Trustees & Staff

Trustees

Byron Bell
Charles G. Berry
Ralph S. Brown Jr.
Robert A. Caro
Lyn Chase
Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
William J. Dean
Benita Eisler
George L.K. Frelinghuysen
Christopher Gray
James Q. Griffin
Shirley Hazzard
John K. Howat
Anthony D. Knerr
Jenny Lawrence
Linn Cary Mehta
Jean Parker Phifer
Susan L. Robbins
Theodore C. Rogers
Constance R. Roosevelt
Daniel M. Rossner
Jeannette Watson Sanger
Barbara H. Stanton

HONORARY TRUSTEE:
Margaret Mather Byard

Library Staff

FULL-TIME:
Mark Bartlett
Paul Burley
Susan Chan
Charles Cronin
Jane Goldstein
Endang Hertanto
Janet Howard
Steven McGuirl
John McKeown
Mark Piel
Patrick Rayner
Ingrid Richter
Carrie Silberman
Diane Srebnick

PART-TIME:
Harry Abarca
Juliet Arkin
Igor Botan
Arevig Caprielian
Ashley Forrest Curran
Sara Holliday
Marie Honan
Randi Levy
Pierre-Antoine Louis
George MuÒoz
Kayla Ohmes
Peggy Levin Salwen
Linnea Holman Savapoulas
Harriet Shapiro
Grace Elaine Suh
Tinamarie Vella
Stanley Weinman

Library Committees

(June 2004 - May 2005)

Executive Committee

William J. Dean, Chair
James Q. Griffin, Treasurer
Charles G. Berry, Secretary
Ralph S. Brown Jr.
Barbara H. Stanton

Audit Committee

Charles G. Berry
Ralph S. Brown Jr.

Finance Committee

James Q. Griffin, Chair
Charles G. Berry
Ralph S. Brown Jr.
George L.K. Frelinghuysen
Anthony D. Knerr
Theodore C. Rogers
Daniel M. Rossner
Barbara H. Stanton

Personnel Committee

James Q. Griffin, Chair
Charles G. Berry
Ralph S. Brown Jr.
Daniel M. Rossner
Barbara H. Stanton

Nominating Committee

Jenny Lawrence, Chair
Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
Linn Cary Mehta
Jean Parker Phifer
Jeannette Watson Sanger
Barbara H. Stanton

Search Committee

Charles G. Berry, Chair
William J. Dean
Ralph S. Brown Jr.
Jenny Lawrence
Daniel M. Rossner
Barbara H. Stanton

250th Campaign Steering Committee

Barbara H. Stanton, Chair
Lyn Chase
William J. Dean
George L.K. Frelinghuysen
John K. Howat
Theodore C. Rogers
Daniel M. Rossner
Jeannette Watson Sanger

Building Committee

Christopher Gray, Chair
Byron Bell
Lyn Chase
Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
Jean Parker Phifer
Theodore C. Rogers
Barbara H. Stanton

Renovation Committee

Ralph S. Brown Jr., Chair
Byron Bell
Lyn Chase
Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
William J. Dean
Christopher Gray
Jean Parker Phifer
Theodore C. Rogers
Barbara H. Stanton

Library Committee

Ralph S. Brown Jr., Chair
Lyn Chase
Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
Christopher Gray
Jenny Lawrence
Linn Cary Mehta
Jean Parker Phifer
Theodore C. Rogers
Constance R. Roosevelt
Jeannette Watson Sanger

Lecture and Exhibition Committee

Jeannette Watson Sanger, Chair
Lyn Chase
Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
William J. Dean
Jenny Lawrence
Constance R. Roosevelt
Barbara H. Stanton

Children's Committee

Susan L. Robbins, Chair
Andrea Labov Clark
Peggy Ellis
Carolyn Goodrich
Jan Grossman
Abraham Hsuan
Joanna Humphries
Pat Langer
Linn Cary Mehta
Louise Monjo
Jean Parker Phifer
Jeannette Watson Sanger
Edra Ziesk

