Newly Completed High-Speed Digital Information Network Is Launched at The New York Public Library

Speeds up to 400 Times Faster Let Library Users Access Electronic Resources in All Library Locations, Creating a "Virtual Single Site"

New York City, September 16, 1998 -- At precisely 4:15 p.m. today, The New York Public Library's President, Dr. Paul LeClerc, and the Library's Honorary Chairman, Brooke Astor, symbolically flipped a switch to officially launch the most sophisticated high-speed information network of any library, anywhere. "Libraries as the repositories of human thought and creativity are changing rapidly in the information age, and The New York Public Library has changed more than any other," Dr. LeClerc said. "Libraries are the only place people can go for free access to computers and all of the resources they can tap into. Now we can deliver that information to our users with unprecedented speed and clarity."

With a tremendous boost in speed of between 27 times and 400 times faster than before, the new digital information network has enabled the creation of a virtual single site from the user's point of view. This means that a patron in a neighborhood branch, for instance, will be able to, for the first time, hear an audio clip, download a digital image, or view an Internet-quality video clip, all drawn seamlessly from different collections and locations from within the immense New York Public Library (NYPL) system. It also means that he can find the information he is searching for in a fraction of the time previously needed. Another new possibility is video broadcasting or conferencing, which opens up opportunities for "distance learning." A literacy class, an author lecture, or a staff training course can take place in one library and have participants in many others.

The new network is the result of over two years of creative thinking, planning, design, and implementation, spearheaded by David Sturm, the Library's Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer. "We faced a formidable challenge: how to attain the high speeds necessary for much of the information our users seek today ? which comes in many different formats and from many different locations within our system ? while keeping all of this transparent to the user. We wanted to create a centralized network that would anticipate rather than respond to needs and allow the Library's four research centers and 85 branch libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island to share information." In addition, costs needed to be managed in anticipation of ever increasing demands on the network.

The "Dark Fiber" SONET Ring
At the heart of the new system lies a 23.1-mile underground ring of fiber optic cable, a so-called SONET (synchronous optical network) ring, that circles from 34th Street up to 135th Street and back, tying in to six main Library locations in Manhattan: the Science, Industry and Business Library, Center for the Humanities, Mid-Manhattan Library, Donnell Library Center, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
T1 (1.5 megabits per second) lines connect the branch libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island with the SONET ring, which runs at OC-12 (622 megabits per second) speeds. The branch network is being implemented in two phases: the connection of 50 branches in northern Manhattan and the Bronx was just completed, with the remaining branches in southern Manhattan and Staten Island to follow by December.

Referred to as "dark fiber," the strands of glass that comprise the network light up when data is transmitted, and those data bundles travel across the network at the speed of light. "It's called dark because we've leased four strands of fiber ‘unlit,'" explains Sturm. "To give an idea of what that means in terms of speed: we could send 522 electronic copies of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland over the network in one second."

The new system will greatly enhance the quantity and quality of information available to the branch libraries, most of which were running at speeds of only 56 kilobits per second and which have now all been upgraded to at least T1 line speeds (27 times faster). The four research libraries, Mid-Manhattan Library, and Donnell Library Center in Manhattan now operate at OC-12 speeds (400 times faster). But the network was designed with the future in mind, and the Library has the flexibility of increasing the network bandwidth to meet new applications as needed, including ones that cannot yet be imagined. (For further details, please see the "Technical Details" fact sheet.)

Digital Collections and the Internet
With the emergence of the Internet as an important information source came the development of NYPL's own website in 1995 (www.nypl.org) and the launch of its first online collection, Digital Schomburg (digital.nypl.org), which contains 56 texts and more than 500 images relating to African American history. The New York Public Library's online visitors, who today log in from some 145 countries around the globe, initiate more than 2.7 million electronic sessions annually, with a projected growth rate of 70 percent a year. Patrons remotely accessing the Library's electronic information will experience improved access, while those using NYPL's resources at its locations will experience better and faster access to the Library's diverse collections and to the resources on the Internet.

Vendors
The strands of dark fiber have been leased from the New York City-based Metromedia Fiber Network, Inc. (MFN), the sole vendor able to provide both the fiber and the service at the speeds and locations the Library sought. Cisco Systems, Inc., the San Jose-based leader in networking for the Internet, supplied The New York Public Library with the routers, switches, and network management tools. (Please see the enclosed "Technical Details" fact sheet.)

Funding
The New York Public Library received $2.6 million from the City of New York: Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Speaker Peter Vallone, and the New York City Council for the installation and enhancement of the high-speed telecommunications network. A $500,000 grant through the United States Department of Commerce/Telecommunications Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP) helped upgrade the telecommunications lines to 20 neighborhood branches. (The purpose of the grant is to provide access to images, graphics, and sound via the Web so that individuals with limited literacy skills can more easily gain access to user-friendly electronic resources.)

The New York State Advanced Telecommunications Project/Bell Atlantic Diffusion Fund provided $221,725 to upgrade the telecommunications lines to 40 branches.

The John Morgridge Foundation, a California-based not-for-profit organization founded by Cisco Systems' Chairman, donated an additional $100,000 in equipment, funding that was added after the project was already under way. (Please see the enclosed "Digital Information Network Funding" fact sheet for more details.)
 

Forthcoming Digital Collections
Technical Details
Digital Information Network Funding  
 

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pro: th, cmo: 9-16-98