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112-496: The Queens Public Library ( QPL ), also known as the Queens Borough Public Library and Queens Library ( QL ), is the public library for the borough of Queens , and one of three public library systems serving New York City . It is one of the largest library systems in the world by circulation, having loaned 13.5 million items in the 2015 fiscal year, and one of the largest in the country in terms of

224-582: A board to serve the public interest; (3) they are open to all, and every community member can access the collection; (4) they are entirely voluntary, no one is ever forced to use the services provided; and (5) they provide library and information services without charge. Public libraries exist in many countries across the world and are often considered an essential part of having an educated and literate population. Public libraries are distinct from research libraries , school libraries , academic libraries in other states and other special libraries . Their mandate

336-466: A clientele of some fifty thousand." The mid-to-late 18th century saw a virtual epidemic of feminine reading as novels became more and more popular. Novels, while frowned upon in society, were extremely popular. In England, there were many who lamented at the "villainous profane and obscene books", and the opposition to the circulating library, on moral grounds, persisted well into the 19th century. Still, many establishments must have circulated many times

448-605: A common pattern. Membership was restricted to the proprietors or shareholders, and ranged from a dozen or two to between four and five hundred. The entrance fee, i.e. the purchase price of a share, was in early days usually a guinea, but rose sharply as the century advanced, often reaching four or five guineas during the French wars; the annual subscription, during the same period, rose from about six shillings to ten shillings or more. The book-stock was, by modern standards, small (Liverpool, with over 8,000 volumes in 1801, seems to have been

560-428: A completely new way of reading. Reading was no longer simply an academic pursuit or an attempt to gain spiritual guidance . Reading became a social activity. Many circulating libraries were attached to the shops of milliners or drapers. They served as much for social gossip and the meeting of friends as coffee shops do today. Another factor in the growth of subscription libraries was the increasing cost of books. In

672-483: A congressional bill that extended $ 2.3 billion worth of federal loans to the city for three years. In return, Congress ordered the city to increase charges for city services, to cancel a wage increase for city employees and to drastically reduce the number of people in its workforce. Rohatyn and the MAC directors persuaded the banks to defer the maturity of the bonds they held and to accept less interest. They also persuaded

784-462: A greater number of patrons, were able to accumulate greater numbers of books. The United Public Library was said to have a collection of some 52,000 volumes – twice as many as any private-subscription library in the country at that period. These libraries, since they functioned as a business, also lent books to non-subscribers on a per-book system. Despite the existence of these subscription libraries, they were only accessible to those who could afford

896-410: A later development, which were made possible by the establishment of County Councils in 1888. They normally have a large central library in a major town with smaller branch libraries in other towns and a mobile library service covering rural areas. A new Public Libraries Act was passed in 1964. Local authorities were to provide a "comprehensive and efficient" library service. Public libraries built in

1008-867: A leader in using library services to help new Americans acculturate. Popular reading and multimedia collections are available in all major immigrant languages in Queens. Coping skills programs and cultural arts programs are conducted in the immigrant languages to attract newcomers. Thousands of people attend free formal classes to learn English and attend informal conversation groups to improve their fluency. Family literacy programs take an inter-generational approach to learning English and include practical information about living in NYC. Programs in civics education, Pathways to Citizenship, programs to help foreign-born professionals gain U.S. certifications, and many other educational, informational and cultural programs make Queens Public Library

1120-544: A model for libraries worldwide. Out-of-state residents can use the QPL for an annual fee of $ 50. Queens Public Library offers intensive assistance for those who wish to find employment and/or upgrade their job skills. Free services include in-person and online job skills assessments, workshops on dozens of topics that improve computer literacy skills, online learning that leads to professional job skills certifications, resume review, interview preparation, job search assistance. Through

1232-418: A nadir during this strike, as mounds of garbage caught fire, and strong winds whirled the filth through the streets. With the schools shut down, the police engaged in a slowdown , firefighters threatening job actions, the city awash in garbage, and racial and religious tensions breaking to the surface, Lindsay later called the last six months of 1968 "the worst of my public life." The Stonewall riots were

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1344-862: A partnership with Workforce 1, job placement assistance is available at the Flushing branch, and near the Central Library in Jamaica. Queens Public Library offers consumer health information at all library locations. Through Queens Library HealthLink and Queens Library ConnectCare, library users will receive assistance in finding free or low cost health screenings and/or appointments with primary healthcare providers, regardless of insurance. Public library There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries: (1) they are generally supported by taxes (usually local, though any level of government can and may contribute); (2) they are governed by

1456-453: A place for other forms of commercial activity, which may or may not be related to print. This was necessary because the circulating libraries did not generate enough funds through subscription fees collected from its borrowers. As a commerce venture, it was important to consider the contributing factors such as other goods or services available to the subscribers. The Malatestiana Library ( Italian : Biblioteca Malatestiana ), also known as

