The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a

public library A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...

system in New York City. 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

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

and the fifth-largest public library in the world. 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

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, and

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

and affiliations with academic and professional libraries in the

New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also called the Tri-State area and sometimes referred to as Greater New York, is the List of cities by GDP, largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a List of U.S. metropolitan areas by GDP, gross metropo ...

. The city's other two boroughs,

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

and

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

, are not served by the New York Public Library system, but rather by their respective borough library systems: the

Brooklyn Public Library The Brooklyn Public Library is the public library system of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is the sixteenth largest public library system in the United States by holding and the seventh by number of visitors. Like the two Brooklyn Publ ...

and the Queens Public Library. The branch libraries are open to the general public and consist of circulating libraries. The New York Public Library also has four

research libraries A research library is a library that contains an in-depth collection of material on one or several subjects.(Young, 1983; p. 188) A research library will generally include an in-depth selection of materials on a particular topic or set of top ...

, which are also open to the general public. The library, officially chartered 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 Main Branch, which is easily recognizable by its lion statues named Patience and Fortitude that sit either side of the entrance. The branch was declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

in 1965, listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1966, and designated a

New York City Landmark The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and c ...

in 1967.

History

At the behest of Joseph Cogswell,

John Jacob Astor John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-born American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor. Astor made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by exporting History of opiu ...

placed a codicil in his will to bequeath $400,000 (equivalent of $ million in ) 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

Astor Library The Astor Library was a free public library in the East Village, Manhattan, developed primarily through the collaboration of New York City merchant John Jacob Astor and New England educator and bibliographer Joseph Cogswell and designed by Alex ...

in 1854 in the East Village. 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 ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' 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

New York State Legislature The New York State Legislature consists of the Bicameralism, two houses that act as the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York: the New York State Senate and the New York State Assem ...

incorporated the Lenox Library in 1870. The library was built on

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...

, between 70th and 71st Streets, in 1877.

Bibliophile A bookworm or bibliophile is an individual who loves and frequently reads or collects books. Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. Bibliophiles may have large, specialized book collections. They may highly value old editions, aut ...

and philanthropist James Lenox donated a vast collection of his Americana, art works, manuscripts, and rare books, including the first

Gutenberg Bible The Gutenberg Bible, also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42, was the earliest major book printed in Europe using mass-produced metal movable type. It marked the start of the "Printing Revolution, Gutenberg Revolution" an ...

in the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

. At its inception, the library charged admission and did not permit physical access to any literary items. Former

Governor of New York The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor ...

and presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden believed that a library with citywide reach was required, and upon his death in 1886, he bequeathed the bulk of his fortune—about (equivalent of $ million in )—to "establish and maintain a free library and reading room in the city of New York". This money would sit untouched in a trust for several years, until John Bigelow, a New York attorney, and

Andrew Haswell Green Andrew Haswell Green (October 6, 1820 – November 13, 1903) was an American lawyer, city planner, and civic leader who was influential in the development of New York City. Green was responsible for Central Park, the New York Public Library, ...

, 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 numerous libraries in the 19th century, almost all of them were privately funded and many charged admission or usage fees (a notable exception was

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-s ...

, which opened its free reading room to the public in 1859). Bigelow, the most prominent supporter of the plan to merge the two libraries found support in Lewis Cass Ledyard, a member of the Tilden Board, as well as John Cadwalader, on the Astor board. Eventually,

John Stewart Kennedy John Stewart Kennedy (January 4, 1830 – October 30, 1909) was a Scottish-born American businessman, financier and philanthropist. He was a member of the Jekyll Island Club (also known as The Millionaires' Club) on Jekyll Island, Georgia al ...

, president of the Lenox board, also came to support the plan. On May 23, 1895, Bigelow, Cadwalader, and George L. Rives 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,

John Shaw Billings John Shaw Billings (April 12, 1838 – March 11, 1913) was an American librarian, building designer, and surgeon who modernized the Library of the Surgeon General's Office in the United States Army. His work with Andrew Carnegie led to the de ...

was named as the library's first director. The newly established library consolidated with the grass-roots New York Free Circulating Library in February 1901. In March,

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

tentatively agreed to donate (equivalent of $ million in ) to construct sixty-five branch libraries 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 consolidation of New York City, eschewed the grants offered to them and did not join the NYPL system; they believed that they would not get treatment equal to the

and

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

McKim, Mead & White McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm based in New York City. The firm came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in ''fin de siècle'' New York. The firm's founding partners, Cha ...

