1. Happy Birthday Minnesota! In honor of Minnesota’s 154th birthday, a classic stereogram of the state’s pineries, complete with log cabin. Happy Flashback Friday!

    Happy Birthday Minnesota! In honor of Minnesota’s 154th birthday, a classic stereogram of the state’s pineries, complete with log cabin.

    Happy Flashback Friday!

  2. To mark the birthday of composer Henry Cowell, today’s Caturday pic comes from the Henry Cowell Papers in the Music Division of our Library for The Performing Arts. The image provides a telling glimpse of Cowell — who composed the song “Because the Cat” — hard at work at his home in upstate Shady, N.Y. Cat fanciers will be pleased to note how the composer can focus on his work and still be accommodating to his feline friends. But are Cowell’s charges a-mew-sed by his latest piece? Sure doesn’t look like it. Thanks again to NYPL’s own Jeremy Megraw, who continues to uncover purrrfect Caturday gems from our collection. Happy Caturday!

    To mark the birthday of composer Henry Cowell, today’s Caturday pic comes from the Henry Cowell Papers in the Music Division of our Library for The Performing Arts. The image provides a telling glimpse of Cowell — who composed the song “Because the Cat” — hard at work at his home in upstate Shady, N.Y. Cat fanciers will be pleased to note how the composer can focus on his work and still be accommodating to his feline friends. But are Cowell’s charges a-mew-sed by his latest piece? Sure doesn’t look like it. Thanks again to NYPL’s own Jeremy Megraw, who continues to uncover purrrfect Caturday gems from our collection. Happy Caturday!

  3. “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times…” 

    What would Charles Dickens think about turning 200 today? Well, everyone here at NYPL wishes him (and all his faithful fans) a most wonderful bicentennial! Why don’t you stop by the Stephen A. Schwarzman building and catch a last look at Mr. Dickens’ letter opener (fashioned from his cat’s paw) and his very own reading copy of David Copperfield? They will be on exhibit until March 4, don’t miss out!

  4. One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.

    — Lewis Carroll

    With all the birthdays this week, today’s Tumblr is getting “curiouser and curiouser!” Happy 180th Mr. Carroll!

  5. It’s Mikhail Baryshnikov’s birthday! To celebrate, enjoy these beautiful images of the legendary dancer, which are part of a recent collection of archival material that Mr. Baryshnikov donated to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 

  6. Today’s Flashback Friday honors Arturo Alfonso Schomburg,  the distinguished Puerto Rican-born Black scholar and bibliophile, as well as the curator of the New York Public Library’s Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints from 1932 - 1938. It was Mr. Schomburg’s personal collection that won the 135th street Library international acclaim and in 1940, the New York Public Library renamed the collection in his honor. Today, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of the premiere research libraries in the country and contains over 10,000,000 items. For his great contributions to our cultural history and in celebration of his birthday this week, we present this portrait of Mr. Schomburg and encourage everyone to stop by the Schomburg Center, in person or online. It’s never too late to learn!

    Today’s Flashback Friday honors Arturo Alfonso Schomburg,  the distinguished Puerto Rican-born Black scholar and bibliophile, as well as the curator of the New York Public Library’s Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints from 1932 - 1938. It was Mr. Schomburg’s personal collection that won the 135th street Library international acclaim and in 1940, the New York Public Library renamed the collection in his honor. Today, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of the premiere research libraries in the country and contains over 10,000,000 items.

    For his great contributions to our cultural history and in celebration of his birthday this week, we present this portrait of Mr. Schomburg and encourage everyone to stop by the Schomburg Center, in person or online. It’s never too late to learn!

  7. A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.

    — 

    Edith Wharton

    May your day be mirthful as we celebrate Edith Wharton’s birthday! Looking for one of her classics? We’ve got them right here!

  8. A Honey of a Tuesday

    “Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.” - Winnie the Pooh


    Wishing all of our 20,000 followers a very happy day for today is A. A. Milne’s birthday.  Our deepest gratitude to Mr. Milne for creating the wondrous characters of Hundred Acre Wood, who you can see in reality if you stop by the Library’s centennial exhibition, where Pooh and his friends are enjoying hundreds of historic items.

  9. …it is reassuring that in a world of many bewildering changes, a little bit of one’s childhood will forever remain the same.

    — Ian Buruma, Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers and celebrating a birthday today!