On May 20, 1995, The New York Public Library began a year-long celebration of its Centennial.

On Centennial Day, Saturday, May 20, celebrities, public officials, and the people of New York City came together in a day of readings, performances, exhibitions, and concerts that honored the freedom of ideas for which the Library has stood since its founding 100 years ago.

A year-long series of Centennial exhibitions and public programs continues to dramatize The New York Public Library's 100-year history, its relevance today, and its place in the information age of the future:

What Price Freedom, the premier exhibition, opened May 20 at the Center for the Humanities. This exhibition assembles 20 objects from the Library's collections in an evocative reminder of the high cost of intellectual liberty. Opening on March 23, 1996 the second of the Library's major centennial exhibitions. The Global Libary http://www.nypl.org examines the digital revolution within the context of a 5000-year history of communications. Exhibitions about Arturo Alfonso Schomburg at the Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which also opened May 20, explore Schomburg's passion for documenting the impact of African peoples on civilization and his lasting legacy to black culture. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts which celebrated its 30th anniversary in November, has highlighted a century of artistic expression in its exhibition Ten Decades, which opened October 31.

The Library's Centennial Celebration commemorates the incorporation of the Astor and Lenox libraries with the Tilden Trust in 1895, when two stunning private collections of books and manuscripts - the Astor and Lenox libraries - were merged and opened to the public. This union then inspired the City of New York to construct the landmark Beaux-Arts library building on the site of a former municipal reservoir flanked by Fifth Avenue and Bryant Park.

In May, the $100 million Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) will open in midtown Manhattan. LEO, a new computerized catalog and information system that links all 82 branch libraries through 2,000 terminals and Internet access points opened in the fall of 1995.

The New York Public Library wishes to thank the following for making the Centennial Celebration possible:AT&T, Barnes & Noble, Inc., CIBC Wood Gundy, Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation, Inc., The Freedom Forum, The New York Times Company Foundation, Inc., Pinewood Foundation, and Reliance Group Holdings, Inc. In addition, Centennial exhibitions and programs have been supported with public funds from the Cultural Challenge Initiative, a joint program of the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Mrs. Vincent Astor is Chairman of the Centennial Committee; Andrew Heiskell is Honorary Chairman; and Bill Blass, Dorothy Cullman, Anne E. de la Renta, and Toni Morrison are Vice Chairmen.

The official media sponsor of the Centennial is NY1. The pro bono advertising agency for this occasion is Lowe & Partners/SMS. A new Library logo (see above) has been designed by Steff Geissbuhler of Chermayeff & Geismar Inc.; each letter symbolizes one of the ways the written word has been recorded over time.