1568-481: A population of 10,000 or more to raise a ½d for the establishment of museums". This became the Museums Act 1845 . The advocacy of Ewart and Brotherton then succeeded in having a select committee set up to consider public library provision. The Report argued that the provision of public libraries would steer people towards temperate and moderate habits. With a view to maximising the potential of current facilities,

1680-611: A series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn , in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become

1792-468: A significant loss to the underwriters. The MAC insisted that the city make major reforms, including a wage freeze , a major layoff, a subway fare hike, and charging tuition at the City University of New York . The New York State Legislature supported the MAC by passing a law converting the city sales tax and stock transfer tax into state taxes, which when collected were then used as security for

1904-418: A simple majority. It also allowed neighbouring parishes to combine with an existing or potential library authority. Despite the rise in the level of tax public libraries could levy, it was still very difficult for boroughs to raise enough capital to fund new libraries. The growth of the public library movement in the wake of the 1850 Act relied heavily on the donations of philanthropists. County libraries were

2016-585: A supporter of the temperance movement , was able to secure the Chair of the select committee which would examine "the extent, causes, and consequences of the prevailing vice of intoxication among the labouring classes of the United Kingdom" and propose solutions. Francis Place , a campaigner for the working class, agreed that "the establishment of parish libraries and district reading rooms, and popular lectures on subjects both entertaining and instructive to

2128-417: A total city debt of more than $ 11 billion and the city was unable to borrow money from the credit markets. There were numerous reasons for the crisis, including overly optimistic forecasts of revenues, underfunding of pensions, use of capital allocations and reserves for operating costs, and poor budgetary and accounting practices. Another perspective given on this matter is that as the most capitalised city of

2240-465: A variety of materials including the increasingly popular novels . Although the circulating libraries filled an important role in society, members of the middle and upper classes often looked down upon these libraries that regularly sold material from their collections and provided materials that were less sophisticated. Circulating libraries also charged a subscription fee . However, these fees were set to entice their patrons, providing subscriptions on

2352-591: A yearly, quarterly or monthly basis, without expecting the subscribers to purchase a share in the circulating library. This helped patrons who could not afford to buy books, to be able to borrow books to read, and then return. This also created a more popular demand, as book fees were growing, and more books were being copied. Circulating libraries were very popular; the first one was located in 1725, in Edinburgh, Scotland , by Allan Ramsay . Circulating libraries were not exclusively lending institutions and often provided

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2464-679: Is home to the Black Heritage Reference Center, which contains materials "written by, about, for, with and related to Black Culture." It is the largest collection of materials dedicated solely to Black culture in New York State. The Archives at Queens Library, formerly known as the Long Island Division, is a special collection in the Central Library building that focuses on the history of Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk counties. The Archives

2576-778: Is separate from both the New York Public Library , which serves the Bronx , Manhattan , and Staten Island , and the Brooklyn Public Library , which serves only Brooklyn . The first library in Queens was founded in 1858 in Flushing as a subscription service. It became a free circulation library in 1869. In the late 19th century, several local libraries were founded in western Queens. The libraries in Astoria , Long Island City and Steinway formed

2688-419: Is to serve the general public's information needs rather than the needs of a particular school, institution, or research population. Public libraries also provide free services such as preschool story times to encourage early literacy among children. They also provide a quiet study and learning areas for students and professionals and foster the formation of book clubs to encourage the appreciation of literature by

2800-692: The New York public advocate sit on the board as ex officio members. The library is funded by the city, through state and federal grants, and through private philanthropy . Dennis Walcott was appointed president and CEO in March 2016. Queens Public Library has 62 locations, seven Adult Learning Centers, two Family Literacy Centers, and a Mobile Library. Central Library was the first major branch of an urban library to place all public services on one floor. The library cost $ 5.7 million and contained 195,000 square feet (18,100 m) of floor space. The library

2912-766: The earliest form of writing – the clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in temple rooms in Sumer , some dating back to 2600 BC. They appeared five thousand years ago in Southwest Asia's Fertile Crescent , an area that ran from Mesopotamia to the Nile in Africa. Known as the cradle of civilization, the Fertile Crescent was likewise the birthplace of writing, sometime before 3000 BC. (Murray, Stuart A.P.) These first libraries, which mainly consisted of

3024-704: The 1830s, at the height of the Chartist movement, there was a general tendency towards reformism in the United Kingdom. The middle classes were concerned that the workers' free time was not being well-spent. This was prompted more by Victorian middle class paternalism than by demand from the lower social orders. Campaigners felt that encouraging the lower classes to spend their free time on morally uplifting activities, such as reading, would promote greater social good. Salford Museum and Art Gallery first opened in November 1850 as "The Royal Museum & Public Library", as

3136-405: The 18th century to today; as the country grew more populous and wealthier, factors such as a push for education and desire to share knowledge led to broad public support for free libraries. In addition, money donations by private philanthropists provided the seed capital to get many libraries started. In some instances, collectors donated large book collections. The first modern public library in

