main branch building. Main article:The organizers of the New York Public Library, wanting an imposing main branch, chose a central site along between 40th and 42nd Streets, on top of the., the first director of the library, created an initial design that became the basis of the new building contain a huge reading room on top of seven floors of book stacks, combined with a system that was designed to get books into the hands of library users as fast as possible. The architectural firm constructed the structure in the style, and the structure opened on May 23, 1911. It was the largest marble structure up to that time in the United States.
The Library's historical seal, designed by sculptist in 1909, best known as the designer of the. Though rarely used, the seated personification of wisdom appears on plaques at several branches.The two stone lions guarding the entrance were sculpted by and carved by the. Its main reading room was contemporaneously the largest of its kind in the world at 77 ft (23 m) wide by 295 ft (90 m) long, with 50-foot-high (15 m) ceilings. An expansion in the 1970s and 1980s added storage space under, directly west of the library.
The structure was given a major restoration from 2007 to 2011, underwritten by a $100 million gift from philanthropist, for whom the branch was subsequently renamed. Today, the branch's main reading room is equipped with computers with access to library collections and the Internet as well as docking facilities for laptops. A Fellows program makes reserved rooms available for writers and scholars, selected annually, and many have accomplished important research and writing at the library.The Main Branch also contains several historic designations.
It was declared a in 1965, listed on the in 1966, and designated a in 1967. The main reading room was separately made a New York City designated landmark in 2017. Other research branches.
Science, Industry and Business libraryIn the 1990s, the New York Public Library decided to relocate that portion of the research collection devoted to science, technology, and business to a new location. The library purchased and adapted the former on. In 1995, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the library, the $100 million Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL), designed by of Manhattan, opened to the public. Upon the creation of the SIBL, the central research library on 42nd Street was renamed the Humanities and Social Sciences Library.Today there are four research libraries that comprise the NYPL's research library system; together they hold approximately 44 million items.
Total item holdings, including the collections of the Branch Libraries, are 50.6 million. The Humanities and Social Sciences Library on 42nd Street is still the heart of the NYPL's research library system. The SIBL, with approximately 2 million volumes and 60,000 periodicals, is the nation's largest public library devoted solely to science and business.
The NYPL's two other research libraries are the, located at 135th Street and Lenox Avenue in, and the, located at. In addition to their reference collections, the Library for the Performing Arts and the SIBL also have circulating components that are administered as ordinary branch libraries.Recent history. Recto of a 16th-century found in the front pastedown of, a manuscript in the Music Division of the New York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library was not created by government statute. From its earliest days, the library was formed from a partnership of city government with private philanthropy.
As of 2010, the research libraries in the system are largely funded with private money, and the branch or circulating libraries are financed primarily with city government funds. Until 2009, the research and branch libraries operated almost entirely as separate systems, but that year various operations were merged. By early 2010, the NYPL staff had been reduced by about 16 percent, in part through the consolidations.In 2010, as part of the consolidation program, the NYPL moved various back-office operations to a new Library Services Center building in Long Island City. A former warehouse was renovated for this purpose for $50 million. In the basement, a new, $2.3 million book sorter uses bar codes on library items to sort them for delivery to 132 branch libraries. At two-thirds the length of a football field, the machine is the largest of its kind in the world, according to library officials. Books located in one branch and requested from another go through the sorter, which use has cut the previous waiting time by at least a day.
Together with 14 library employees, the machine can sort 7,500 items an hour (or 125 a minute). On the first floor of the Library Services Center is an ordering and cataloging office; on the second, the digital imaging department (formerly at the Main Branch building) and the manuscripts and archives division, where the air is kept cooler; on the third, the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation Division, with a staff of 10 (as of 2010) but designed for as many as 30 employees.The NYPL maintains a force of NYC special patrolmen, who provide security and protection to various libraries, and NYPL special investigators, who oversee security operations at the library facilities. These officials have on-duty arrest authority granted by the. Some library branches contract for security guards.BookOps In February 2013, the New York and public libraries announced that they would merge their technical services departments. The new department is called BookOps. The proposed merger anticipates a savings of $2 million for the Brooklyn Public Library and $1.5 million for the New York Public Library.
Although not currently part of the merger, it is expected that the will eventually share some resources with the other city libraries. As of 2011, circulation in the New York Public Library systems and systems has increased by 59%.
