New York Public Library access is just a click away

January 6, 2016 10:41 AM

New York Public Library Makes 180,000 High-Res Images Available Online
posted by Michele in California (20 comments total)

I don't do this sort of thing very often, but:

*ahem*

*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
posted by entropicamericana at 10:55 AM on January 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Here's the search page.

I can't imagine there will be anything especially interest--

Ooh, here's a song about Bowery Boys (not the movie characters, the two-fisted volunteer firemen)
Here's an illustration of Dr. Jacob Rosenzweig being arrested (he had a body in a trunk)
Scenes from a stage production of Mr. Wu, the basis for a Lon Cheney movie and an endless series of jokes in English pantos!

I may be busy for a while.
posted by maxsparber at 11:12 AM on January 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Wow. There's some great stuff in there and downloadable in high-res tiff format. I have access to some really good quality photo printers at school so I'm definitely going to print a few of these. I love this one .
posted by octothorpe at 11:29 AM on January 6, 2016

*Stuffs hard drive full of Walker Evans*
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:38 AM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ooooh, they have Roubo's L'art du menusier. A sacred tome for woodworkers.

(Can be had as an extremely high quality printed English edition from Lost Art Press if one desires a physical copy)
posted by Harald74 at 12:05 PM on January 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

This plate from the book has launched a thousand workbench builds, with Chris Schwartz leading the faithful.
posted by Harald74 at 12:08 PM on January 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh, how funny!

Consider this stereoscopic view of Fort Snelling, outside St. Paul, MN: here.

It's funny because the entire area around the fort is now a park and so is covered by tall trees, whereas back when the fort was built, the land (as shown here) was cleared for miles. So decades of school children have come to the tower at the end of the fort -- seen here in the center of the image -- and silently wondered why the tour guide praises the sweeping views when all you can see is endless trees.

As one of those kids in the 1970s & 80s, I was only set straight this past July. Years of confusion! I sure wish they could post an enlarged version of this image on the tower itself for visitors to see.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:16 PM on January 6, 2016

As a native Minneapolitian, you're talking my kinda talk.
posted by maxsparber at 12:21 PM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Dang, Harald74, that's a neat book.

Looks like there's an API; anyone played with writing a downloader script?
posted by wenestvedt at 12:23 PM on January 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have a lot of work sitting here on my plate that looks dangerously like it's not getting done.
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:27 PM on January 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

maxsparber: As a native Minneapolitian, you're talking my kinda talk.

I just sent a message to a friend who works for the Minnesota Historical Society. Cross your fingers!
posted by wenestvedt at 1:02 PM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is so awesome. Just a month or two ago I was trying to download high-res versions of some public domain items in the NYPL collection, and it was completely frustrating. Thanks for posting; I wouldn't have known about this otherwise!
posted by compartment at 1:37 PM on January 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hi -- so happy you're all enjoying the public domain materials here! (I work for NYPL Labs, which is one of the technology groups at NYPL and the one that spearheaded a lot of work across teams at the library to get this rolled out to the world.)

If anyone does end up writing a download script, we'd love to see it -- we've got a data release repo up on Github, and we'd be happy to include script mentions there so others can make use of them. Ditto creative reuses of PD materials -- folks don't need any kind of permission to use PD stuff, but we love seeing what people come up with if they're willing to share (and there are Remix Residencies if folks want to dig in even deeper...).

Basically, we're eager to see as these public domain materials get the love they deserve, so suggestions welcome on other things we can do to make these cultural heritage materials as useful as possible!
posted by Hadroed at 1:44 PM on January 6, 2016 [29 favorites]

I just added a few photos, including this beauty, to my blog. I really love this kind of stuff. I would pay good money to see horses drinking beer at a table.
posted by sixpack at 2:18 PM on January 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Excellent this is.
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:36 PM on January 6, 2016

Hadroed: (I work for NYPL Labs, which is one of the technology groups at NYPL and the one that spearheaded a lot of work across teams at the library to get this rolled out to the world.)

NYPL Labs is truly the best of the web. Thank you (all).
posted by emilypdx at 3:13 PM on January 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hadroed: Basically, we're eager to see as these public domain materials get the love they deserve…

I LOVE THIS GUY.

So, you won't cut me off if I start experimenting with some rexeges & curl, maybe…? Sweet!
posted by wenestvedt at 4:40 PM on January 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh wow, you guys act just like a bunch of kids who've discovered a haunted...

OMG LOOK AT THAT!!! page that shows what 180,000 images looks like, and *each one is linked* !!

NYPL used to be the place to turn to when you had a question you couldn't answer anywhere near you lived.
Now you can turn to it to have thousands of -entirely new- questions you'd never have had ....

Ahhhhh. Questions trump answers every time.
posted by Twang at 5:02 PM on January 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Room renting for $2,000 in SF today Tenement basement. From the Photographs Taken By Inspectors of the New York Tenement House Department.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:07 PM on January 6, 2016

This is the presentation that definitely blows my mind: Public Domain Visualization
posted by rmmcclay at 12:43 AM on January 7, 2016 [2 favorites]