3248-559: The 1960s were characterized by modernism. The modern public library grew at a great pace at the end of the 19th century especially in the English-speaking world . Philanthropists and businessmen, including John Passmore Edwards , Henry Tate and Andrew Carnegie , helped to fund the establishment of large numbers of public libraries for the edification of the masses. Public libraries in North America developed from

3360-510: The 1970s hit New York City particularly hard, amplified by a large movement of middle-class residents to the suburbs, which drained the city of tax revenue. In February 1975, New York City entered a serious fiscal crisis. Under mayor Abraham Beame , the city had run out of money to pay for normal operating expenses, was unable to borrow more, and faced the prospect of defaulting on its obligations and declaring bankruptcy. The city admitted an operating deficit of at least $ 600 million, contributing to

3472-498: The 1970s, when it barely avoided defaulting on its obligations and declaring bankruptcy. As many great cities lay in ruins after World War II, New York City assumed a new global prominence. It became the home of the United Nations headquarters , built 1947–1952; inherited the role from Paris as center of the art world with abstract expressionism ; and became a rival to London in the international finance and art markets. Yet

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3584-403: The Central Library, Flushing and Far Rockaway branches. In the 1990s interest in completing the proposed branches was revived. In 1998, the new Queens Borough Public Library at Flushing was opened, and four other branches were opened between 1999 and 2007. The Queens Library was allocated more than $ 269 million in capital funds between fiscal years 2005 and 2013. The Queens Borough Public Library

3696-524: The Church of England or other gentlemen or persons of letters", but it was limited to just 422 volumes of mostly ecclesiastical and legal works. In Germany, there was another occurrence of an accessible public library. The Ducal Library at Wolfenbüttel was open "every weekday morning and afternoon" and loaned its books to the public. Between 1714 and 1799, the library loaned 31,485 books to 1,648 different users. These types of public libraries, much closer to

3808-558: The City no longer needed the support of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, and it voted itself out of existence. The New York City blackout of 1977 struck on July 13 of that year and lasted for 25 hours, during which black and Hispanic neighborhoods fell prey to destruction and looting. Over 3,000 people were arrested, and the city's already crowded prisons were so overburdened that some suggested reopening

3920-665: The Eastern Mediterranean (see Library of Alexandria § In antiquity ). Historian Yahya of Antioch (d. 1066) reported that the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ( r.  996–1021 ) financed and established libraries open to the public, where anyone, even the simple non-specialists, could choose whatever books they wanted and have them copied by public scribes, free of charge. However, as with many of his other decisions, Al-Hakim later ordered this policy to be reversed. In Cesena, Italy,

4032-486: The French philologist and churchman, operated an early form of a public library in the town of Saulieu from 1737 to 1750. He wished to make culture and learning accessible to all people. The Załuski Library ( Polish : Biblioteka Załuskich , Latin : Bibliotheca Zalusciana ) was built in Warsaw 1747–1795 by Józef Andrzej Załuski and his brother, Andrzej Stanisław Załuski , both Roman Catholic bishops. The library

4144-499: The Long Island City Public Library in 1896, becoming Queens' first multi-branch library. In 1901, shortly after the consolidation of Queens into New York City , the city government proposed a new charter joining all libraries in Queens into the Queens Borough Public Library . All of the public libraries signed on, except for Flushing, which remained independent until 1903. The Queens Borough Public Library

4256-515: The MAC bonds. The State of New York also passed a state law that created an Emergency Financial Control Board to monitor the city's finances, required the city to balance its budget within three years, and required the city to follow accepted accounting practices. But even with all of these measures, the value of the MAC bonds dropped in price, and the city struggled to find the money to pay its employees and stay in operation. The MAC sold off $ 10 billion in bonds. It failed to achieve results quickly and

4368-676: The Malatesta Novello Library, is a public library dating from 1452 in Cesena , Emilia-Romagna ( Italy ). It was the first European civic library , i.e. belonging to the Commune and open to everybody. It was commissioned by the Lord of Cesena, Malatesta Novello . The works were directed by Matteo Nuti of Fano (a scholar of Leon Battista Alberti ) and lasted from 1447 to 1452. The first libraries consisted of archives of

4480-555: The Southern Hemisphere (3 vols) which was borrowed on 201 occasions. The records also show that in 1796, membership had risen by 1/3 to 198 subscribers (of whom 5 were women) and the titles increased five-fold to 4,987. This mirrors the increase in reading interests. A patron list from the Bath Municipal Library shows that from 1793 to 1799, the library held a stable 30% of their patrons as female. It

4592-596: The United States at that time, New York hosted an array of welfare and benefits for its people, including nineteen public hospitals, mass transit facilities and most importantly, New York City provided higher education for free with the municipal university system. The city government was reluctant to confront municipal labor unions; an announced "hiring freeze" was followed by an increase in city payrolls of 13,000 people in one quarter, and an announced layoff of eight thousand workers resulted in only 436 employees leaving

