New York Public Library

New York Public Library is a business but a business like no other. The library’s sole purpose is to transact in materials not money. Ours is a business based on trust. We lend. The library has millions of dollars in materials and we trust that the people who borrow these materials will return what they take. We hope in as good as condition as possible. Naturally there is wear, that is expected.

Everyday here in the Milstein Division, we get questions from all over the city and around the country about the history of New York City. Questions range from the very specific, “What was the weather in Manhattan on May 7th 1864?” to the dauntingly vague, “My great-grandfather lived in New York, his name was Patrick Murphy. Could you send me information on him?” Fortunately, the library’s collection of reference material on New York City history is astounding and rare is the question that goes unanswered. But for those who don’t have direct access to our print collection and are interested in researching the history of our great metropolis, I invite you to a free research class at the library this week.

Love might be a many-splendored thing. Sex and the City is another. Where the two intersect is the interesting moment in the new film where one of the women characters ends up in bed with one of the men (no names: no spoilers) and begins to read from a book of collected love letters. In a movie full of products like Prada, Louis Vuitton, Skyy vodka, and Mercedes Benz, it is this book that the musty old librarian’s attention focuses on. (I’m the guy sitting across from you on the bus who just has to know what book you’re reading.)

I know its awfully unseasonable to post a wintry scene but I wanted to point something out to you in this image. It is the cover of a holiday card depicting the Humanities and Social Sciences Library on a very snowy day. You'll also notice two flags on the card. When my uncle received it last Christmas he asked me why the library would fly a French flag. I thought to myself "that's a good question."

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Nostalgia for the past is what leads many of us to pour over our old pictures. Recently The New York Public Library posted several thousand old baseball pictures on its website. Known as the NYPL Digital Gallery, the website contains millions of digital images of pictures taken from books and archives found throughout the vast collections of the NYPL.One of the more recent image collections to go live in the NYPL Digital Gallery was the Albert G. Spalding Collection. While not all of the A.G. Spalding Collection is currently available online, we at last have a window through which to see some of the incredible things that Spalding, who must have been a real packrat, collected. The Manuscripts and Archives Division at NYPL posted a description of the A.G. Spalding collection, and although they describe things that are not in the NYPL Digital Gallery, their site has information about Spalding and all of the stuff that he collected during his time as a ball player, manager, and promoter of the sport.A word about the image, above. It is photograph of the trophies collected by the Atlantics of Brooklyn (1857-1875). The wooden frame holds a baseball from every game won by the team. The A.G. Spalding Collection contains only the photograph, not the baseballs.

It’s always exciting to see citations to the holdings of the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in newly published books and articles. But it’s even more exciting when a newly-published score is based on one of our manuscripts.
The latest volume of the new Works of Gioachino Rossini edition (entitled “Chamber Music Without Piano”) contains several works, among them the Serenata. Composed in 1823 “for his friend Vincenzo Bianchi” (and first published in 1828) there are only two manuscript sources for this work, neither in the hand of the composer. The earlier (and primary source) is located in the Biblioteca del Conservatorio “G. Verdi” in Milan. The editors of the Works of Gioachino Rossini edition describe our copy as being a copy of the earlier manuscript. In fact, the two manuscripts are “linked” in that markings in the Milan manuscript correspond to page turns in our manuscript.
Our manuscript probably stems from the latter half of the 19th century (based on the highly acidic paper on which it is written). The property stamp of Sam Franko (of the family that began the Goldman Band, still active today in New York City) indicates that it was probably picked up by him on one of his sojourns in Europe. As stated in the critical notes, he never appears to have played it for his concerts, and donated the manuscript to The New York Public Library’s Music Division in 1919, where it was first cataloged the following year.

Even in my brief time as curator, quite a number of people have expressed interest in this work. So the Works of Gioachino Rossini edition have satisfied a great need by publishing it in an excellent new edition.