Member Relations Committee

Linn Cary Mehta, Chair
Ralph S. Brown Jr.
Jules Cohn
Margaret Edsall
Ellen Feldman
Christopher Gray
Nancy Preston
Daniel M. Rossner

New York City Book Awards Committee

Constance R. Roosevelt, Chair
Michael Henry Adams
Lucienne Bloch
Barbara Cohen
Jules Cohn
Joan K. Davidson
Roger Pasquier
Elizabeth Barlow Rogers
Jonathan Rosen
Daniel M. Rossner
Wendy Wasserstein

Book Committee

Benita Eisler, Chair
Marilyn Bender Altschul
Richard Aspinwall
Lucienne Bloch
Lyn Chase
Jules Cohn
Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
Margaret Edsall
Helen Evarts
Linda Fritzinger
Malcolm Goldstein
Shirley Hazzard
Sarah Plimpton
Theodore C. Rogers
Daniel M. Rossner
Barbara Wriston

Preservation Committee

John K. Howat, Chair
Ralph S. Brown Jr.
Lyn Chase
Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
Peggy Ellis
Janet Gertz
Christopher Gray
Kenneth Soehner

Report of the Chairman

William J. Dean
(June 2004 - May 2005)

For three years on rainy days when a high school student, I stood under the awning of a building near Madison Avenue, waiting to take the 79th Street cross-town bus to school. Not being especially inquisitive, I never looked up at the awning. Had I done so, I would have read the words, "New York Society Library."

Fifteen years later, a friend presented me with a membership certificate in the Library. How that gift transformed my life! A librarian at the front desk informed me that members had access to the book stacks, a privilege found in few libraries. I enjoy reading plays, so I headed for Stack 9. Over the years, shelf by shelf, I read the plays of Ibsen, those of the French playwrights Jean Giraudoux and Jean Anouilh, and those of Brecht, Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams. Chekhov's plays led me to his short stories-hundreds of them. As a result, Chekhov became my favorite writer.

In the narrow stacks, with low ceilings and electric timers, I came upon literary treasures-for example, a book whose author was identified only as "C.3.3."-the prison-cell number of Oscar Wilde, the book being his The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Camus wrote of "multiplying horizons and expanses" when he first entered a library. This certainly has been my experience at The New York Society Library.

The Library is a very special place. In the words of trustee Robert Caro, "It's a jewel of a perfect size, neither so large as to be an impersonal institution, nor so small that its collection is lacking in the books that you want. . . .The serenity of the Members' Room is from another age, where Dickens or Trollope would have been as at home reading as I am.

The word "Society" in our name is misleading. In 1754, "society" meant an association. Actually, our founding as the first public library in New York City was an event undertaken very much in a democratic spirit. True to this spirit, to this day we are both a public and a membership library. "The New York Society Library," writes member Karl Kirchwey, "is the city's best-kept democratic secret, disguised as an aristocratic institution. For in these elegant surroundings, one finds a quirky and surprisingly ample library, with citizens of every age and stage of life availing themselves of its resources, from high school students eking out a term paper to scholars researching poetry."

Member Richard Panek writes of the collection's depth. "When I began my research toward writing a social history of the telescope, I soon found myself frequenting the low 500s in Stack 3. To my left were Galileo's writings, validating the Copernican view that the Earth goes around the Sun, not vice versa. In front of me were turn-of-the twentieth century first editions, try to ascertain if the stars in our galaxy are the full extent of the universe. And to my right were the latest dispatches from Stephen Hawking or Alan Guth, about the billions of other galaxies stretching across space and back in time to the Big Bang. . . . All of history, all those voices, all at once."

The past few months have brought leadership changes to the Library. After twenty-six years, Mark Piel retired as Head Librarian. Mark was honored for his many contributions to the Library by members, Staff and Board.

