1. Science comes to the library! This fall, NYPL has lots of programming for children and teens introducing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (that’s STEM to the academics) in hands-on sessions. Last Friday, children ages five through twelve  at the Morningside Heights Library worked with beakers, flasks, and green water while wearing goggles. (Sounds cool, right?) Several parents joined their daughters and sons in this science workshop, so the kids learned about science while sharing quality time with their moms and dads. Woodlawn Heights Library has a Lab Works program this Thursday, Sept. 15; Inwood Library on Monday, Sept. 26;  and Melrose Library on Tuesday, Sept. 27. Several other library locations are also hosting this program, so check out our website for further dates and times. Lab Works is presented by Mad Science of Westchester and Manhattan. Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs for children at The New York Public are made possible through the generous support of Con Edison.

    Science comes to the library! This fall, NYPL has lots of programming for children and teens introducing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (that’s STEM to the academics) in hands-on sessions. Last Friday, children ages five through twelve  at the Morningside Heights Library worked with beakers, flasks, and green water while wearing goggles. (Sounds cool, right?) Several parents joined their daughters and sons in this science workshop, so the kids learned about science while sharing quality time with their moms and dads.

    Woodlawn Heights Library has a Lab Works program this Thursday, Sept. 15; Inwood Library on Monday, Sept. 26;  and Melrose Library on Tuesday, Sept. 27. Several other library locations are also hosting this program, so check out our website for further dates and times.

    Lab Works is presented by Mad Science of Westchester and Manhattan.

    Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs for children at The New York Public are made possible through the generous support of Con Edison.

  2. Meet the great-grandfather of email! In 1918, the country was introduced to Airmail (or Airplane mail, as some called it). This letter addressed to B.W.H. Poole on July 15, 1918 (exactly 93 years ago!) - found in the Benjamin K. Miller collection of United States stamps via our digital gallery - was sent from Philadelphia to New York during one of the first flights of Airmail. It cost 16 cents… a bit more expensive than your standard mail back in the day.   This version of Airmail didn’t last very long, as most folks tended to use the cheaper rates for mail sent by train. But, we’ve come a long since then! Wouldn’t you say, Tumblers?

    Meet the great-grandfather of email! In 1918, the country was introduced to Airmail (or Airplane mail, as some called it). This letter addressed to B.W.H. Poole on July 15, 1918 (exactly 93 years ago!) - found in the Benjamin K. Miller collection of United States stamps via our digital gallery - was sent from Philadelphia to New York during one of the first flights of Airmail. It cost 16 cents… a bit more expensive than your standard mail back in the day.  

    This version of Airmail didn’t last very long, as most folks tended to use the cheaper rates for mail sent by train. But, we’ve come a long since then! Wouldn’t you say, Tumblers?

  3. Toilers in the Westinghouse Lamp Division Research Department perform the firsts tests on “the largest mercury vapor lamp ever built” in this photo from our 1939-40 World’s Fair collection. More than 60 years later, some similar research and development went on right in our own Science, Industry and Business Library, when Ground-Lab co-founder, Justin Downs, was developing another record-breaking lamp.  While we’re sure his work is just as brilliant, if not more, than that in the photo above… we can’t be sure that his goggles were quite as awesome. Go behind the scenes of his work in this week’s Check Out, our Huffington Post Column.

    Toilers in the Westinghouse Lamp Division Research Department perform the firsts tests on “the largest mercury vapor lamp ever built” in this photo from our 1939-40 World’s Fair collection.

    More than 60 years later, some similar research and development went on right in our own Science, Industry and Business Library, when Ground-Lab co-founder, Justin Downs, was developing another record-breaking lamp. 

    While we’re sure his work is just as brilliant, if not more, than that in the photo above… we can’t be sure that his goggles were quite as awesome.

    Go behind the scenes of his work in this week’s Check Out, our Huffington Post Column.

  4. We were born in the same year, spent much of our youthful spare time in branches of the New York Public Library, and were prompted to enter medical research by reading Paul de Kruif’s Microbe Hunters.

    — Nobel Prize winner Baruch Blumberg, who discovered Hepatitis B and led NASA’s efforts to find life on other planets, discussing he and fellow scientific leader Joshua Lederberg in a 2008 “Nature” article. Blumberg died yesterday at age 85. RIP to a truly great and important man.

  5. We wish that science class was this much fun! This brilliant video is one of four videos produced by students at Parsons the New School for Design in collaboration with The New York Public Library and artist Lauren Redniss for Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout, a book, exhibition (at the main NYPL location at Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street), and a website. Sean Ferguson created this animation, which is narrated by Redniss. Check out the Radioactive site in its entirety at http://exhibitions.nypl.org/radioactive/.

    Atoms have never been so exciting!

  6. The Radioactive website is hot! →

    Check out the brand spankin’ new website for the Radioactive exhibition! It is a collaboration between The New York Public Library and Parsons the New School for Design. Fourteen Parsons students and their teacher, Lauren Redniss (author, artist, Former Cullman Center Fellow) worked with the NYPL to create this interactive, online exhibit in conjunction with the Radioactive exhibition now up at the Library on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. Animations about love and science; a Raidon Game, and a virtual way to make cyanotypes all await you!

  7. Radioactive exhibition opens today at the Library!

    Today’s a great day at the Library, because the exhibition Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout has opened! As you can see from the image above (pages 146-147 of the book with the same name), Radioactive is arty, graphic, and heavy on the cyanotypes!  We’ve been enjoying this book since it came out last month, but you know what? The exhibition is even cooler, because there are library materials hanging on the walls alongside Redniss’ work! (We say that as Library staffers.)  Redniss worked on the book while she was a Fellow at the Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and she was inspired by our collections. Some of the pieces that spoke to her work are on the walls, displayed next to the original Library pieces. There’s been some stories for the book and the exhibit already: NPR’s All Things Considered, vogue.com, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, WNYC’s The Leonard Lopate Show, and The Huffington Post. Make sure to check out the amazing exhibition website that Redniss worked on with her Parsons The New School students!