Blog Posts by Subject: Technology

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.

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 central stacks that lie beneath the Rose Main Reading Room. As a "tour guide" on one of the 18 enormously popular stack tours, I thought it would be fun to share my "patter" with a wider audience.

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 given.

"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?

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 technological pace.

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?

“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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 127th Street)
Manhattan 10035

This FREE event will be held again on Saturday, May 9: same time, same place. Can’t make it on those days?