The Library warmly welcomed Charles Cronin as the seventeenth Head Librarian in our 250-year history. On June 1, James Q. Griffin stepped down as treasurer after twenty-one years of service, and I stepped down as chairman after serving twelve years. The Library's new officers are Trustees Charles G. Berry, Chairman; Daniel M. Rossner, secretary; and George L.K. Frelinghuysen, treasurer.

The Library enters upon its second quarter-millennium with new leadership and renewed energy.

Respectfully submitted,
William J. Dean, Chairman

Report of the Librarian

Charles Cronin
(June 2004 - May 2005)

With characteristic eloquence, Mark Piel closed his Librarian's Report last year remarking: "[W]ho can predict what promise the future holds for this Library, except to know that it will always be a place for like-minded readers, caught and stirred by the written word." Now that I am a part of the future Mark alluded to I appreciate Shakespeare's line anew: "What's past is prologue." Indeed, one of the most engaging and challenging parts of my new job is to draw upon the excellences of the Library's 250-year past in planning a future that best meets the evolving literary needs and interests of its members. This means, for instance, balancing the demands associated with maintaining the extraordinary quality (including physical condition) of our print collection, and those connected with the expansion of our digital information and communication resources.

I joined the Library only last January, and much of the activity covered in this report occurred before my arrival. Department Heads at the Library provided a good deal of the information in the following paragraphs, for which I am very grateful.

 
Circulation and Reference

The Circulation Department is well known for the unusually solicitous attention its Staff provides to members of the Library and the public who drop in to use our reference collection. Department Head Jane Goldstein leads a team that includes full-time assistants Susan Chan, Janet Howard, Patrick Rayner, and Diane Srebnick. These members of the Library Staff also assist with updating member records and many other administrative areas of the Library's operations. The Library maintains its generous circulation hours only with the additional able support of part-time Staff members Marie Honan, Peggy Salwen, Linnea Savapoulas, and Grace Suh. A number of undergraduates working part-time as pages cheerfully help to ensure the exceptionally good order of our book stacks, and speedily obtain requested items from them. Members of the Circulation Department, along with Staff members from other departments, also participate in staffing the reference desk that is regularly manned during busy hours at the Library, and particularly on weekday afternoons.

Last year the Library circulated nearly 90,000 books, about 13,000 of which were works for children. It also managed a lively interlibrary loan operation, handling over 200 transactions that divided, with admirable equality, between items borrowed and items lent. Among the 101 items we lent was our copy of the Victorian-era- and deliciously twee - Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont that we sent to, of all places, Montana.

 
Children's Library

In 2004 the Children's Library continued its vigorous promotion of literacy among the Library's youngest members. Children's Librarians Carrie Silberman and Randi Levy organized various programs for children including storytelling, writing workshops, and author visits. Children had an opportunity to hear and meet authors of some of the best children's books recently published, including Elizabeth Winthrop, Richard Peck, and Mo Willems.

Last year Carrie Silberman once again took a leading role in Project Cicero. Like its eponymous first-century Roman statesman, Project Cicero promotes literacy by helping to build libraries - in this case those of public schools that have no, or inadequate, libraries for their students. Last March Project Cicero collected and distributed over 120,000 books, a number roughly equivalent to half of the Library's total collection-about six or seven full stacks.

 
New York City Book Awards

Living in a city that is a tireless engine of literary and scholarly productivity, members of the Library's New York City Book Awards Committee must necessarily be more voracious readers than those associated with similar enterprises in less thrilling places. In 2004 the New York City Book Awards celebrated its tenth year of honoring books that best evoke the spirit of the city. The winning books for 2004 were Blue Blood by Edward Conlon; From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan's Houses of Worship by David Dunlap; The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto; Subway Style: 100 Years of Architecture and Design, produced by the New York City Transit Museum; Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan by Phillip Lopate, and the children's book Mimmy and Sophie: All Around the Town by Miriam Cohen. Arcadia Publishing was given a Special Citation of Merit for their series of valuable mini-histories of small-scale American historical subjects. On May 4th the Library honored the winning authors at a ceremony that featured playwright, Library member, and entertaining speaker Wendy Wasserstein.

