Hands off the library's picture collection!
Jessica Cline, the current head of the Picture Collection at the New York Public Library, with the open files in Room 100, where there are more than 12,000 rubrics from Abacus to Zoology, in New York, July 30, 2021. Founded in 1915, the collection lends images to library users who are seeking visual information of a mind-boggling range. Gus Powell/The New York Times.
by Arthur Lubow
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
Andy Warhol borrowed hundreds of images for inspiration and never returned them.
For more than a century, the Picture Collection of the New York Public Library has flourished, gloriously but precariously, as a shape-shifting misfit within a Dewey Decimal grid. Founded in 1915, the collection lends images to library users who are seeking visual information of a mind-boggling range: Praying, Fairies, Expositions, Rear Views more than 12,000 rubrics from Abacus to Zoology, a history of taste that is still expanding. Its files are classified by subject matter, and available for browsing on open shelves.