Blog Posts by Subject: Books and Libraries

If we take Esther Johnston's memories as a standard, it is the library that has stayed the same more than anything.

As SIBL prepares to mark the twentieth anniversary of its opening on May 2, 1996, one sure way to illustrate the depth and diversity of its rich research collections is the following selective list of book publications whose authors credit SIBL resources—bibliographic and human—in their acknowledgements.

It's National Library Week! The American Library Association encourages everyone to help spread the library love.

Gwen and Frank discuss books that defy description and throw reality for a loop. Longtime residents of Harlem, Greenwich Village, the Bronx, and more get shout-outs in an interview with NYPL's Alex Kelly about the Library's oral history projects.

Cloth bindings flourished during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and their designers exercised incredible creativity until the more economical dust jacket took hold as the book's decorative wrapping.

Earnestness sets in when Singing Children's Librarian Emily Lazio joins us to talk about courage and encouragement, children's classics, and a cool new trend in picture books.

A big shout-out for Women's History Month from us here at NYPL Recommends!

Today’s episode features a note from Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen to an unidentified friend—“Eddie”—regarding a social gathering preceding the wedding of Yolande Du Bois and Countee Cullen.

The Digital Experience team had to figure out how to update our first React application in production to organize the new data. This blog post will explain how we refactored Staff Picks with React best practices.

Today’s episode features a love letter from Trinidadian social theorist, historian and political activist C.L.R. James (1901-1989) to his wife and confidant the actress, model, writer and activist Constance Webb (1918-2005).

Participants at our book social reached out to share on romantic love, artistic passion, brotherly love, love of a place, love of an idea for our February Open Book Night.

Here at Woodlawn Heights we have five, yes five different Book Clubs offering a different title every month.

A love letter from musician and composer Nathan Woodard to his wife and creative collaborator Alice Childress.

Learn how the work of the Copyright and Information Policy team contributed to the recent public domain release, and continues to expand access to our collections.

Today’s episode features a memorable love note from leading Harlem Renaissance painter, illustrator, and graphic artist Aaron Douglas to his wife and life partner Alta Sawyer Douglas, an esteemed educator and Harlemite.

Today’s letter features correspondence between Arturo Alfonso Schomburg and Langston Hughes. In the excerpt below, Schomburg speaks with Hughes regarding acquisitions for The Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints—the forerunner to today’s Schomburg Center.

Classification, the basic process of categorization, is simple in theory but becomes complex in practice. At their core these various systems of categorization are simply based on good faith judgments. Whoever organized your local grocery thought: “Cookies seem pretty similar to crackers, I will put them together in the same aisle.”

The hashtag game #InternetABook asks you to internet-ify your favorite books. At NYPL, we love a pun almost as much as we love books, so we've created a few of our own and selected some of the finest contributions on Twitter.

Last year, the Mid-Manhattan Library hosted distinguished scholars and authors at the Author @ The Library series. Some of the topics presented included photography, education, science and technology, New York City, performing and visual arts, politics and government, religion and sports.