New York's New Door to the Information Age

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NYPL OPENS ITS SCIENCE, INDUSTRY, AND BUSINESS LIBRARY IN TIME FOR AL CONFERENCE GOERS

When the new Science, Industry, and Business Library, known as SIBL, opened May 2, the occasion not only marked the conclusion of New York Public Library's yearlong centennial celebration, it also launched a new era in the institution's history. SIBL occupies part of an early-twentieth-century landmark building, the former B. Altman department store; but its interior has been transformed by the architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates into a library for the twenty-first century.

"SIBL is the nation's premier public information center devoted to science and business," said NYPL President Paul LeClerc. "It puts the New York Public Library in the forefront of the information revolution and, in our second century of service, reaffirms the library's mission to make all its resources available to everyone."

Computer and telecommunications technologies connecting SIBL to other libraries, educational institutions, offices, and homes here and abroad will give its users, both inside and outside its walls, access to a world of electronic information. This is not to say that books have vanished, or that reading-room coziness has been replaced …