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4704-529: The arrival of container shipping , that industry shifted to New Jersey where there was more room for it. Blue-collar neighborhoods began to deteriorate and become centers of drugs and crime. Strip clubs and other adult businesses started filling Times Square in the late 1960s. In 1966, the US Navy decommissioned the Brooklyn Navy Yard , ending a command going back to the early 19th century. It

4816-636: The article, Schaap sardonically pointed out that it was not. The transit strike was the first of many labor struggles. In 1968 the teachers' union (the United Federation of Teachers , or the UFT) went on strike over the firings of several teachers in a school in Ocean Hill and Brownsville . That same year, 1968, also saw a nine-day sanitation strike. Quality of life in New York reached

4928-399: The base of many academic and public library collections of today. The establishment of circulating libraries in the 18th century by booksellers and publishers provided a means of gaining profit and creating social centers within the community. The circulating libraries not only provided a place to sell books, but also a place to lend books for a price. These circulating libraries provided

5040-718: The borough of Queens, is a collaborative effort between Queens College and Queens Public Library that includes digitized materials from the Archives. Queens Public Library has long had a variety of services to aid children and teens. 18 Queens Public Library branches participate in the STACKS program, a core-curriculum based after school enrichment program. The program aims to provide homework materials, homework tutors, and monitors. Every Queens Public Library branch also provides an assortment of enriching activities and clubs for children and teens daily. Queens Public Library has long been

5152-404: The borough's population expanded. By 1946, Queens Borough Public Library had 44 branches plus the Central Library and a very active bookmobile . Many additional branches had been approved to be built between 1954 and 1965, but were not completed due to a New York City fiscal crisis . Additional funds were given to the library system by the federal Library Services and Construction Act to finish

5264-443: The city and state employee pension funds to buy MAC bonds to pay off the city's debts. The city government cut the number of its employees by 40,000, deferred the wage increases already agreed to in contracts and kept them below the level of inflation. The loans were repaid with interest. A fiscal conservative, Democrat Ed Koch , was elected as mayor in 1977 . By 1977–78, New York City had eliminated its short-term debt. By 1985,

5376-531: The city government. The first solution proposed was the Municipal Assistance Corporation , which tried to pool the city's money and refinance its heavy debts. It was established on June 10, 1975, with Felix Rohatyn as chairman, and a board of nine prominent citizens, eight of whom were bankers. In the meanwhile, the crisis continued to worsen, with the admitted city deficit reaching $ 750 million; municipal bonds could be sold only at

5488-514: The city with a complete halt of subway and bus service on mayor John Lindsay 's first day of office. As New Yorkers endured the transit strike, Lindsay remarked, "I still think it's a fun city," and walked four miles (6 km) from his hotel room to City Hall in a gesture to show it. Dick Schaap , then a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune , coined and popularized the sarcastic term in an article titled Fun City . In

5600-645: The clergy and residents of the surrounding neighborhood. Some scholars consider this library an "ancestor" to public libraries since its patrons did not need to belong to an existing organization like a church or college to use it. However, all the books in the library were chained to stalls and unavailable to borrow, hence its name: the Francis Trigge Chained Library. In the early years of the 17th century, many famous collegiate and town libraries were founded in England. Norwich City library

5712-518: The committee made two significant recommendations. They suggested that the government should issue grants to aid the foundation of libraries and that the Museums Act 1845 should be amended and extended to allow for a tax to be levied for the establishment of public libraries. Objections were raised about the increase in taxation , the potential infringement on private enterprise and the existing library provision such as mechanics' institutes and

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5824-435: The community might draw off a number of those who now frequent public houses for the sole enjoyment they afford". Buckingham introduced to Parliament a Public Institution Bill allowing boroughs to charge a tax to set up libraries and museums, the first of its kind. Although this did not become law, it had a major influence on William Ewart MP and Joseph Brotherton MP, who introduced a bill which would "[empower] boroughs with

5936-522: The default that we have struggled to avoid." The Beame statement was never distributed because Albert Shanker , the teachers' union president, finally furnished $ 150 million from the union's pension fund to buy Municipal Assistance Corporation bonds. Two weeks later, President Gerald R. Ford angered New Yorkers by refusing to grant the city a bailout. Ford later signed the New York City Seasonal Financing Act of 1975,

6048-562: The defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. By 1970, the city gained notoriety for high rates of crime and other social disorders. A popular song by Cashman & West in the autumn of 1972, "American City Suite", chronicled, in allegorical fashion, the decline in the city's quality of life. The city's subway system was regarded as unsafe due to crime and suffered frequent mechanical breakdowns. Prostitutes and pimps frequented Times Square , while Central Park became feared as

6160-558: The end of the 18th century and in the first decades of the 19th century, the demand for books and general education made itself felt among social classes generated by the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. The late-18th century saw a rise in subscription libraries intended for the use of tradesmen. In 1797, there was established at Kendal what was known as the Economical Library, "designed principally for

6272-526: The expansion to a back room, to the spacious elegant areas of Hookham's or those at the resorts like Scarborough, and four in a row at Margate. Private-subscription libraries held a greater amount of control over both membership and the types of books in the library. There was almost a complete elimination of cheap fiction in the private societies. Subscription libraries prided themselves on respectability. The highest percentage of subscribers were often landed proprietors, gentry, and old professions. Towards

6384-546: The fear that it would give rise to "unhealthy social agitation". The Bill passed through Parliament as most MPs felt that public libraries would provide facilities for self-improvement through books and reading for all classes, and that the greater levels of education attained by providing public libraries would result in lower crime rates . Under the terms of the Museums Act of 1845 , the municipalities of Warrington and Salford established libraries in their museums. Warrington Municipal Library opened in 1848. Although by

6496-510: The fees and to those with time to read during the daylight. As stated by James Van Horn Melton, "one should not overstate the extent to which lending libraries 'democratized' reading" since "they were probably less important for creating new readers than for enabling those who already read to read more." For many people, these libraries, though more accessible than libraries such as the British Library, were still largely an institution for

6608-636: The first community-run public library, the Malatestiana Library , was established in 1447, provided both secular and religious texts in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and was fully open to all members of the public. Another early library that allowed access to the public was Kalendars or Kalendaries, a brotherhood of clergy and laity who were attached to the Church of All-Halloween or All Saints in Bristol , England. Records show that in 1464, provision

6720-579: The first unconditionally free public library in England. The library in Campfield , Manchester was the first library to operate a "free" lending library without subscription in 1852. Norwich lays claim to being the first municipality to adopt the Public Libraries Act 1850 (which allowed any municipal borough with a population of 100,000 or more to introduce a halfpenny rate to establish public libraries—although not to buy books). Norwich

6832-631: The form of novels. The national average start of the 20th century hovered around novels comprising about 20% of the total collection. Novels varied from other types of books in many ways. They were read primarily for enjoyment instead of for study. They did not provide academic knowledge or spiritual guidance; thus, they were read quickly and far fewer times than other books. These were the perfect books for commercial subscription libraries to lend. Since books were read for pure enjoyment rather than for scholarly work, books needed to become both cheaper and smaller. Small duodecimo editions of books were preferred to

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6944-529: The foundation of the first Queens library in Flushing in 1858, Queens Public Library has become one of the largest public library systems in the United States, comprising 62 branches throughout the borough. Queens Public Library serves Queens' population of almost 2.3 million, including one of the largest immigrant populations in the country. Consequently, a large percentage of the library's collections are in languages other than English , particularly Spanish , Chinese , Korean and Russian . Queens Public Library

7056-743: The history of Queens and the four counties of Long Island. Other special collections include job search/readiness information and training and consumer health information. Queens Library at Flushing is home to the International Resource Center (IRC). It contains books, magazines, CDs and DVDs that represent cultures from all over the world. Queens Library at Flushing has collections in many non-English languages, including Bengali , Chinese , French , Gujarati , Hindi , Italian , Korean , Portuguese , Punjabi , Russian , Spanish , and Urdu . The Langston Hughes Library in Corona

7168-403: The large folio editions. Folio editions were read at a desk, while the small duodecimo editions could be easily read like the paperbacks of today. The French journalist Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote that the books were also separated into parts so that readers could rent a section of the book for some hours instead of a full day. This allowed more readers could have access to the same work at

7280-497: The largest), and was accommodated, at the outset, in makeshift premises—very often over a bookshop, with the bookseller acting as librarian and receiving an honorarium for his pains. The Liverpool subscription library was a gentlemen-only library. In 1798, it was renamed the Athenaeum when it was rebuilt with a newsroom and coffeehouse. It had an entrance fee of one guinea and annual subscription of five shillings. An analysis of

7392-442: The last two decades of the century, especially, prices were practically doubled, so that a quarto work cost a guinea , an octavo 10 shillings or 12 shillings, and a duodecimo cost 4 shillings per volume. Price apart, moreover, books were difficult to procure outside London since local booksellers could not afford to carry large stocks. Commercial libraries, since they were usually associated with booksellers and also since they had

7504-851: The mammoth World Trade Center complex in 1972, however, was one of the few high points of the city's history at that time. Conceived by David Rockefeller and built by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on the site of the Radio Row electronics district in Lower Manhattan , the Twin Towers displaced the Empire State Building in Midtown as the world's tallest building; it was displaced in turn by Chicago's Sears Tower in 1973. US economic stagnation in

7616-555: The mid-19th century, England could claim 274 subscription libraries and Scotland, 266, the foundation of the modern public library system in Britain is the Public Libraries Act 1850 . The Act first gave local boroughs the power to establish free public libraries and was the first legislative step toward the creation of an enduring national institution that provides universal free access to information and literature. In

7728-539: The mid-19th century, there were virtually no public libraries in the sense in which we now understand the term, i.e., libraries provided with public funds and freely accessible to all. Only one important library in Britain, namely Chetham's Library in Manchester, was fully and freely accessible to the public. The Chesshyre Library in Halton , Cheshire was founded as a free public library in 1733 for all "divines of