 
Lectures and Events

Thanks to Sara Holliday's artful coordination of innumerable details, and the lively involvement of the Lecture and Exhibition Committee, last year the Library sponsored another well-received series of author programs on broadly ranging topics. Richard Panek talked about the fruitful intersection of Freud's and Einstein's theories, and Barbara Foster spoke on Alexandra David-Neel, the first woman explorer of Tibet. Robert Gottlieb discussed the life and career of his colleague George Balanchine, and in December the Aurea theater group presented Steven MacDonald's Not About Heroes and transformed the Members' Room into a World War I soldiers' hospital inhabited by two poets. The winter and spring heard Author Series lectures by Susan Vreeland on her short fiction, Russell Shorto on the Dutch history of New York, and Tom Wolfe on I Am Charlotte Simmons, with one of the largest audiences in the series' history. In the Members' Room speakers included Caroline Alexander on the mutiny on the Bounty, Suketu Mehta on Mumbai (Bombay), India, Ellen Feldman on her novel The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, and award-winning poet John Hollander.

 
Technical Services

One of the most important, and frequently overlooked, attributes of a good library is the value added to its books by those working in technical services. Technical services comprise acquisitions, cataloguing and computing systems, conservation, and rare books. Like a museum's curatorial Staff, technical services Staff members at the Library are responsible for not only building the collection and keeping it in good physical condition, but also for making its contents readily accessible to readers by updating and refining our catalogue to reflect the Library's holdings.

 
Acquisitions

The Library has about 250,000 items in its collections. It is not a large collection compared to those of academic libraries with much larger budgets, buildings, and Staffs. Its quality, however, for a collection of its size, is extraordinary. The development of our core collection, presided over by Acquisitions Librarian Steve McGuirl and Assistant Janet Howard, focuses on the best English-language works of fiction and English-language non-fiction works in the humanities. This is not to say we are immune to the seductive charms of mysteries and light fiction. Our goal is to offer members a balanced diet including literary bonbons that nicely temper the more austere corners of our collection. The Library has been pleased to capitalize increasingly on the financial savings passed on to us by online booksellers who do not incur all of the overhead expenses associated with the maintenance of a traditional bookstore. These savings should also make easier our long-range efforts to strengthen those portions of the collection that call for expansion.

Last year the Library added approximately 4,700 books to its collections, hundreds of which were gifts from members. The Presidential election and war in Iraq prompted more emphasis than usual on political titles. In general, however, our non-fiction acquisitions continued to reflect the humanities orientation of the collection and the predilections of the members. American and English poetry, essays, and literary criticism led the way with 286 new acquisitions. A notable addition to the reference collection last year was the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Using its sixty volumes, and 13,500 new entries, Library members are now privy to, among many other things, the embarrassing details of John Ruskin's marital life. We also, in 2004, acquired electronic access to the archive of the Times Literary Supplement, which provides all Library members unlimited access from anywhere in the world via an internet connection to all reviews and correspondence published in the TLS between 1902 and 1990. Last year the Library also made available to members an electronic version of Books In Print. Using an internet connection, Library members can now access this resource anywhere.

 
Cataloguing

Once newly acquired items have arrived at the Library, they are subjected to the thorough ministrations of our Cataloguing Department. Department Head Mark Bartlett and Librarians Paul Burley, Arevig Caprielian, and Endang Hertanto catalogued 4,269 items last year. This number includes recently purchased titles, gift titles, and titles whose existing catalogue records required full re-cataloguing in the new cataloguing system that the Library began using in 2004. Assistants Keren Fleshler and Juliet Arkin - both graduate students working part-time at the Library - provided the Department technical support for its highly detailed work.

