The New York Public Library is developing and executing a visionary strategy for digitization, digital preservation, and access. The Library stewards rapidly growing collections of digitized and born-digital collection items, and it works to make these collections easier to discover, sample, use, and reuse in more creative ways.
Learn about Direct Me NYC: 1940 below.
Explore our other current and previous projects and learn about our Digital Research Strategy for 2021–2024.
Direct Me NYC: 1940
Status: Retired
Launched: 2012
Built with NYPL’s Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, Direct Me NYC: 1940 was a rapid-response reference tool built in anticipation of the 2012 release of the 1940 Federal Census records. Weaving a complex research process into a single web-based workflow, we digitized five New York City phone directories from microfilm and used them as the starting point for navigating 3.8 million unindexed (at the time) pages of census material at the National Archives website. Patrons were also invited to share stories about the people and addresses they searched, building a cultural memory bank directly out of the pages of the phone book.
The site was retired in 2019. The read more about the project, click here.
Photo: Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. "Brooklyn telephone directory" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. Learn more.
