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WELCOME to Lauren Gilbert, Director of the Municipal Library
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As many people are aware, the Department of Records and
Information Services operates a Municipal Library. Opened in
1913 and initially part of the New York Public Library, the
Municipal Reference and Research Center has several duties
mandated by the City Charter including:
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providing information and research assistance to the Mayor
and other elected officials;
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maintaining facilities open to the public where published
City records shall be available;
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ensuring one copy of each city publication is available;
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collecting data pertaining to the operation of the city;
and
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ensuring the online publication of city government’s
publications.
In 2024, we bid adieu to former Library Director Christine
Bruzzese and launched a search. Finally, in January, DORIS
welcomed Lauren Gilbert as the new Director of the Municipal
Library. Lauren has extensive library experience, having
worked for 24 years in the field.
Immediately before joining DORIS, she served as the Director
of Public Services at the Center for Jewish History. Her
responsibilities included coordinating research services
provided by its five divisions and implementing outreach
programs to diverse communities. In addition, she managed
the Center’s online reference management software and
facilitated access to its digital resource platform. These
skills will be beneficial at DORIS where we plan to
implement solutions that integrate the Library and Archives
workflows.
Previously she worked for eight years as the Director of
Public Services at the Sachem Public Library on Long Island
where she helped to develop that library’s collection of
materials available to adults, as well as directing
community outreach. Prior to that she worked as a reference
librarian, maintained online content, and provided computer
literacy training.
As the Director of the Library, Lauren will expand online
access to government publications and information about City
government on the Government Publications Portal, our
digital library. In 2024, the Archives and Library research
team fielded 31,130 requests for information and research
assistance. By collaborating with the Archives Director to
cross-train employees, we will be more efficient in
providing reference services to researchers.
The Municipal Library’s collection is a unique resource
showcasing the history of City government institutions and
the City itself. Lauren’s resourcefulness, collaborative
approach, knowledge, and management skills will make
accessing this content easier for researchers everywhere.
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A Note from the Library Director…
In my first week on the job, while trying to
familiarize myself with the library’s
collections, I started poking around the various
“vertical files,” which are cabinets full of
clipped articles along with pamphlets, flyers,
and other ephemera that didn’t qualify for a
slot on the bookshelves, all collected by
diligent librarians in decades past.
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The first folder in the “NYC Politics” vertical
file, which is dated 1917, not long after the
1913 founding of the Municipal Library, contains
a “Political Primer” connected to that year’s
mayoral campaign. Featuring striking typography
and illustrations, it opens with images and
definitions of “city” and “citizen,” stressing
civic responsibility and the importance of an
educated populace for the efficient operation of
city government.
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“Political Primer” by Porter Emerson Brown.
Published by Public Welfare Committee, 50 East
42nd Street, 1917
Of course, women only got the right to vote in
New York State in 1917, and while our collective
image of the average citizen may have changed
over the years, and our language is more
inclusive, the sentiment remains valid. A
well-informed citizenry is the key to a
functioning democracy, and it is the free flow
of information along with transparency in
government that allows citizens to make
enlightened decisions, whether in the voting
booth or in other areas of daily life.
I am proud to be serving in this role and look
forward to continuing the work of my
predecessors at the Municipal Library, where the
collections illuminate our city’s past and
present. While librarians no longer clip
articles from newspapers and magazines, and in
fact little of what is accessioned in the
library is in paper form, we are still
documenting and preserving and making available
all of the publications of the numerous
divisions and agencies of our city government
through the
Government Publications Portal
and the
Social Media Archive.
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Highlights from the Library Collections:
February is Black History Month!
The edited manuscript of a publication called
Negroes of New York, compiled from 1937 to 1941 by writers of the Work
Projects Administration and sponsored by NYC Mayor Fiorello
LaGuardia, consists of articles representing various aspects
of the Black New York experience, including “Antislavery
Movement,” “Black Bohemia,” “Negroes in War,” and “Music and
Dance.” The introduction (below) describes the volume's
genesis: “a research staff of thirty Negro and white workers
delved into musty volumes, records, and newspaper files, and
interviewed hundreds of persons.”
