Blog Posts by Subject: Technology

Lurid. Glint of an axe falling. Streams of red. Flash of orange. Jagged slashes.

But wait — look closer. What's this title? Axe Manual ... of Peter McLaren: America's Champion Chopper.

Axe lore? Acquired in 20 years of chopping competition? Chopping a national sport in Australia? Man's obligation to growing trees?

I get it. It's about chopping wood. Woodcraft. Boy Scouts. Conservation. Forestry. Arboriculture.

Pamphlets. Don't see many anymore. Other places for that kind of information.

Pamphlets. Lots of them. Bound 

This May is a month of celebration here at NYPL. A 100 year birthday for the Library’s landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, and here at SIBL, we mark 15 years of operation. As appropriate for 100 years, NYPL will focus on many of its incredible research collections in the new exhibition Celebrating 100 Years, which 

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Spring 2011Since 1871, the United States Patent Office (now the Patent and Trademark Office) has partnered with libraries (including a predecessor to NYPL) in different parts of the United States, creating depositories of patents and trademarks so local inventors and businesspeople can conveniently search these documents in anticipation of their own filings or registrations. For the last several years there have been around 80 to 85 Patent and 

Howard Ashman's disks at the Library of CongressThe Performing Arts Library has an amazing collection of manuscript and typewritten drafts from some of the greatest writers and musicians in the world.  The processes that led to groundbreaking experimental music compositions like John Cage's Music of Changes or Imaginary Landscape No. 1 are documented in the artist's papers. The Fred Ebb collection allows a researcher to peer into the creative process that led to lyrics like "Life is a Cabaret" and 

In recognition of Black History Month, I thought I would take this opportunity to suggest U.S. Patents as an available primary resource that can be used to do historical and biographical research on African American Inventors.

NYPL has a strong collection of resources on African American inventors, both in our research collections (Schomburg and

Continuing from our January 31st entry, and again using Richard Stim's Patent, Copyright and Trademark as our springboard, here is some brief information about the remaining two types of intellectual property; trade secrets and its "polar opposite", patents.

Trade Secrets: According to Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard's Almanack of July 1735, 

Here at the Science, Industry and Business Library, the title we most frequently recommend to patent researchers is David Pressman's Patent It Yourself, currently available at the library in its 14th edition.

While SIBL is the New York Public Library's representative to the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Patent and Trademark Depository Library 

On Sunday, December 5, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building was the site of the 2010 Holiday Open House, the Library's annual thank-you celebration for donors at the Friends level ($40) or above. Besides enjoying building-wide party fun, attendees were offered a rare opportunity to glimpse a part of the Library that is normally hidden from public view: the building's 

Did you know you can ask NYPL librarians questions via text message? You can ask anything, from the mundane and everyday ("what are your hours?") to the perplexing riddle keeping you up at night! The Virtual Reference Team (aka Ask NYPL) offers text reference, which is a great way to receive an almost immediate answer without missing a beat. Text questions are answered quickly unless the question mystifies the expert reference librarians of Ask NYPL, but a response will always be 

"Balancing the demands of consumers, regulators, policymakers, and stakeholders is a daunting task… even under the best of circumstances. Add to this the ever increasing complexity of contemporary … issues and simply keeping up with the changing landscape can become a full time job." Sound familiar from the current debates between Facebook and users, or Google and users, or YouTube and users?

Counter to potential expectations, the previous quote did not come from any social media dispute, but from the 

Color, sound, flash—today’s web experience is experientially active. Surfing the Internet is a multisensory experience that puts the user in the midst of information and entertainment. The one catch is that you need a fast connection alongside the computer hardware. To download PDF a file while watching a music video that you are simultaneously twittering about certainly is beyond the reach of a cell phone. And while the glitz and sound of cutting edge technology is a lure, it is time to consider what we can achieve globally if we step back our 

For Internet searching, roughly 65% of computer users turn to Google. To see the popularity of Google, one has to look no further than ‘Google’ being 'declared' a verb by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. How is that for official proof that Google is big in the search world and winning prominence?

In its path to verbification, 

“With the emerging digital economy becoming a major driving force of our nation's economic well-being, we must ensure that all Americans have the information tools and skills that are critical to their participation. Access to such tools is an important step to ensure that our economy grows strongly and that in the future no one is left behind.”

— from Falling Through the Net, a letter from William M. Daley, U.S. Secretary of Commerce 1997-2000

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This 

The day has come, and the sound of cash register bells still ring in your ears. Or, the bells would ring if the cashier's computer had sound effects. But it doesn't matter, for you are riding the surging thrill of attaining the hailed product of the latest media bliss.

You have bought the computer all the tech blogs and computer gurus are talking about. After shelling out a minimum of $499 dollars, US, you open the box, and there it lays in pristine shiny plastic with a black emblem - your new 

October 19 is not going to be a good day.

For some people this would be an educated guess. For Destiny Faraday it is a bleak statement of fact. It is also part of why she tries so hard to never get attached. To anything or anyone.

October 19 has never been a good day for Des, which is why she crumples the day’s calendar page before the day has even started.

What was supposed to be a throw away day suddenly turns into something else. Thanks to an encounter with an odd stranger and the sudden appearance of a car, Destiny and three of her 

Many of us, use google for everything. We look up addresses, movie times, weather, admit it you know you have typed in your name too. In any case, google has become a search strategy, but many of us do not use all of the incredible features it has to offer.

How to do a basic google search?

-Always put your search terms in "quotation marks". This will allow google to search the words as a phrase.

-When specifying your search use "+" to include another topic in your search OR use "-" to exclude a topic from your search.

-You can also specify what 

Now we all have heard horrific stories about sexual predators preying on our kids online. Facts like this make it scary for parents and teachers to feel comfortable with social networking sites. It's extremely important and our responsibility as adults to provide safety measures to kids when using the internet.

Ask questions (find out what the kids are doing online and confirm if they are telling the truth) View their profile page (make sure personal information or provocative pictures are not posted on the child's webpage) Inform them that not 

As we watch with astonishment the "restructuring" of two American automotive titans, take a look back at the first four decades of their history, a time which saw multiple breaking waves of innovation in both engineering and design, and a steady absorption of manufacturing brands into the conglomerates we now see in crisis today.

Over the years, General Motors Corporation donated photographs and related materials as a public service to 

Right here in zip code 10035 you can keep your child safe in your car. Just stop by Chevrolet-Saturn of Harlem on Saturday, April 11 between 11 am and 3 pm for a FREE safety check of your child car seat.

A trained car seat technician will check your seat and demonstrate correct installation. No appointment is necessary. DOT is sponsoring this event is in partnership with Safe Kids New York City and Chevrolet-Saturn of Harlem.

Chevrolet-Saturn of Harlem 2485 Second Avenue (at