7840-529: The middle and upper classes. In A.D 1820, the State Central Library, Kerala started functioning in Trivandrum , India, which is not only India's first public library but also the first such institution outside of Europe. However, there had come into being a whole network of library provisions on a private or institutional basis. Subscription libraries, both private and commercial, provided

7952-433: The middle to upper classes with a variety of books for moderate fees. Private-subscription libraries functioned in much the same manner as commercial subscription libraries, though they varied in many important ways. One of the most popular versions of the private-subscription library was the "gentlemen only" library. The gentlemen's subscription libraries, sometimes known as proprietary libraries, were nearly all organized on

8064-484: The most heavily populated areas of the borough. Four of these buildings (Astoria, Poppenhusen, Richmond Hill and Woodhaven) are still in use. They are characterized by their stately solidity and expensive decorative details. The Carnegie-era Flushing Branch was demolished for a more modern building in the 1950s, and the Far Rockaway Branch was destroyed by fire in 1962. Library branches were added slowly as

8176-489: The number of novels as of any other genre. In 1797, Thomas Wilson wrote in The Use of Circulating Libraries : "Consider that for a successful circulating library, the collection must contain 70% fiction". However, the overall percentage of novels mainly depended on the proprietor of the circulating library . While some circulating libraries were almost completely novels, others had less than 10% of their overall collection in

8288-577: The old Beaux Arts Pennsylvania Station was torn down, growing concern for preservation led to the 1965 Landmarks Preservation Commission Law . The city's other great train station, Grand Central , was also threatened with demolition but was eventually saved. Meanwhile, New York City's network of highways spread, destroying neighborhoods where African Americans lived under the guidance of the noted urban planner with exceeding biases against certain ethnicities Robert Moses , consequently increasing traffic congestion, traffic pollution, and ruining livelihoods of

8400-408: The people who once lived in vibrant neighborhoods. However, the defeat in 1962 of Moses' planned Lower Manhattan Expressway by community activists led by Jane Jacobs was an indication that Moses would no longer have the free hand in the destruction of livelihoods he had enjoyed in the past. During the 1960s, a gradual economic and social decay set in. A symptom of the city's waning competitiveness

8512-476: The population declined after 1950, with increasing suburbanization in the New York metropolitan area as pioneered in Levittown, New York . Midtown Manhattan , fueled by postwar prosperity, was experiencing an unprecedented building boom that changed its very appearance. Glass-and-steel office towers in the new International Style began to replace the ziggurat-style towers (built in wedding-cake style ) of

8624-478: The postwar prosperity came to an end with many factories and entire industries shutting down. There was a population transition with hundreds of thousands of African-Americans and Puerto Ricans moving in, and an exodus of European-Americans to the suburbs. Labor unions, especially in teaching, transit, sanitation and construction, fractured over major strikes and internal racial tensions. The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) led by Mike Quill shut down

8736-484: The present-day concept of the public library, were extremely rare as most libraries remained difficult to access. The increase in secular literature at this time encouraged the spread of lending libraries, especially commercial subscription libraries . Commercial subscription libraries began when booksellers began renting out extra copies of books in the mid-18th century. Steven Fischer estimates that in 1790, there were "about six hundred rental and lending libraries, with

8848-565: The prewar era. Also rapidly changing was the eastern edge of the East Village close to FDR Drive . Many traditional apartment blocks were cleared and replaced with large-scale public housing projects. In Lower Manhattan , urban renewal began to take shape around 1960, led by David Rockefeller 's construction of the One Chase Manhattan Plaza building. In a built-out city, construction entails destruction. After

8960-463: The public library into the form that it is today. Public access to books is not new. Romans made scrolls in dry rooms available to patrons of the baths, and tried with some success to establish libraries within the empire . Public libraries existed in the Roman Empire by the 1st century BC. In the middle of the 19th century, the push for truly public libraries, paid for by taxes and run by

9072-464: The public. In 1790, The Public Library Act would not be passed for another sixty-seven years. Even though the British Museum existed at this time and contained over 50,000 books, the national library was not open to the public or even to most of the population. Access to the museum depended on passes, for which there was sometimes a waiting period of three to four weeks. Moreover, the library

9184-433: The purchase of city bonds—putting the pensions at risk if bankruptcy took place. A statement by Mayor Beame was drafted and ready to be released on October 17, 1975, if the teachers' union did not invest $ 150 million from its pension funds in city securities. "I have been advised by the comptroller that the City of New York has insufficient cash on hand to meet debt obligations due today," the statement said. "This constitutes

9296-404: The recently condemned Manhattan Detention Complex . The financial crisis, high crime rates, and damage from the blackouts led to a widespread belief that New York City was in irreversible decline and beyond redemption. By the end of the 1970s, nearly a million people had left, a population loss that would not be recouped for another twenty years. To Jonathan Mahler, the chronicler of The Bronx

9408-410: The records of commercial transactions or inventories, mark the end of prehistory and the start of history . Things were very similar in the government and temple records on papyrus of Ancient Egypt . The earliest discovered private archives were kept at Ugarit ; besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes. Persia at

