Archinect - News

"Georectification," historical urban photography, and archiving Foursquare check-ins: Inside the New York City's "urban memory infrastructure" bank

2019-08-06T09:06:00-04:00

In 2011, the New York Public Library established an official unit for digital experimentation—NYPL Labs. Over the six years that followed, what began as a small research and development outfit for special digital projects grew into a visionary think-and-do tank for making the library’s two centuries of collections digital and usable for the years to come. A hybrid team of technologists, librarians, and designers would start to assemble the building blocks of an urban memory infrastructure.

Shannon Mattern, associate professor of media studies at The New School, and Ben Vershbow, founder of NYPL Labs, discuss the recent digitalization efforts undertaken by the New York Public Library system as it works to turn the library's "vast collections into usable data, connecting maps, photographs, menus and community memories, NYPL Labs created a series of multilayered projects that point the way to a new information ecosystem."

In this fascinating and thought-provoking conversation, Mattern and Vershbow touch on the library's efforts to stitch together insurance maps to create scrollable, Google Maps-like resources, the NYPL's store of digitized and translated restaurant menus, and the New York City tree census, among many topics.

Describing the fundamental role libraries play in preserving cultural and spatial memories, Vershbow says, "Libraries fill a need for historic preservation, a memory function. And I think that a community without access to its history is sort of li...

The New York Public Library is now loaning out clothing and accessories for job interviews

2018-11-12T17:16:00-05:00

NYPL's Riverside branch has initiated a new program called "Grow Up Work Fashion Library", loaning neckties, briefcases and handbags to assist library members in their job search. The items may also be loaned out for formal occasions, with the only requirement being that that the member owe less than $15 in overdue fines.

The program was spearheaded by Michelle Lee, a young adult librarian at the branch, who has noticed a number of the people she worked with could not afford these items.

NYPL reveals first image for its $200M Mid-Manhattan Library renovation

2016-11-17T14:18:00-05:00

Soon after a major renovation and reopening for the Rose Reading Room at their flagship Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the NYPL is now moving forward with another mammoth revamp on its Mid-Manhattan Library. The NYPL offers a first look at the overhaul, a project they are calling a “state-of-the-art library that will serve as both a model and catalyst for a rejuvenated library system.”

What Do Norman Foster's Plans for the New York Public Library Mean for its Storied Architecture?

2012-06-06T14:28:00-04:00

People love the New York Public Library, and yet there’s a general agreement that it cannot survive in its current state. [...] While strong points have been made on all sides of the debate over the NYPL's future as a center of research, a real conversation about its future as an architectural treasure is just now emerging — and thankfully so, for the fate of the institution is also the fate of one of New York's most iconic landmarks.