Located in, BookOps was created as a way to save money while improving patrons service. The services of BookOps include the Selection Team which 'acquires, describes, prepares, and delivers new items for the circulating collections of Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) and New York Public Library, and for the general collections of NYPL's research libraries.' Under the Selection Team are the Acquisitions Department, the Cataloging Department, The Collections Processing Unit, and the Logistics Department. Before this facility opened, all the aforementioned departments were housed in different locations with no accountability between them, and items sometimes taking up to two weeks to reach their intended destination. BookOps now has all departments in one building and in 2015 sorted almost eight million items.
The building has numerous rooms, including a room dedicated to caring for damaged books. Controversies The consolidations and changes in collections have promoted continuing debate and controversy since 2004 when was named the Andrew W.
Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research Libraries. NYPL had engaged consultants to survey the institution, and Ferriero endorsed the survey's report as a big step 'in the process of reinventing the library'. The consolidation program has resulted in the elimination of subjects such as the Asian and Middle East Division (formerly named Oriental Division), as well as the Slavic and Baltic Division.A number of innovations in recent years have been criticized. In 2004 NYPL announced participation in the. By agreement between Google and major international libraries, selected collections of public domain books would be scanned in their entirety and made available online for free to the public.
The negotiations between the two partners called for each to project guesses about ways that libraries are likely to expand in the future. According to the terms of the agreement, the data cannot be crawled or harvested by any other search engine; no downloading or redistribution is allowed. The partners and a wider community of research libraries can share the content.The sale of the separately endowed former in midtown provoked controversy.
The elimination of Donnell was a result of the dissolution of children's, young adult and foreign language collections. The Donnell Media Center was also dismantled, the bulk of its collection relocated at the as the Reserve Film and Video Collection, with parts of its collection redistributed. The site was redeveloped for a luxury hotel.Several veteran librarians have retired, and the number of age-level specialists in the boroughs have been cut back. See also:The New York Public Library system maintains commitment as a public lending library through its branch libraries in, and, including the Mid-Manhattan Library, the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, the circulating collections of the Science, Industry and Business Library, and the circulating collections of the Library for the Performing Arts. The branch libraries comprise the third-largest library in the United States. These circulating libraries offer a wide range of collections, programs, and services, including the renowned Picture Collection at Mid-Manhattan Library and the Media Center, redistributed from Donnell.The system has 39 libraries in Manhattan, 35 in the Bronx, and 13 in Staten Island. The newest is the 53rd Street Branch in Manhattan, which opened on June 26, 2016.
As of 2016, the New York Public Library consisted of four research centers and 88 neighborhood branch libraries in the three boroughs served. All libraries in the NYPL system may be used free of charge by all visitors. As of 2010, the research collections contain 44,507,623 items (books, videotapes, maps, etc.), while the branch libraries contain 8,438,775 items. Together the collections total nearly 53 million items, a number surpassed only by the and the.Services ASK NYPL. At Astor Hall, adjacent to the main entrance to the NYPL's main branchTelephone Reference, known as ASK NYPL, answers 100,000 questions per year, by phone and online, as well as in. Website and digital holdings The Library website provides access to the library's catalogs, online collections and subscription databases. It also has information about the library's free events, exhibitions, computer classes and (ESL) classes.
The two online catalogs, LEO (which searches the circulating collections) and CATNYP (which searches the research collections) allow users to search the library's holdings of books, journals and other materials. The LEO system allows cardholders to request books from any branch and have them delivered to any branch.The NYPL gives cardholders free access from home to thousands of current and historical magazines, newspapers, journals and reference books in subscription databases, including, which contains full text of major magazines; full text of the (1995–present), Gale's Ready Reference Shelf which includes the and periodical indexes,;. The New York Public Library also links to outside resources, such as the ', and the 's.
Databases are available for children, teenagers, and adults of all ages.The NYPL Digital Collections (formerly named Digital Gallery) is a database of over 700,000 images digitized from the library's collections. The Digital Collections was named one of 's 50 Coolest Websites of 2005 and Best Research Site of 2006 by an international panel of museum professionals.The Photographers' Identities Catalog (PIC ) is an experimental online service of the Photography Collection in the.Other databases available only from within the library include, and, archives,. Overall, the digital holdings for the Library consist of more than a petabyte of data as of 2015.
One NYPL In 2006, the library adopted a new strategy that merged branch and research libraries into 'One NYPL'. The organizational change developed a unified online catalog for all the collections, and one card to that could be used at both branch and research libraries. The 2009 website and online-catalog transition had some initial difficulties, but ultimately the catalogues were integrated.