Apart from its handling of new titles, the Cataloguing Department generally invigilates over the electronic catalogue. Last year the Cataloguing Staff identified and corrected hundreds of blemishes in existing records. We believe this attention has rendered our catalogue one of the most elegant anywhere for a collection like ours. The Library has one of the most comprehensive historical collections of New York City newspapers. Last year the Cataloguing Department completed its detailed inventory of the Library's collections of 18th- and 19th-century New York newspapers. Our enhanced records for this collection now indicate every issue we own for each newspaper, missing issues or gaps, occurrences of misdated and inaccurate pagination, and missing or torn pages. Subtle but important improvements like this make our collections ever more valuable and useful to researchers and anyone generally interested in the history of the City.

 
Systems

The collection of books and periodicals remain the raison d'Ítre of the Library, but computing technologies play an ever-expanding role in providing members and the public the most effective means of accessing these printed materials. Systems Head Ingrid Richter, with the assistance of Paul Burley, tamed a veritable Medusa of wires, and software and hardware associated with the surprisingly complex computing and communications needs at the Library.

Last year, with the helpful collaboration of all departments in the Library, the Systems Department also coordinated the Library's conversion to Millennium software that provides integrated management of acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation, and the catalogue. I was heartened to learn, prior to becoming Head Librarian, of the Library's decision to convert to this system-the gold standard of integrated library software programs that has been adopted by significant libraries throughout the world.

Millennium provides the Library many advantages over the software used previously. On the Staff side, it allows us to check out and renew items more efficiently. Additional enhancements over our prior system are the pop-up messages the new system uses to alert the Staff about possible arrears in a member's circulation account. The system also allows us to monitor generally trends in members' reading habits- e.g. popular subjects and authors, or ongoing interest in books published before a certain date. This information will be increasingly valuable as the Library considers where and how it will house its ever-expanding collection.

Our new software provides significant advantages to Library members and to the public as well. The Library's Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) is now accessible at all times, anywhere in the world, via an internet connection. Using the new OPAC members now can place and cancel holds for books, renew materials online without a separate communication with the Library, and save personalized electronic lists of books and searches. The new OPAC has superior internal linking of bibliographic metadata- i.e. basic cataloguing information about a book-and those browsing the catalogue can now simply select electronic links to move within records among related subject and author headings.

The new OPAC also provides excellent means of electronic communication between the Library and members. The OPAC can now easily and automatically generate electronic mail notifications for held and overdue items. The Library has electronic mail addresses for about thirty percent of Library members. In the future, if the Library were to use electronic mail rather than mailed paper notifications on routine circulation matters, it could allocate the financial savings to new books or other tangible improvements at the Library.

In an effort to encourage members to explore the advantages of computing technologies, last year the Systems Department offered members twenty-three classes on various aspects of these technologies. These classes, many of which were at an introductory level, were generally oversubscribed and generated enthusiastic responses from those who attended.

The Systems Department is responsible for the ongoing design and maintenance of the Library's website (www.nysoclib.org). The Department keeps track of the number of readers who have accessed specific areas of the website-the electronic version of the Library's newsletter "Library Notes" is an especially popular destination. Many members refer to the handy schedule of Library events in this publication, and we will continue to promote its electronic accessibility among the membership.

 
Rare Books

Thanks in part to the Library's venerable history and the steady generosity of its members, we have a collection of rare books that, for a Library of our size, is remarkable both in quality and scope. Last July cataloguing records for most of the collection (10,000 paper records) were made available in our public electronic catalogue. Arevig Caprielian, Rare Book Librarian, oversaw this record conversion project. The project will require further fine tuning of the converted records to improve author, title, and subject access to them.

The Library's rare books collection continues to attract academics and independent researchers. In 2004 visitors to the Library consulted our autograph manuscript of Walter Scott's Castle Dangerous, pursuant to the new publication of this novel as part of The New Edinburgh Edition of the Waverly Novels. Other researchers examined our William Channing Moore Collection of books and autographs, New York newspapers, and other unique items in our collection.