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A 1942 collection from the
City-Wide Citizens Committee on Harlem
contains multiple reports, including one from the
Sub-Committee on Housing that attempts to address the causes
and potential solutions to the “Negro housing problem in New
York,” one from the Sub-Committee on Health and Hospitals
that addresses the diseases plaguing the Harlem community,
and one from the Sub-Committee on Employment (below) that
discusses the lack of equitable job opportunities, opening
with the declaration that “Justice for Negro Americans in
the national war effort is a searching test of our
democracy.”
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In addition to these and other official publications, the
library offers a wide selection of non-governmental
published materials, including such titles as:
Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America
1900-1978, In the Black: A History of African Americans on
Wall Street, and
Black and White Manhattan: The History of Racial
Formation in Colonial New York City.
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Municipal Reference Library Notes
Darius Green and His Flying Machine
100 years ago, the January 7, 1925 edition of the
Municipal Reference Library Notes
was devoted to the then-recent and burgeoning field of
aeronautics. Opening with a short poem, the article
explained that “today, the aerial mail flyers make regular
transcontinental trips in 34 hours.” It continued with
information about the 201 existing municipal landing fields
in the United States, as reported in the 1924 Aerial Map,
and concluded with the confident assertion that “the
transportation of the future will travel the air highway.”
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News from the Municipal Archives
The Municipal Archives invites the public to
transcribe two important collections:
1890 New York City Police Census
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In 1890, New York City officials questioned the
accuracy of the City's population count in the United
States federal census. As a result, the New York
Police Department was tasked with conducting an
independent census, which was completed between
September 29 and October 14, 1890. This collection
consists of the original police census volumes, which
record the name, age, gender, and address of residents
of the city.
The Census was microfilmed approximately 40 years ago
by the Genealogical Society of Utah. In 2022, the
Municipal Archives received grant funding from the
Peck-Stacpoole Foundation to begin digitizing,
transcribing, and indexing the 1890 Police Census
volumes. Now that the collection is digitized and
published online, we are asking for volunteer
transcribers to help us create a searchable index of
the individuals named in the volumes. As the 1890
federal census records were destroyed in a fire in the
Commerce Building in Washington, D.C. in 1921, these
records will be invaluable to family historians.
Learn more about this project in a recent blog
post.
Records of Slavery
Over the last several months, Arafua Reed, the
Archives' City Service Corps member, has researched
various volumes that include records of enslaved
people in New York City. A selection of nine volumes
from the Old Town records dating from 1660 to 1827
have been published
online
for transcription, including manumission records and
records of children born to enslaved women.
This important project was just featured on NBC News!
Watch the clip
here.
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Uncovering NYC’s Past: DORIS’ Spring Programs Explore
History, Resilience & Change
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During 2025, the 400th anniversary of the founding of
City government, DORIS is expanding access to records
documenting the city and its diverse communities.
From the evolution of NYC’s “Street of Dreams” to the
fight to save Radio City Music Hall, from the
inequalities exposed by the pandemic to the unrest of
the ’60s and ’70s—DORIS’ spring public programs offer
a captivating journey through New York City history.
The season kicks off at 6 PM on March 13th with former
Radio City Music Hall dance captain Rosemary
Novellino-Mearns, who will discuss her book
Saving Radio City Music Hall: A Dancer’s True
Story. She’ll share her firsthand account of the battle to
preserve this iconic institution when it faced closure
in 1978.
April brings a compelling trio of Lunch & Learn
programs:
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April 3rd: Borough Historian and
Rutgers professor Dr. Robert Snyder presents
When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s
Essential Workers, an intimate look at the pandemic’s impact through
poems, oral histories, and first-person narratives.
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April 8th: Architectural historian
Dr. Mosette Broderick traces the transformation of
Fifth Avenue—one of the world’s most legendary
streets—in Street of Dreams.
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April 29th: John Jay College
professor Dr. David Viola explores political
radicalism and domestic terrorism in
You Have Unleashed a Storm: New York City’s
Descent into Chaos During America’s Most Explosive
Era of Radical Violence, examining the turbulence of the 1960s and ’70s.
Learn more and register to attend at:
https://doris_events.eventbrite.com.
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