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NYPL’s Bldg. at 5th Ave. & 42nd St. on Postcards

May 23rd, 2011
I thought I would do one more post on the New York Public Library's building located at 5th Ave. & 42nd St. since this is the actual day of the centennial celebration for the building. I don't know how many different postcard views of this iconic building exist but there are dozens, maybe hundreds. I deliberately only have a few postcards showing the 5th Avenue building (I have to be selective).  The one shown here is my favorite. It was mailed to the American Barracks in Tientsin, China on May 2, 1933, probably to a postcard collector since it doesn't have a message, only the name of the sender. As a bibliophilatelist, I like the fact that the postage stamps are on the front of the postcard, something you probably couldn't get away with today. The postcard shows the hustle and bustle of 5th Ave., and the back of the card notes that "Fifth Avenue and 42nd St., is the busiest crossing in the city where traffic is heavy at all hours of the day and night."  The ideal corner for where a public library should be located. Also prominently displayed on the postcard is the 300 Fifth Ave. Building.  The back of the card notes that this 38 story office building has 1,000 windows overlooking the public library and Bryant Park. For more postcard views of the NYPL at 5th Ave. & 42nd St. click HERE (Judy Aulik) and HERE (Sharon McQueen). I've also written a previous post about NYPL postcards. Most of my collection of artifacts related to the New York Public Library are postal items other than postcards, but a wide variety of souvenir items related to the New York Public Library exist and offer a great collecting opportunity. 

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Virginia Haviland (1911-1988)

May 21st, 2011
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Virginia Haviland, world renown children's literature proponent and authority. According to Barbara Immroth who wrote Haviland's entry in the Dictionary of American Library Biography, Second Supplement (Libraries Unlimited, 2003), Haviland's credo was "The right book for the right child at the right time." A worthy credo supported universally by children's librarians. Haviland was a children's librarian and branch librarian at the Boston Public Library for almost 30 years starting in 1934. In 1963 she became the head of the Children's Book Section of the Library of Congress where she retired in 1981. Immroth indicates that Haviland wrote extensively for children and adults with her best known children's books being those in the "Favorite Fairy Tales" series published by Little Brown. To children's literature students in library school she is probably best known for her Children's Literature: A Guide To Reference Sources. Haviland received many honors including the Grolier Award for "unusual contributions to the stimulation and guidance of reading by children and young people" and Honorary Life Membership given by the American Library Association in 1982.

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Library Magnets

May 20th, 2011



Almost any gift store in a tourist area or at a tourist attraction have souvenir magnets for sale.  They're a reasonably priced memento that can easily be placed on the handy refrigerator door.  Magnets containing telephone and location information are also commonly given away by various businesses. Libraries and library organizations in recent years have also made use of magnets for a variety of purposes. They make a nice collectible for the librariana collector.  I put mine on a metal file cabinet.

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NYPL Stacks

May 19th, 2011

The dramatic depiction of the stack area of the New York Public Library building located at 5th Ave. & 42nd St. which is shown above appeared on the front cover of the May 27, 1911 issue of Scientific American. The article inside the journal described the mechanics of how a library user was able to retrieve a book from the seven tiers of closed stacks in the library located under the main reading room.  Pneumatic tubes played a large role in that process.  Those tubes were used to transmit a library user's request rapidly to the appropriate stack level and area where the requested item/s were located by a library staff member.  The item/s were then placed on one of eight mechanical lifts for transport to the main reading room or one of the library's other reading areas. Each of the lifts was capable of carrying 250 pounds of books at a rate of 150 feet per minute. On the sixth stack tier there were two horizontal conveyers that facilitated the transfer of books to the appropriate lift. Those conveyers according to Scientific American consisted of  an endless track with an endless rope running above it attached to two cars or baskets on wheels. This sounds similar to an arrangement at the Boston Public Library that I wrote about previously. The New York Public Library continues to use a similar system today. An online article about the NYPL's use of pneumatic tubes appears HERE. On Saturday May 21 as part of the NYPL's centennial celebration for the building, there will be public tours of the closed stack area. I would love to be able to take one of those tours. 

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The New York Public Library on Stamps

May 16th, 2011
This month the New York Public Library is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the dedication of its iconic building at 5th Avenue & 42nd Street now known as the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.  For this occasion I have assembled a philatelic tribute to the library on the Library History Buff website which features representations of this landmark building on stamps.  The postage stamp featuring one of the famous lions in front of the building (shown here) was issued by the United States in 2000. The purpose of the stamp was to pay for pre-sorted standard mail. Because the United States Postal Service has a policy against honoring individual local institutions, the stamp was to be issued with out any reference to the New York Public Library.  However, the NYPL required that the inscription "The New York Public Library" be added to the stamp because the lion is trademarked by NYPL. The stamps were in widespread use for a number of years by bulk mailers, and as a result they were probably used on more envelopes than any library related stamps in history. Three other countries have issued postage stamps featuring the building at 5th Avenue & 42nd Street. For a number of years I have advocated, to no avail, for a postage stamp which honors all public libraries in the United States. I also have a webpage that shows all postage stamps that feature U.S. libraries and a webpage that shows U.S. library people on postage stamps.

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