 
Conservation

2004 was the first full year in which the Library benefited from the assistance of Book Conservator George MuÒoz. Under his watch, the Library improved its conservation facility by adding a book press, flat-panel cabinetry for temporary storage of rare materials, and tools for working with leather book bindings. The Library's on-site conservation facility and skilled conservator have made it possible to maintain the physical condition of our books at an exceptionally high level, and specifically to prolong the useful lives of fragile books and other artifacts (e.g. maps and prints) in the Library's collections.

 
Building

Last year the Library's sturdy and elegant 1916 Trowbridge & Livingston building served the Library's needs admirably, providing - as Ernest Hemingway might put it -"A Clean Well-Lighted Place" not only for books but also for readers. Superintendent John McKeown creatively nursed the building through a number of small surgeries and improvements that included the installation of handsome new cork floors throughout the stacks and adjacent hallways. Harry Abarca continued to provide his patient and careful assistance in keeping the Library's interior spaces clean and tidy.

The building has not undergone a significant upgrade for more than twenty years and the members, Staff, and trustees are well aware of a certain dishabille affecting some quarters within it. The enormously industrious Renovation Committee has been studying plans for a refurbishment, and possible expansion, of the building that will materially benefit the Library Staff, members, and collections in the near term and for many years to come.

 
Looking Ahead

For the better part of the past ten years I have been glued to a computer screen in pursuit of one project or another involving digital technology. I have, therefore, taken particular delight, since becoming Head Librarian, in finding that print once again occupies a vital place in my professional life. No doubt computing technologies will play an ever-increasing role in all operations at the New York Society Library. During my watch, however, I expect them not to replace, but rather to enjoy a happy coexistence with printed materials that possess attributes that will never be replicated electronically.

Last December, shortly after I accepted my position here, William Dean, Chairman of the Board, phoned me to discuss logistical arrangements and wrapped up our conversation nonchalantly mentioning that he would be stepping down as Chairman this June. In a speculative swivit, I wondered who might become the new Chairman of the Board, and what it would be like to work with him or her. As I quickly rang the changes on this front, I realized that from even brief acquaintance with members of the Board I would feel entirely comfortable with any one of them as Chairman. I am delighted that Charles Berry, Secretary of the Board for nine years has become the Library's new Chairman, and have recalled and confirmed on more than one occasion a casual but insightful remark he made to me once that while his fellow trustees may disagree at times, every Board member's heart is in the right place as far as wishing for what is best for the Library as a whole.

Some months ago, Bill Dean gave me a copy of a brochure for Volunteers of Legal Service, which he serves as Executive Director. On its back cover I found a quotation from Tolstoy's War and Peace (placed there, of course, by Bill himself):

"Only now when I am living, or at least trying . . . to live for others, only now have I understood all the happiness of life."

The deep humanity of this quotation caught my eye and, given the public service orientation at this Library, I would like to borrow it from Bill, with hopes it might inform our work at the Library now and at all times during my tenure here.

Respectfully submitted,
Charles Cronin, Librarian

Report of the Treasurer

James Q. Griffin
(January - December 2004)

The basic financial policies governing the Library are: a balanced budget, a four and one half percent spending rule from endowment funds (based on the average of the prior three years), a fairly compensated Staff and our building properly maintained. If all of these occur, the institution is thought to be in financial equilibrium.

Over the past decade we clearly have been in equilibrium as we have been last year. Our objective is to stay that way.

Respectfully submitted,
James Q. Griffin, Treasurer

STATEMENT OF REVENUE & EXPENSES UNRESTRICTED NET ASSETS
31 December 2004 with comparative totals for 2003

Note: This statement includes unrestricted revenue and expenses only. All other funds are accounted for separately. Fully audited financial statements are available at the library. The approximate market value of investments on December 31, 2004 was $28,683,000

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