NEW YORK AND 22 BIG-CITY LIBRARIES AWARDED $15 MILLION BY CARNEGIE CORP.

Marking the Centennial of Andrew Carnegie's Gifts to 2,506 Libraries Grants to Promote Literacy,
Services to Children and Adolescents, Preservation, and Special Collections

NEW YORK, JUNE 10 - Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded $15 million to The New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Borough Public Library, and libraries in 22 other cities serving large culturally diverse populations. The grants mark the centennial period of Andrew Carnegie's gifts to establish public libraries in New York City and more than 1,350 other communities across America. The funds will also benefit the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, which is part of the New York Public Library system.

"The aim of this initiative is to highlight the central role of America's public libraries in preparing young people, adults, and newcomers for a new century in which knowledge and creative thinking will be the basis for individual advancement," said Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the Corporation's board of trustees at a gathering of the foundation's trustees and library directors at the New York Public Library on June 10.

"These grants symbolize Carnegie Corporation's faith in the public library as the guardian of freedom of thought and of the free exchange of information and ideas," said Vartan Gregorian, the Corporation's president and former president of the New York Public Library. "Though libraries have always been able to accommodate all means of communication and most forms of cultural expression, they will remain the essential place of the book. No search engine can replace the library, or the librarian, whose role is to distill the best, to separate fact from fiction, to provide a structure for knowledge and learning. The library, as Norman Mailer put it, is 'the people's palace.' It contains the DNA of our culture.

He added, "If this initiative in honor of Andrew Carnegie's benefactions a century ago stimulates other donors to focus on the contributions of this vital institution, then its purposes will have been wonderfully well served." Almost all of the current grant recipients were originally funded by Andrew Carnegie between 1899 and 1906. All were chosen according to the size and diversity of population served, geographic spread, and/or historical relationship to Andrew Carnegie, according to Gregorian. The funds will be used over one to two years toward services to children and teens, literacy/learning programs, preservation, and special collections of branch libraries of the major public library systems. A total of $4 million will go to the neighborhood libraries in New York City, commemorating Mr. Carnegie's gifts of $5.2 million between 1899 and 1901 to establish 65 branch libraries throughout the five boroughs.

The New York Public Library, now with 85 branches in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, is garnering the largest share with $2 million. The Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Borough Public Library will each receive $1 million. All other public libraries are receiving $500,000 each (see list on p. 4).

At the New York Public Library, the funds will be used mainly for adult literacy/learning programs aimed at non-English speakers, augmenting support from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. It will also ensure the preservation of rare films in the Donnell Media Center and permit acquisitions of literature, art, and music reflective of New York City's cultural life and the interests of children and young adults. $200,000 alone will go to the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, one of the New York Public Library's four main research libraries and the nation's foremost repository of materials from the African diaspora. The Corporation enabled the library to acquire Arturo Schomburg's personal library and papers in 1925. The current award will support the preservation of newspapers, periodicals, books, and sound recordings.

Commenting on the grant, Howard Dodson, chief of the Schomburg Center, said, "On the eve of the 21st century and the 75th anniversary of the Center, Carnegie Corporation has again invested in the preservation of essential resources for documenting African American and African diasporan histories and culture." The Brooklyn Public Library, which was initially given $1.6 million by Andrew Carnegie to help build 20 branch libraries, now has 58 neighborhood branches including 19 original Carnegie buildings still standing. The current grant will be used to improve the reading readiness and reading skills of children up to age 12 as well as promote lifelong reading. The funds will also support the creation of core ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) collections at every branch to serve Brooklyn's large immigrant population.

The Queens Borough Public Library, to which Mr. Carnegie gave $240,000 to build 3 branches, now has 63 facilities. The new funds will enhance its special collections, including research-level collections on the countries and languages of eastern Europe and Africa and on science and mathematics, and make more multicultural resources available to children. Today the largest branch library in New York City is the Flushing Library, situated on the site of one of the branch libraries built with Mr. Carnegie's money.

Altogether Andrew Carnegie and Carnegie Corporation, the philanthropy he established in 1911 and led until he died in 1919, are recorded as giving away more than $56 million for the building of 2,506 free public libraries in the United States and in many other parts of the English-speaking world, including Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the West Indies. The funds spurred the rapid growth of public libraries in these regions and led to their large public acceptance as fundamental democratic and educational institutions. The libraries receiving the Corporation awards are: