Stephen A. Schwarzman Building > History > A Bibliography

Personal Accounts and Historical Works on The New York Public Library

Alexander, Jack. Everybody's Clubhouse (Philadelphia, 1942). This article, originally appearing in the September 26, 1942, issue of The Saturday Evening Post, is an informal account of the Library's history, collections, and reference sources. *HND+ (N.Y.P.L.)

Allen, Frederick Lewis. "Consumer's Report on the Library," in The New York Public Library Bulletin, November 1951, pp. 523-526. This is Allen's salute to the Library and its librarians whom he calls "entrepreneurs of entertainment" and "participants in intellectual exploration and creation."

Berger, Meyer. The Library (1956) This brief introduction to the resources of the Library, originally appearing in the January 27, 1940, issue of The New Yorker, is useful for its photographs and discussion of reference questions answered by librarians during the 1940s and 1950s. F-10 387 and *HND (N.Y.P.L.)

Class Mark The first issue of this periodical, published in New York from 1935 through 1939, begins with the ringing declaration, "We are the librarians, pages, and service workers in the New York Public Library system who are members of the Communist Party and of the young Communist League." This newsletter dedicated itself to fight against "the intolerable working conditions, low salaries, and vicious system of spying," which, it claimed, characterized and defined life at the Library. *ZAN- 7992

Henderson, Harry B., Jr. "The Private Life of the Public Library," New Masses, June 6, 1939, pp. 4-7. This leftist critique of The New York Public Library accused its Board of Trustees of being a "self-perpetuating body consisting of the wealthiest, most reactionary financiers in America," uninterested in public education and unrepresentative of the population of New York City. Alleging censorship in the Library's acquisitions policy and deterioration of its book stock, the author calls for the liquidation of the Board whose membership is labeled "reactionary and fascist-minded." The call number of New Masses is *ZAN-5832.

Kazin, Alfred. "To Room 315, with Love," The New York Times Book Review, April 30, 1972, pp. 42-44. The writer's tribute to the main Reading Room of the Library where, when researching modern American literature, he had "nothing more delightful to do than to sit much of the day and many an evening at one of those long golden tables acquainting myself with every side of the subject." Request The New York Times for the date given in Room 100.

Lenin, Vladimir. Collected Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1963), volume 19, pp. 277-279. This volume contains Lenin's laudatory comments on the services and outreach of the Library, based upon his reading of The New York Public Library Report of 1911. K-10 2700, volume 19.

Metcalf, Keyes DeWitt. Random Recollections of an Anachronism: or Seventy-five Years of Library Work (New York: Readex Books, 1980) This memoirs of a former administrator of the Library (1913-1937) is valuable for its anecdotes about the collections and personalities of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building during its early years. Perhaps the most amusing story is that relating to Whitaker Chambers, who was dismissed from Library employment for stealing books from the libraries of Columbia University; Chambers, who had worked in the newspaper division, had tried "to destroy the identification marks" of the books in question (p. 158). JFE 89-2312

New York Public Library. Book of Charters, Wills, Deeds and other Official Documents (New York: Printed for the Trustees, 1905) *HND (N.Y.P.L.) 84-2703 (The 1895 edition of this work is on microfilm: *Z-960.)

New York Public Library. Staff News Published since July 1911, this weekly organ of the Library offers a continuing record of the Library's personnel activities, programs, regulations, and internal functions. *HND

New York Public Library. Public Relations Office. Press Clippings (New York: May 1897-November 12, 1959) Selected news items relating to the Library and now microfilmed. *ZAN-5823

New York Public Library. Public Relations Office. Press Releases and Radio and Television Scripts (New York: 1946-1959) *ZAN-5824

New York Public Library. Reference Department. Scrapbooks (New York: 1858-1946) *ZAN-5817

New York Public Library News Published from March 1983, to the present, this newsletter provides information to those outside the Library about its programs, exhibits, lectures, and special functions; please request this item in Room 108. The predecessor to this publication was Library Lions, published from fall, 1970, through December, 1982; it has the call number *HND (N.Y.P.L.) 78-1493

Reading Rooms, edited by Susan Allen Toth and John Coughlan (New York: Doubleday, 1991) This anthology of writings about public libraries includes several works on the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of The New York Public Library. E.B. White is represented by two poems: "A Library Lion Speaks" (from his work The Lady is Cold, 1928), and "Reading Room" (from Poems and Sketches of E.B. White, 1981). Descriptions of the Reading Room of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building are provided by Alfred Kazin (excerpt from New York Jew, 1978), Edmund Wilson ("Response of the Gentle Scholars," a poem published in Notebooks of Night, 1942), and Henry Miller, whose work Plexus (1953) evokes the excitement of being in a reading room "the size of a cathedral, under a lofty ceiling which was an imitation of heaven itself." William Cole's essay, "The Heart of the Heart of the Library," discusses the scope and variety of information and reference questions encountered at the Information Desk in Room 315; Elizabeth Hardwick's memoir, "Back Issues," offers a personalized, impressionistic account of the Library and its readers. JFE 91-3886

Stevens, Henry. Recollections of Mr. James Lenox of New York, and the Formation of his Library (London: Stevens, 1887) C-13 2272 for other editions of this work, consult CATNYP and the Dictionary Catalog.

Striker, Cecil. John Shaw Billings, 1838-1913 (Cincinnati, 1969) John Shaw Billings, the first Director of the Library, conceived and designed the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, created its administrative structure, established its collections, and devised a classification scheme for the holdings. JFF 75-13 See also Chapman, Carleton B. Order out of Chaos: John Shaw Billings and America's Coming of Age (Boston: Boston Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, 1994) *R-AN (Billings) 98-9892

Zinsser, William K. Search and Research: The Collections and Uses of The New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42^nd Street (New York: New York Public Library, 1961) Calling the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building "a classical white marble temple, incongruous amid the drab skyscrapers at Fifth Avenue and 42^nd Street," the author lucidly analyzes the different collections housed in the building, some of its remarkable holdings, and its role as a major cultural and scholarly resource in American life. *R- *HND (N.Y.P.L.) 89- 1765 or F-10 5736.