The New York Public Library: A Universe of Knowledge

Citation

Spetland, C.G. (2002), "The New York Public Library: A Universe of Knowledge", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 58 No. 4, pp. 497-498. https://doi.org/10.1108/jd.2002.58.4.497.8

This concise and lavishly illustrated popular history of the New York Public Library and its collections is the first work of its type on this topic.

The author is a member of the faculty at Columbia University and has a long association with that institution and the former School of Library Service, as a student, practicing cataloguing librarian, instructor and ultimately senior professor. She has written or contributed to a variety of articles and several books, addressing the history and role of public libraries in American society.

This book to some extent supplements the author’s previous book on the topic (Dain, 1972). The earlier work, actually the author’s revised doctoral dissertation, carefully documents the development of public lending and reference libraries in New York City through to the early twentieth century, consolidation, and the events leading up to the opening of the central building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in 1911.

The new book summarizes the earlier years and takes the reader through the twentieth century, emphasizing the role of the library in the lives of immigrants, promoting and assisting in their efforts to assimilate into American and New York society. It goes on to show how in more recent years the library’s function has perhaps shifted to become more that of preserver and promoter of information sources and diverse cultures.

The book begins with an overview of the establishment of the mid‐nineteenth century predecessors of New York City’s public libraries, in particular Manhattan’s two free reference libraries, founded and endowed separately by John Jacob Astor and James Lenox. With the administrative consolidation of these and other lending libraries and the establishment of the New York Public Library, the book outlines the part played by John Shaw Billings as the first director, the planning and realization of the new Fifth Avenue central building, and the continued fundamental role of private funding as basic support for the further development of the library. The Samuel J. Tilden Trust, the continued support of the Astor and Lenox Foundations, and the donations of Andrew Carnegie for the development of neighborhood branch facilities were central, in addition to the numerous and generous donations of collections and endowments by other prominent individuals throughout the century. To this day, the organization’s official corporate name remains the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

The author includes brief profiles of the major components and collections of today’s New York Public Library, including the research collections, the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL), the branch libraries. She also highlights some of the numerous special collections and centers including: the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the comprehensive and unique collections of world language material, rare books and manuscripts, maps, audio‐visual material, and children’s literature.

She further describes the evolution of the administration of the libraries, the continued fundraising efforts, advances in interlibrary lending, alternative format collections, the development of the online catalogs CATNYP and LEO, and more recent digital library projects.

There is a single index to both subjects and illustrations and a short list of suggested further reading, though the text contains no documentation.

In summary, this slim but attractive volume, self‐published by the New York Public Library, succeeds in colorfully describing the development and current state of one of the world’s premier public institutions, and serves the general reader well as an introduction to the library and its collections.