Community outreach The New York Public Library offers many services to its patrons. Some of these services include services for immigrants.
New York City is known for having a welcoming environment when its comes to people of diverse backgrounds. The library offers free work and life skills classes.
These are offered in conjunction with volunteers and partnerships at the library. In addition, the library offers non-English speakers materials and coaching for them to acclimate to the U.S. For these non-English speakers, the library offers free ESOL classes. An initiative was taken in July 2018, NYC library card holders are allowed to visit, the and 31 other prominent New York cultural institutions for free. Temporary programs In June 2017 Subway Library was announced.
It was an initiative between the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Public Library, the,. The Subway Library gave riders access to e-books, excerpts, and short stories.
Subway Library has since ended, but riders can still download free e-books via the SimplyE app or by visiting SimplyE.net.Governance The NYPL, like all public libraries in New York, is granted a from the and is registered with the. The basic powers and duties of all library boards of trustees are defined in the and are subject to Part 90 of Title 8 of the.The NYPL's charter, as restated and granted in 1975, gives the name of the corporation as The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. The library is governed by a board of trustees, composed of between 25–42 trustees of several classes who collectively choose their own successors, including ex officio the,. Other New York City library systems. Main Branch Reading Room, c. 1910-1920The New York Public Library is one of three separate and independent public library systems in New York City. The other two library systems are the and the.
According to the 2006 Mayor's Management Report, New York City's three public library systems had a total library circulation of 35 million: the NYPL and BPL (with 143 branches combined) had a circulation of 15 million, and the Queens system had a circulation of 20 million through its 62 branch libraries. Altogether the three library systems hosted 37 million visitors in 2006. Taken as a whole, the three library systems in the city have 209 branches with 63 million items in their collections.Other libraries in New York City, some of which can be used by the public, are listed in the Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers. In popular culture The historian has described the New York Public Library as one of the five most important libraries in the United States; the others are the, the, and the university libraries of and.The New York Public Library has been.
The library has appeared as a setting and topic multiple times in film, poetry, music, television, and music.See also. Retrieved November 24, 2012. ^ (PDF). Retrieved September 19, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2016.
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3 (2): 5–75. Dain, Phyllis (March 1991). 'Public Library Governance and a Changing New York City'. Libraries & Culture. 26 (2): 219–250. Kasinec, Edward; Davis, Jr., Robert H.
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500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company. Sherman, Scott (2015). Patience and fortitude: power, real estate, and the fight to save a public library, Brooklyn; London: Melville House,.
Van Slyck, Abigail A. Chicago: IL: University of Chicago Press.Further reading. / Ira and Rita Katzenberg / Jules Leventhal / / P. MacDonald / Vincent Sardi (1947). Vera Allen / Paul Beisman / / Cast of / / Experimental Theatre Inc.
/ Rosalind Gilder / / / George Pierce /. No Award (1949). / Philip Faversham / (1950).
Ruth Green (1951). / / Edward Kook (1952). / (1953).
No Award (1954). Proscenium Productions (1955).
Fourth Street Chekov Theatre / / Theatre Collection / The Shakespearewrights / (1956). / / / / Joseph Harbuck / (1957). Mrs. / (1958). and / / Cast of (1959). and / (1960).
/ The Theatre Guild (1961). / / (1962)., and / / W.
McNeil Lowry (1963). (1964). / (1965). (1966).
No Award (1967). APA-Phoenix Theatre / / / / / / (1968).
/ / / The National Theatre Company of Great Britain / The (1969). / and / / (1970). Ingram Ash / / / (1971). / / / The -American Theatre Society (1972). The Actor's Fund of America / / (1973). / / / and / Harold Friedlander / / / / (1974). (1975)1976–2000.
/ / / Thomas H. Fitzgerald / Mathilde Pincus (1976). Cheryl Crawford / Equity Liberty Theatre / / / / (1977). / and Charles Moss (1978). Walter F. Diehl / / / (1979). / / / Hobe Morrison (1980).
(1981). / The Actors' Fund of America / (1982). No Award (1983).
/ / La Tragedie de Carmen (1984). / (1985). No Award (1986). / (1987).
(1988). No Award (1989). No Award (1990–1992).
(1993). and (1994). / / Harvey Sabinson (1995). No Award (1996).
(1997). Edward E.
Colton / Ben Edwards (1998). / / Isabelle Stevenson (1999).: The Royal Tour / T. Edward Hambleton (2000)2001–present.