NYPL Blogs

As the centennial year of The New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building comes to a close and the next 100 years begin, it's a good opportunity to journey through the history, collections, and people behind the scenes of one of the world's premiere music collections. 

On Saturday, December 3, 2011, Phyllis Newman, Tony-award winning actress and illustrator of What's New at the Zoo? by Betty Comden, came to the South Court auditorium of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building to read the book. Kids from PS 212 sang the book, which is actually the lyrics to the song in a Broadway Show, Do Re Mi.

NYPL's business library, SIBL, learned recently that it had been named the 2012 recipient of the Malcom S. Forbes Public Awareness Award for Advancing Financial Understanding. The Financial Planning Association of New York will present the award at its annual spring forum in April but there's no time like the present to highlight the financial education resources and services that garnered this recognition for NYPL. It's a given that there's something here that can help you better manage your personal finances starting now.

Well, so Yudie is not exactly a Bubbie, but I simply could not resist the alliteration.  (Although, Tante and the Beats would make an excellent band name, don't you think?)

This month's LESHFS pairs the seemingly improvised storytelling of the Beat Generation with the candid and (seemingly) unrehearsed historytelling of a first generation American to Russian-Jewish parents that landed in the Lower East Side.

Happy New Year from TeenLIVE! For our first TeenLIVE event in 2012, we were lucky enough to hear from teen author and activist Gaby Rodriguez about her book, The Pregnancy Project. Seeing the effect of teen pregnancy on her family and peers, the straight A student decided to stage a pregnancy for a senior project at school to combat stereotypes and gossip. The day after she revealed that her pregnancy was, in fact, fake, her life was blown into a media whirlwind! News outlets swarmed her small town of Toppenish, Washington, and less than a year later, she’s flying across the country to Hollywood and New York City for talk show and radio appearances, book signings and 

This February in the eReading Room we'll be celebrating all the different ways we love to read. If you're the kind of person who will read a cereal box if it's the only thing nearby, you'll want to pay special attention to this four-part series. I'll be detailing some of the new ways we read now, outside of the traditional printed-and-bound-and-published volume (which, don't get me wrong, we still love just as much). This purpose of this series is to help you get the most out of online reading at work, at home, or on the go.

Richard Yates, born February 3, 1926, lived at 27 Seventh Avenue South, at the corner of Bedford Street in New York City, just steps from Hudson Park Library.

The steampunk genre has been around for some time now, and while some may disagree, I most strongly associate it with The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a graphic novel, by Alan Moore.

This list is a monthly compilation of my own personal favorite patron requests for music. I hope you will check out some of the great music that  Library users have suggested we acquire!

The January 14 issue of The Economist has reviewed (and maybe recommended...) five new books on a few different business topics. I'm using this as an opportunity to post a list of these titles with links to the Library's collections.

Most people have experienced brushes with the Otherworld, that liminal place where dimensions overlap and reality shimmers, shivers, and breaks apart: seeing ghosts, dreaming "true" dreams, meeting that strange and uncannily helpful "person" at just the right moment... These situations are more common than we collectively admit — but attitudes are shifting. According to the Institute of Noetic Sciences, "The paranormal is no longer a fringe subject. Need proof? Only 32 percent of Americans report no paranormal beliefs, and half of the population reports belief in two or more paranormal phenomena." About.com reports that 71 percent of 

A Guest Blog on Victor Herbert's Birthday by Professor William Everett

Victor Herbert’s Babes in Toyland is typical of turn-of-the-century musical theater in that it encompasses various musical styles and tropes drawn from multiple genres. Musical comedy, as Babes in Toyland is described in the libretto, is evident in the comedic dialogue and contemporary references. Extravaganza, the designator it shares with The Wizard of Oz, comes through dazzling spectacle. But it is operetta, the quintessential Continental European style, that concerns us here.

Here's February, and you already knew it was coming — not because of your calendar, but because of all the red and pink Valentine's Day things you've been seeing in all the stores! Why don't you make New Dorp Library your Valentine this year? Curl up with a book in one of our new comfy chairs or take a movie home to enjoy a night in. Feeling active? Spend some time with the ones you love and attend one of our programs! We've got a little something for everyone!  

Welcome to the Reader's Den selection for the month of February 2012: The Servants by M.M. Smith. Michael Marshall Smith is generally known for his sci-fi and mystery novels. The Servants — a subtle little ghost story and coming-of-age novel — is a departure from this genre.

Is it really the end of January? It doesn't feel like it... (60º F?!)

Either way, the NYPL Blogs have been off to a great start in 2012. In case you're just joining us...

The other day someone asked if I still read "regular books." Have I become anti-paper with my new Kindle love? The answer to that is, look at the paper cuts on my fingers. I am a fan of reading, whether it's in book format or electronic. During my commute I use my Kindle because it's lighter to carry around, but I still love the feeling of a heavy book on my lap when I read in my apartment. When looking for material to read or download, I can now do all of my searching and downloading in New York Public Library's catalog. Thus my latest eReading searching tip: keep it simple, use one catalog.

Novels don't need illustrations. An author should be able to conjure the appropriate word pictures without having to rely on the interpretations of some interfering third-party illustrator. Yet some books seem curiously mated to their illustrations. You have only to think of Dickens and Cruikshank, or Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel. To this short list I would add Charlotte and Emily Brontë and one of their latter-day illustrators, Fritz Eichenberg. As engrossing as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights might be — and they are about as engrossing as narratives can get — I have a hard time imagining them stripped of these dramatic wood 

Norman Mailer, best known for The Naked and the Dead and The Executioner's Song, was born on January 31. He lived at 73 Perry Street in New York City.

For the week of January 29, 2012, we have hardcover fiction, hardcover non-fiction, and paperback mass-market fiction.

If any of you has a new iPhone, iPad or Android phone, there is a free app! Use it with your Library card/username and pin.

Click on any of the titles below and place a hold to request the item. Remember to update your contact information (phone number or e-mail address), so you are notified when the book arrives for you at your local library. Don't have a library card yet? It's simple! Find out how to get one. Titles are available in regular print, large print, audio, and in electronic format — for