9520-402: The registers for the first twelve years provides glimpses of middle-class reading habits in a mercantile community at this period. The largest and most popular sections of the library were History, Antiquities, and Geography, with 283 titles and 6,121 borrowings, and Belles Lettres, with 238 titles and 3,313 borrowings. The most popular single work was John Hawkesworth's Account of Voyages ... in

9632-463: The same time, making it more profitable for the circulating libraries. Much like paperbacks of today, many of the novels in circulating libraries were unbound. At this period of time, many people chose to bind their books in leather. Many circulating libraries skipped this process. Circulating libraries were not in the business of preserving books; their owners wanted to lend books as many times as they possibly could. Circulating libraries have ushered in

9744-495: The site of muggings and rapes. Homeless persons and drug dealers occupied boarded-up and abandoned buildings. The New York City Police Department was subject to investigation for widespread corruption , most famously in the 1971 testimony of whistle-blowing police officer Frank Serpico . In June 1975 after the city announced budget cuts downsizing the police force, officers distributed a pamphlet titled "Fear City" to arriving visitors, warning them to stay away. The opening of

9856-569: The size of its collection. According to its website, the library holds about 7.5 million items, of which 1.4 million are at its central library in Jamaica, Queens . It was named "2009 Library of the Year" by Library Journal . Although it was organized in 1858 on a subscription basis, the original Central Library on Parsons Boulevard in Jamaica was opened in 1930 and later expanded with a four-story Renaissance Revival themed architecture. Dating back to

9968-606: The stage for increased immigration from Asia, which became the basis for New York's modern Asian American community. On November 9, 1965, New York endured a widespread power blackout along with much of eastern North America. (The city's ordeal became the subject of the 1968 film , Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? ) The postwar population shift to the suburbs resulted in the decline of textile manufacturing and other traditional industries in New York, most of which also operated in extremely outdated facilities. With

10080-639: The state came up with a much more drastic solution: the Emergency Financial Control Board (EFCB). It was a state agency, and city officials had only two votes on the seven-member board. The EFCB took full control of the city's budget. It made drastic cuts in municipal services and spending, cut city employment, froze salaries and raised bus and subway fares. The level of welfare spending was cut. Some hospitals were closed as were some branch libraries and fire stations. The labor unions helped out, by allocating much of their pension funds to

10192-474: The state gained force. Matthew Battles states that: It was in these years of class conflict and economic terror that the public library movement swept through Britain, as the nation's progressive elite recognized that the light of cultural and intellectual energy was lacking in the lives of commoners. Public libraries were often started with a donation , or were bequeathed to parishes , churches, schools or towns. These social and institutional libraries formed

10304-577: The time of the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) was home to some outstanding libraries that were serving two main functions: keeping the records of administrative documents (e.g., transactions, governmental orders, and budget allocation within and between the Satrapies and the central ruling State) and collection of resources on different sets of principles e.g. medical science, astronomy, history, geometry and philosophy. A public library

10416-540: The use and instruction of the working classes." There was also the Artizans' library established at Birmingham in 1799. The entrance fee was 3 shillings, and the subscription was 1 shilling 6 pence per quarter. This was a library of general literature. Novels, at first excluded, were afterwards admitted on condition that they did not account for more than one-tenth of the annual income. In 1835, and against government opposition, James Silk Buckingham , MP for Sheffield and

10528-738: The world supported by taxes was the Peterborough Town Library in Peterborough, New Hampshire . It was "established in 1833". This was a small public library. The first large public library supported by taxes in the United States was the Boston Public Library , which was established in 1848 but did not open its doors to the public until 1854. New York City fiscal crisis Immediately after World War II , New York City became known as one of

10640-422: The world's greatest cities. However, after peaking in population in 1950, the city began to feel the effects of suburbanization brought about by new housing communities such as Levittown , a downturn in industry and commerce as businesses left for places where it was cheaper and easier to operate, an increase in crime, and an upturn in its welfare burden, all of which reached a nadir in the city's fiscal crisis of

10752-613: The young and adults. Public libraries typically allow users to borrow books and other materials outside the library premises temporarily, usually for a given period of time. They also have non-circulating reference collections and provide computer and Internet access to their patrons. The culmination of centuries of advances in the printing press , moveable type , paper , ink , publishing, and distribution, combined with an ever-growing information-oriented middle class , increased commercial activity and consumption, new radical ideas, massive population growth and higher literacy rates forged

10864-408: Was also uncommon for these libraries to have buildings designated solely as the library building during the 1790s, though in the 19th century, many libraries would begin building elaborate permanent residences. Bristol, Birmingham, and Liverpool were the few libraries with their own building. The accommodations varied from the shelf for a few dozen volumes in the country stationer's or draper's shop, to

10976-659: Was established in 1608 (six years after Thomas Bodley founded the Bodleian Library , which was open to the "whole republic of the learned") and Chetham's Library in Manchester, which claims to be the oldest public library in the English-speaking world, opened in 1653. Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla City , Mexico, is recognized by UNESCO for being the first public library in the Americas . It