, Carrère and Hastings, and Walter Cook to design all the branch libraries. New York author

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy ...

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

National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. I ...

), Edwin H. Anderson, Harry M. Lydenberg, Franklin F. Hopper, Ralph A. Beals, and Edward Freehafer (1954–1970). 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

tsar Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...

. 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. Related collections include a significant number of important works by Russian photographers, and photographs related to the

House of Romanov The House of Romanov (also transliterated as Romanoff; , ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russi ...

and Russia expert

George Kennan George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly hist ...

. 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

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 Croton Reservoir.

, the first director of the library, created an initial design that became the basis of the new building containing 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 Carrère and Hastings constructed the structure in the Beaux-Arts style, and the structure opened on May 23, 1911. It was the largest marble structure up to that time in the United States. Brenner New York Public Library Seal

The two stone lions guarding the entrance were sculpted by E.C. Potter and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers. Its main reading room was contemporaneously the largest of its kind in the world at wide by long, with ceilings. An expansion in the 1970s and 1980s added storage space under

Bryant Park Bryant Park is a , privately managed public park in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan. It is located between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) and between 40th Street (Manhattan), 40th and 42 ...

, directly west of the library. The structure was given a major restoration from 2007 to 2011, underwritten by a $100 million gift from philanthropist

Stephen A. Schwarzman Stephen Allen Schwarzman (born February 14, 1947) is an American businessman. He is the chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group, a global private equity firm he established in 1985 with Peter G. Peterson. Schwarzman was chairman of President Do ...

, 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

New York City designated landmark The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and c ...

in 1967. Astor Hall, first-to-third-floor stairs, and McGraw Rotunda were designated as interior landmarks in 1974. and the Rose Main Reading Room and Public Catalog Room were separately made New York City designated landmarks in 2017.

Other research branches

In 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 B. Altman & Company Building on

34th Street 34th Street most commonly refers to 34th Street (Manhattan) 34th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs the width of Manhattan Island from the West Side Highway on the West Side to FDR Drive on t ...

. In 1995, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the library, the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL), designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates 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 . The Humanities and Social Sciences Library on 42nd Street is still the heart of the NYPL's research library system. The SIBL, with approximately 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 Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture, located at 135th Street and Lenox Avenue in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...

, and the

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, in the Lincoln Center complex on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, New York City. Situated between the Metropolitan O ...

, located at

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

. 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

The 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 . In the basement, a new, 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, the use of which has cut waiting times 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 New York Penal Law. Some library branches contract for security guards. In 2014 NYPL launched a project called "Library Simplified", to address the difficulties that patrons were having checking out e-books, especially compared to the process for buying them. By 2016 the project had produced an app called "SimplyE", which the library launched that year; patrons could explore and check-out ebooks from multiple vendors, with just a few clicks. The library released the code for SimplyE

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

. To celebrate its 125th anniversary in 2020, the NYPL calculated a list of its most checked out books. Topping the list was Ezra Jack Keats' '' The Snowy Day'', with ''

The Cat in the Hat ''The Cat in the Hat'' is a 1957 children's book written and illustrated by American author Dr. Seuss. The story centers on a tall anthropomorphic cat who wears a red and white-striped top hat and a red bow tie. The Cat shows up at the house ...

'' and ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also published as ''1984'') is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically ...

'' rounding out the top three. Until 2021, the NYPL charged a late fee of $0.25 per day per book; other types of items had different late fees, and seniors and disabled patrons paid lower late fees. The library system's president, Anthony Marx, indicated his intention to eliminate late fees after assuming the library's presidency in 2011. The NYPL stopped charging late fees on October 5, 2021. Existing debts have since been cleared from the records of all NYPL patrons. On November 26, 2023, Sunday services were discontinued at select branches where it was offered; along with reduced programs for adults and children. This followed months of contentious budget negotiations between the

City Council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough counc ...

and Mayor

Eric Adams Eric Leroy Adams (born September 1, 1960) is an American politician and former police officer who has served as the 110th mayor of New York City since 2022. Adams was an officer in the New York City Transit Police and then the New York City P ...

, with Adams claiming that the New York City migrant housing crisis necessitated the budget cuts. The $12.6 million in city spending for the NYPL represents 0.02% of the city's 2024 budget of $110 billion. Funding for Sunday service was restored in June 2024.

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 Queens Public Library 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

Long Island City Long Island City (LIC) is a neighborhood within the New York City borough of Queens. It is bordered by Astoria to the north; the East River to the west; Sunnyside to the east; and Newtown Creek, which separates Queens from Greenpoint, Brook ...

, 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

David Ferriero David Sean Ferriero (; born December 31, 1945) is an American librarian and library administrator, who served as the tenth Archivist of the United States. He previously served as the director of the New York Public LibraryOder, Norman. "NYPL Reo ...

was named the Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research Libraries. NYPL had engaged consultants

Booz Allen Hamilton Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American company specializing in intelligence, AI, and digital transformation. It is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washing ...

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

Google Books Library Project Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

. 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 Donnell Library 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.LeClerc, Paul
"Answers About the New York Public Library, Part 3"
, ''New York Times.'' December 12, 2008. 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.

Branch libraries

The New York Public Library system maintains commitment as a public lending library through its branch libraries in

, and

, including the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (formerly: 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

. 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 Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library and the Media Center, redistributed from Donnell. The system has 40 libraries in Manhattan, 35 in the Bronx, and 14 in Staten Island. The newest is the Charleston Library, which opened on March 16, 2022. As of 2022, the New York Public Library consisted of 4 research centers and 89 neighborhood branch libraries in the three boroughs served. All libraries in the NYPL system may be used free of charge by all visitors. , the research collections contain 46.8 million items (books, videotapes, maps, etc.), while the branch libraries contain 9.9 million items. Together the collections total nearly items, a number surpassed only by the

and the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

Services

ASK NYPL

Telephone Reference, known as ASK NYPL, answers 100,000 questions per year, by phone and online, as well as in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''.

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

English as a Second Language English as a second or foreign language refers to the use of English by individuals whose native language is different, commonly among students learning to speak and write English. Variably known as English as a foreign language (EFL), Engli ...

(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

EBSCOhost EBSCO Information Services, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a private company headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. EBSCO provides products and services to libraries of many types around the worl ...

, which contains full text of major magazines; full text of the ''

'' (1995–present), Gale's Ready Reference Shelf which includes the '' Encyclopedia of Associations'' and periodical indexes, '' Books in Print''; and

Ulrich's Periodicals Directory Ulrich's Periodicals Directory (, and ) is the standard library directory and Bibliographic database, database providing information about popular and academic magazines, scientific journals, newspapers and other serial (publishing), serial public ...

. The New York Public Library also links to outside resources, such as the

Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the government of the United States, U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics, labor economics and ...

' ''

Occupational Outlook Handbook The ''Occupational Outlook Handbook'' (''OOH'') is a publication of the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics that includes information about the nature of work, working conditions, training and education, earnings and jo ...

'', and the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

's '' World Factbook''. Databases are available for children, teenagers, and adults of all ages. The NYPL Digital Collections (formerly named Digital Gallery) is a database of over 900,000 images digitized from the library's collections. The Digital Collections was named one of ''

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

''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 Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Other databases available only from within the library include ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'',

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

and Wiley science journals, ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' archives, and

Factiva Factiva is a business information and research tool owned by Dow Jones & Company. Factiva aggregates content from both licensed and free sources. Providing organizations with search, alerting, dissemination, and other information management c ...

. Overall, the digital holdings for the Library consist of more than a petabyte of data as of 2015. NYPL cardholders can download free e-books via the SimplyE app and website. As part of the Books for All program, a limited number of books in the NYPL's collection, which have been banned elsewhere in the United States, are also available to anyone in the U.S. via the SimplyE app. The library also hosts a Teen Banned Book Club.

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 Oral History Project

NYPL's Community Oral History Project shares New York City's neighborhoods and diverse people by documenting history through collected stories. The Oral History Project includes people living in Greenwich Village, Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood, Times Square, Hell's Kitchen, Soho, Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Kips Bay as well as

Transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

, Latino Americans, Veterans, and Disability Experience.

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

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, the Guggenheim 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

Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a New York state public benefit corporations, public benefit corporation in New York (state), New York State responsible for public transportation in the New York metropolitan area, New York Ci ...

, and Transit Wireless. The Subway Library gave

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

riders access to e-books, excerpts, and short stories.

Governance

Like all public libraries in New York, the NYPL is granted a

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

from the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York and is registered with the New York State Education Department. The basic powers and duties of all library boards of trustees are defined in the Education Law and are subject to Part 90 of Title 8 of the

New York Codes, Rules and Regulations The ''New York Codes, Rules and Regulations'' (NYCRR) contains New York state rules and regulations. The NYCRR is officially compiled by the New York State Department of State's Division of Administrative Rules. Contents See also * '' New Yor ...

. 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 and 42 trustees of several classes who collectively choose their own successors, including ''ex officio'' the

New York City Mayor The mayor of New York City, officially mayor of the City of New York, is head of the executive branch of the government of New York City and the chief executive of New York City. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, ...

, New York City Council Speaker and New York City Comptroller.

Other New York City library systems

The 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 Queens Public Library. 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 , and the Queens system had a circulation of through its 62 branch libraries. Altogether the three library systems hosted 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.

Cultural impact

The historian

David McCullough David Gaub McCullough (; July 7, 1933 – August 7, 2022) was an American popular historian. He was a two-time winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In 2006, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United S ...

has described the New York Public Library as one of the five most important libraries in the United States; the others are the

, the

Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse''), meaning all adult re ...

, and the university libraries of

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

and

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

. The New York Public Library was a founding member of the

Research Libraries Group The Research Libraries Group (RLG) was a U.S.-based library consortium that existed from 1974 until its merger with the OCLC library consortium in 2006. RLG developed the Eureka interlibrary search engine, the RedLightGreen database of bibliogr ...

, alongside Columbia, Harvard, and Yale Libraries. Along with

, Columbia, and Princeton, NYPL is a member of the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP), and shares an off-site shelving facility in Plainsboro, New Jersey with the three

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference of eight Private university, private Research university, research universities in the Northeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegia ...

universities."Debate at N.Y. Public Library: Can Off-Site Storage Work for Researchers?"
Jennifer Howard. April 22, 2012. Chronicle of Higher Education.

In popular culture

The New York Public Library has been referenced numerous times in popular culture. The library has appeared as a setting and topic multiple times in film, poetry, television, and music.

References

Notes Bibliography * Chapman, Carleton B. ''Order out of Chaos: John Shaw Billings and America's Coming of Age'' (1994) * Dain, Phyllis. ''The New York Public Library: A History of Its Founding and Early Years'' (1973) *Dain, Phyllis. “Harry M. Lydenberg and American Library Resources: A Study in Modern Library Leadership.” ''The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy'' 47, no. 4 (1977): 451–69. * Davis, Donald G. Jr and Tucker, John Mark (1989). ''American Library History: a comprehensive guide to the literature''. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc. * Glynn, Tom, ''Reading Publics: New York City's Public Libraries, 1754–1911'' (Fordham University Press, 2015). xii, 447 pp. * Harris, Michael H. and Davis, Donald G. Jr. (1978). ''American Library History: a bibliography''. Austin: University of Texas * * * * Myers, Andrew B. ''The Worlds of Washington Irving: 1783–1859'' (1974) * Reed, Henry Hope. ''The New York Public Library: Its Architecture and Decoration'' (1986) * * Sherman, Scott (2015). ''Patience and fortitude : power, real estate, and the fight to save a public library'', Brooklyn; London : Melville House, * Further reading *

External links

* *
Teachinghistory.org review of NYPL website ''American Shores''
* * * {{Authority control 1895 establishments in New York City Astor family Carnegie libraries in New York City County library systems in New York (state) Libraries established in 1895 Libraries in Manhattan Midtown Manhattan Museums in Manhattan Public libraries in New York City