How the New York Public Library digitizes its vast map collection

While much of the city's mapping community is focused on creating something new, a great deal of energy also goes into recovering maps that are quite old.

The New York Public Library, the spiritual heart of the city's mapmaking community, is gradually putting online its vast collection of 435,000 maps. Using a software program called "Building Inspector," more than 1,000 users are manually inputting information or checking contained on old maps that computers can't easily handle, such as street addresses. It's arduous work—only 33,000 of the library's maps have been digitized—but so far the volunteer army has completed 1.2 million tasks and helps the library to bring old maps online much faster than it could otherwise.

More from Crain's New York

New York Public Library Defends Plan to Renovate

Very interesting article in the Monday, April 16, 2012 p. C1, C5 New York Times on the proposed renovation of the Fifth Avenue and 42nd St NYPL. The comment section is also well worth reading where public library users-- scholars, writers, academics,and users of other branches-- write in about the importance of the research mission of the public library. Some excerpts from the article and comments:

New York Public Library Defends Plan to Renovate By ROBIN POGREBIN

"The New York Public Library is engaged in a public-relations blitz to address criticism from scholars and writers who object to the library's plan to reimagine its Fifth Avenue flagship building at an estimated cost of $300 million.
In the past few weeks the library's president, Anthony W. Marx, has written articles for The Huffington Post and Inside Higher Ed, appeared on radio and television and assembled an advisory panel that includes people skeptical of the plan. Several scholars have published criticisms of the project, known as the Central Library Plan. On Friday others began circulating a letter of protest among academics; more than 200 have signed so far, including Mario Vargas Llosa, the Nobel Prize-winning writer, and Lorin Stein, the editor of the Paris Review. "

excerpt: "The project would convert the main library, now strictly a reference operation, into a hybrid that would also contain a circulating library, many computer terminals and possibly a cafe. The Mid-Manhattan branch and the Science, Industry and Business Library would be sold and their operations folded into the main building. To accommodate the new
services, up to half of the three million volumes in the stacks under the main reading room would be moved into storage in New Jersey. Critics say that the money would be better spent refurbishing deteriorating branch libraries, and that the changes will diminish the library's role as a leading reference center, essentially turning it into a glorified Starbucks."

Comments make the case for unique resources of low demand and having subject specialists who can help researchers, writers, scholars--even if they are connected to an academic institution with a fine academic library-- that there is the need for a great public library to fulfill a research mission.

NYPL History Blog

Bob Sink is "researching the lives of the 150+ librarians who headed a neighborhood branch of the New York Public Library during the first 50 years of its branch system, 1901-1950." He started a blog last year, NYPL-Librarians to report his research.

He writes:

"The blog will include information on my demographic study of the librarians; the autonomy the branch librarians (all but 6 were women) achieved within a male-run institution and then lost beginning in the 1930s; the process of racially integrating the staff starting in 1920; and the librarians' publication patterns.

"I’m also writing short profiles of the librarians and post them on their birthdays. The hope is that a descendant doing family history research might contact me after coming across the entry, and I may be able to get access to additional personal data, or reminiscences or even letters.

"I’ll also use the blog as an outlet for interesting vignettes, such as the post about a librarian’s assessment of the impact of the Milton Berle TV show on the High Bridge neighborhood in the Bronx in 1950.

"I welcome any comments or suggestions you might have."

NYPL Eases the Way For Searching 1940 Census

The National Archives releases census records once a decade, and on April 2 it is making available the information from the 1940 census. But the records won't immediately be searchable by name.

For those whose relatives lived in New York City, the New York Public Library is aiming to make it simpler to search this holy grail of information about what life was like during periods such as the Great Depression and the lead-up to World War II.

The library is launching an online tool to allow users to type in names and, potentially, locate census forms listing a host of details on every person living in the family household at the time of the census.

More HERE.

What Big Media Can Learn From the New York Public

From the Atlantic, June 2011:

"Despite looming budget cuts, the library is flourishing and putting out
some of the most innovative online projects in the country"

Freedom of Information Day at the New York Public Library

Who: David Barstow, of The New York Times
What: Freedom of Information Day
Where: Science, Industry and Business Library; Conf. Room 014/015
When: March 16; 10:30-12:00

Freedom of Information Day will be observed at the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) of The New York Public Library (188 Madison Ave. @ 34th Street) on Wednesday, March 16, with a presentation and discussion from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in Conference Room 014/015 on the lower level of the library. This year’s guest speaker is David Barstow, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times. He will discuss freedom of information and the freedom of the press, particularly how accessing government information using the Freedom of Information Act affects the work of journalists. The title of his presentation is: “ Freedom of Information: The Act (FOIA), the Press and the Future.”

Established by a Congressional Joint Resolution in 1989, Freedom of Information Day is held on or near March 16, the birthday of James Madison, fourth President of the United States and primary architect of the Bill of Rights. The observance underscores the importance of freedom of the press, speech, information, and the public’s right to know.

David Barstow has been an investigative reporter for The New York Times since 2002. Mr. Barstow joined The New York Times in 1999, as a reporter for the Metro desk.

In 2002 and 2003, Mr. Barstow reported extensively on workplace safety in America, leading a team of journalists that produced two series for The Times and an hour-long documentary for the PBS program "Frontline." The two series, "Dangerous Business" and "When Workers Die,'' won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2004. The two series and the documentary were also recognized with the duPont Silver Baton, an award long regarded as the Pulitzer Prize of television reporting.

In 2009, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for "Message Machine," two articles that exposed a covert Pentagon campaign to use retired military officers, working as analysts for television and radio networks, to reiterate administration "talking points" about the war on terror.

His most recent article, “Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours,” appeared on December 26, 2010.

Before joining the paper, Mr. Barstow worked for The St. Petersburg Times in Florida beginning in 1990, reporting on a wide range of issues. While there, he was a finalist for three Pulitzer Prizes: in 1997, he was the lead writer for coverage of race riots and was a finalist for spot news reporting; in 1998, he helped lead coverage of financial wrongdoing at the National Baptist Convention and was a finalist for investigative reporting; and, that same year, he wrote a series of stories about tobacco litigation and was a finalist for explanatory journalism. Before joining The St.
Petersburg Times, Mr. Barstow was a reporter for The Rochester Times-Union in upstate New York.

This event is free and open to the public. No reservations are required.

When Crisis Calls: NYPL develops a policy on callers who threaten suicide

By Matthew J. Boylan for American Libraries

A telephone keypad can be a lifesaver.

I recently answered a call on ASK NYPL, the New York Public Library’s telephonic and electronic reference line, from the New York City Police Department. A 16-year-old girl was threatening to throw herself off the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge that links Brooklyn to Staten Island, and the only identification that she had in her effects was an NYPL library card — with its barcode on the back that could provide her identity, home address, and contact information for her parents...