11088-683: Was established in Rome by the first century BC, in the Atrium Libertatis (see History of libraries § Classical period and Gaius Asinius Pollio § Later life ). However, the first major public library is said to have been established in Athens by Pisistratus in the sixth century BC (see Library of Alexandria § Historical background ), and by the end of the Hellenistic period , public libraries are said to have been widespread in

11200-414: Was first founded in 1912. It consists of books, publications, current and historical newspapers, family manuscripts and genealogical material, historical maps and atlases including Belcher Hyde and Sanborn Company maps, late 19th- and early 20th-century photographs, as well as other archival material. The Queens Memory Project , a digital archive which aims to record and preserve contemporary history across

11312-665: Was founded in 1646 by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza . In his seminal work Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (1644) the French scholar and librarian Gabriel Naudé asserted that only three libraries in all Europe granted in his times regular access to every scholar, namely the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Claude Sallier ,

11424-511: Was made for a library to be erected in the house of the Kalendars. A reference is made to a deed of that date by which it was "appointed that all who wish to enter for the sake of instruction shall have 'free access and recess' at certain times." In 1598, Francis Trigge established a library in a room above St. Wulfram's Church in Grantham, Lincolnshire and decreed that it should be open to

11536-552: Was not open for browsing. Once a pass to the library had been issued, the reader was taken on a tour of the library. Many readers complained that the tour was much too short. Similarly, the Bibliothèque du Roi in Paris required a potential visitor to be "carefully screened" and, even after this stipulation was met, the library was open only two days per week and only to view medallions and engravings, not books. However, up until

11648-578: Was officially incorporated in 1907. Due to the wide variation in population density in Queens, in 1906, the Queens Borough Public Library established small branches in store-fronts and shopping areas under the Traveling Library program. With these branches, Queens Library grew swiftly, eventually opening major branches in almost every Queens neighborhood. The original Central Library on Parsons Boulevard in Jamaica

11760-616: Was open to the public and was the first Polish public library, the biggest in Poland, and one of the earliest public libraries in Europe. At the start of the 18th century, libraries were becoming increasingly public and were more frequently lending libraries . The 18th century saw the switch from closed parochial libraries to lending libraries. Before this time, public libraries were parochial in nature, and libraries frequently chained their books to desks. Libraries also were not uniformly open to

11872-530: Was opened in 1930 and expanded with Works Progress Administration funds in 1941. It was a splendid four-story Renaissance Revival building. In spite of its elegance, it was too small for the demand and was replaced by a new, more spacious facility in 1966, through the persistent efforts of the Library Director, Harold W. Tucker. $ 240,000 donated by Andrew Carnegie was used for the construction of seven new Carnegie libraries between 1904 and 1924 in

11984-543: Was renamed the Queens Library sometime in the past. In April 2019, it was renamed again to Queens Public Library, with the new tagline "We speak your language". Queens Public Library is governed by a 19-member Board of Trustees, which are appointed by the mayor of New York City and the borough president of Queens. The mayor, speaker of the city council, borough president, the New York City comptroller and

12096-467: Was renovated and expanded in 1989. Additional renovation and expansion was expected to be completed in 2013. A new Children's Library Discovery Center , adjacent to the main library, was designed by 1100 Architect and opened in 2011. Central Library includes resources that support education and research through the college level. A local history collection (The Archives at Queens Library) houses thousands of photographs, books and ephemera having to do with

12208-452: Was sold to the city. The Yard continued as a site for shipbuilding for another eleven years. From November 23 to 26, 1966, New York City was covered by a major smog episode , filling the city's air with damaging levels of several toxic pollutants. The smog was caused by a combination of factors, including the use of coal-burning power plants, the heavy traffic on the city's roads, and the widespread use of wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. It

12320-437: Was the eleventh library to open, in 1857, after Winchester , Manchester , Liverpool , Bolton , Kidderminster , Cambridge , Birkenhead and Sheffield . The 1850 Act was noteworthy because it established the principle of free public libraries. In 1866, an amending Act was passed which eliminated the population limit for the establishment of a library and replaced the two-thirds majority previously required for adoption with

12432-749: Was the loss of both its longtime resident National League baseball teams to booming California; the Dodgers and the Giants both moved after the 1957 season. A sports void was partially filled with the formation of the Mets in 1962, who played their first two seasons at the Polo Grounds , the former home of the Giants, before moving to Shea Stadium in Queens in 1964. The passage of the federal Immigration Act of 1965 , which abolished national-origin quotas, set

12544-535: Was the third major smog in New York City, following events of similar scale in 1953 and 1963. John Lindsay , a liberal Republican, was a highly visible and charismatic mayor from 1966 to 1973. The city was a national center of protest movements regarding civil rights for black citizens, opposition to the Vietnam War, and the newly emerging feminist and gay movements. There were jolting economic shocks as

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