9 Things I Didn’t Know About the New York Public Library
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If it seems like SocialFlow and NYPL are kind of besties, it’s not hard to see why: we at SocialFlow help brands and publishers navigate the nearly 200 million Tweets that are sent out each day, while the NYPL helps get New Yorkers access to 20 million books.
We’ll take information by the ton, please. Gigabytes of it, stacks of it.
So that’s why, last Friday, team SocialFlow was in for a treat — we got an amazing private tour of the iconic Stephen E. Schwarzman Building, the Beaux Arts crown jewel of the city’s public library system.
I thought I knew a lot about the Library and New York City history. I was wrong. Here’s what I learned.
The Library uses neither the Dewey Decimal or the Library Congress system of ordering book. Instead they use something called the Billings system.
In the Schwarzman Building, there are seven floors of stacks. The bookshelves are actually freestanding, and made of Carnegie steel, while the floors you walk around them are just catwalks. Amazing!
The Library offers some pretty hefty fellowships for writers in need of their facilities for research. A recent product of this fellowship program was the book Radioactive, about Marie and Pierre Curie. Totally ordered it.
During World War II, the windows in the Reading Room were painted black. Lucky for all of us, the gigantic space went through a complete renovation in the past decade. While now there is lots of light and plenty to ogle, there’s still enough shush to satisfy any strict traditionalist.
Despite the rapid growth of online media, Library attendance is up overall, partially because of the services the Library provides, including:
The Library loans laptops to those who need them for research purposes.
Winnie the Pooh is real! The Library has the set of stuffed dolls that were given to A.A. Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, and inspired the beloved children’s story.
You can participate in interesting projects at the Library without even visiting the physical location, such as the transcribing historical menus project. Cornish game hen on toast? Leg of mutton? Sounds good.
The Library is currently celebrating 100 years of existence with a really fascinating exhibit highlights items from the collection around the themes of Observation, Contemplation, Society, and Creativity. Favorite item: Virginia Woolf’s diary (illegible).
Show your Library some love, New Yorkers! Visit the website to see the cool things you can do, follow them on Twitter, and of course, visit the awesome Schwarzman Building. It’s the ultimate in brilliant and free.
