Blog Posts by Subject: Technology

I like to cook, but I am not much of a baker. There is one yearly exception... the transition to autumn and then the holiday season usually puts me in a baking mood. For the past few Christmases I've made biscotti — Italian cookies flavored with nuts, spices, or dried fruits. They are something of a tradition in my family. This year when I got out my mixing bowl I grabbed a dry measure for the flour and sugar, but then I put it away. I decided not to use it.

Since my early childhood, I loved going to the library. There were so many strange books, some written in other languages, with pictures, diagrams and magazines with glossy photos of people in far-away lands, living exciting lives.

My childhood seemed so problematic, so mundane and regardless of what I thought or did, tomorrow would come and go...

Every day brings us all a little closer, but to what? The books, magazines, movies and television of the day often depict two worlds, two evolving futures.

Browsing the Digital Gallery today, I came across this interesting set of cigarette cards. And since I don't think there is anyone who doesn't love space, science, retrofuturism, invisibility and dogs, I thought I'd share a few of them here.

As a visiting artist at the NYPL, I felt the need from the very beginning of my stay in New York City to explore the library visually by making drawings of it on my iPad. The library’s landmark building at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street caught my attention immediately. In the room of the Art and Architecture Collection, the reddish light coming from the reflections of the floor, the wood and the books was one of my first visual discoveries. I loved the quietness of the room, the stillness of everything in there, and, of course, the big table lamps that look like elegant immovable figures among the human figures. All these elements kept me drawing for hours without a break — five 

(with apologies, in advance, to the amazing Chris Raschka.)

"Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one." —Neil Gaiman

In September 2015 the Picture Collection, which is located on the third floor of the Mid-Manhattan Branch of The New York Public Library, will celebrate its centennial.

Are you 24 or over and looking for a career in the green advanced manufacturing industry?

Green Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative (GAMC), a partnership between New York City College of Technology’s Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology and Industrial Design and the Business and Industry Training Center, is responsive to workforce education needs of NYC’s revitalized manufacturing sector. The program rallies resources and stakeholders from the public and private sectors, economic and workforce development agencies, unions and CBOs to help individuals navigate a career path through cutting edge technology education while contributing to the 

Brooklyn Workforce Innovations helps jobless and working poor New Yorkers establish careers in sectors that offer good wages and opportunities for advancement.

Currently BWI offers free job training programs in four industries: commercial driving, telecommunications cable installation, TV and film production, and skilled woodworking.

We have a Crafternoon every Tuesday at the Mulberry Street Library. Sometimes we make bracelets, sometimes we make greeting cards. But last month we were able to play with 3D.

We often get asked about firsts in printing history in the Rare Book Division. Machinae novae Favsti Verantii siceni (Venice, 1595) known as Machinae Novae, or New Machines, contains some of the first printed images related to engineering and machinery.

I learned to code when I was in fourth grade. Okay... maybe that's an exaggeration. I learned Logo when I was in elementary school, using an Apple IIe (in the school library, naturally) and later a Macintosh.

Logo is a programming language that was developed as an educational tool for kids. You issue commands to the "turtle" (pictured at left) and receive output as his simple or complex path on the screen. I didn't know it at the time, but I was solving puzzles and making cool geometric patterns because my teachers wanted me to learn how to think about computers and logic. I didn't consider myself to be programming a computer, but just doing an assignment that was 

They weren't found in Area 51; or Area 57 or Hangar 18 or anywhere close to Roswell for that matter. For those of you who want to believe — I'm sorry, you'll have to wait a bit longer. The bibliographic record for this find shows the US Alien Property Custodian as author, and these patents, or patent applications in the cases ascertained so far, are documents from the Second World War.

Does the word homework make you cringe in your seat?

Well, you can find complete, trustworthy information a lot faster using the Library's databases.

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

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 will open May 14. On a smaller scale, this might be a good opportunity to mention SIBL's extensive collection of trade and professional journals.

Since 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 Trademark Depository Libraries (PTDLs) throughout the country. Soon there will be none.... Why?

The 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 "All That Jazz."  These materials can be fragile—they were often written hurriedly on cheap paper and in poor quality ink—but over the thousands of years since the technology of 

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.

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.

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.