The New York Public Library's digital collections database is the gift that keeps on giving. First it was a treasure trove of historical maps, and then a vast collection of vintage photos made browsable by geography, and now the library has announced a new endeavor: they've released hi-res images and metadata for 180,000 public domain items in its digital collection. That means that there's now a new, vast collection of images with no U.S. copyright restrictions that are more easily navigable and shareable. "Today, we are going beyond providing our users with digital facsimiles that give only an impression of something we have in our physical collection" New York Public Library president Tony Marx said in a statement, "By making our highest-quality assets freely available, we are truly giving our users the greatest access possible to our collections in the digital environment." Wanna get to browsing? Here's where to start.
↑ The Fifth Avenue portal lets users compare historic photos of Fifth Avenue in 1911 to Google Street View Images. If you want to surpass all of the newness, you can do that too.
↑ From the Apartment Houses of the Metropolitan collection comes Mansion Maniac, an interactive page that lets you explore floorplans from New York City mansions of the early 1900s.
↑ There's an entire series dedicated to photos of Ellis Island immigrants and the social conditions of early 1900s America.
↑ Peep the grand mansions along the Hudson with the Villas on the Hudson collection.
Happy browsing, folks!
· Digital Collections [NYPL]
· Browse 11 Sweet Maps From NYPL's Newly-Digitzed Archive [Curbed]
· A Treasure Trove of New York City's Historic Photos, Mapped [Curbed]
· All NYPL coverage [Curbed]
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