Everyone knows that New York maintains one of the great library systems in the world - the two lions that guard the 42nd street library among the most important icons in the city. Less well known are a host of specialty libraries that have grown up around the rich intellectual and cultural life of New York City. There are a number of libraries that serve genealogical researchers, but also libraries catering to Spanish, German, French and Russian speakers. There is a library of books about dogs and one that is based on the work of Carl Jung. A library in Staten Island checks out tools to homeowners rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy. Fifty Specialty Libraries of New York City will be a tour of highly specialized but publicly accessible libraries in Manhattan and the Outer Boroughs. In each case, access is described, and an interview with the director or supervisor is presented. This book is a unique information source for all those librarians and researchers interested in the rich cultural heritage of New York's libraries. - Goes beyond the directory format to give thoughtful commentary and interview material on each library - Refers the reader to current information - Written by a librarian with 50 years' experience of public, academic, and special libraries, and with a deep feeling for New York - Gives an account of 50 speciality libraries of New York City, from small subscription libraries to the UN Library - Presents information on libraries that are little-known and widely useful in New York

An illuminating and lively narrative of Charles Darwin’s formative years and adventurous voyage aboard the H.M.S. Beagle. Winner of the Georgia Author of the Year Award for Biography/Memoir Charles Darwin—alongside Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein—ranks among the world's most famous scientists. In popular imagination, he peers at us from behind a bushy white Old Testament beard. This image of Darwin the Sage, however, crowds out the vital younger man whose curiosities, risk-taking, and travels aboard HMS Beagle would shape his later theories and served as the foundation of his scientific breakthroughs. Though storied, the Beagle's voyage is frequently misunderstood, its mission and geographical breadth unacknowledged. The voyage's activities associated with South America—particularly its stop in the Galapagos archipelago, off Ecuador’s coast—eclipse the fact that the Beagle, sailing in Atlantic, Pacific and Indian ocean waters, also circumnavigated the globe. Mere happenstance placed Darwin aboard the Beagle—an invitation to sail as a conversation companion on natural-history topics for the ship's depression-prone captain. Darwin was only twenty-two years old, an unproven, unknown, aspiring geologist when the ship embarked on what stretched into its five-year voyage. Moreover, conducting marine surveys of distance ports and coasts, the Beagle's purposes were only inadvertently scientific. And with no formal shipboard duties or rank, Darwin, after arranging to meet the Beagle at another port, often left the ship to conduct overland excursions. Those outings, lasting weeks, even months, took him across mountains, pampas, rainforests, and deserts. An expert horseman and marksman, he won the admiration of gauchos he encountered along the way. Yet another rarely acknowledged aspect of Darwin's Beagle travels, he also visited, often lingered in, cities—including Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Santiago, Lima, Sydney, and Cape Town; and left colorful, often sharply opinionated, descriptions of them and his interactions with their residents. In the end, Darwin spent three-fifths of his five-year "voyage" on land—three years and three months on terra firma versus a total 533 days on water. Acclaimed historian Tom Chaffin reveals young Darwin in all his complexities—the brashness that came from his privileged background, the Faustian bargain he made with Argentina's notorious caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas, his abhorrence of slavery, and his ambition to carve himself a place amongst his era's celebrated travelers and intellectual giants. Drawing on a rich array of sources— in a telling of an epic story that surpasses in breadth and intimacy the naturalist's own Voyage of the Beagle—Chaffin brings Darwin's odyssey to vivid life.

Most vols. include Proceedings of the Special Libraries Association.

The World Guide to Special Libraries lists about 35,000 libraries world wide categorized by more than 800 key words - including libraries of departments, institutes, hospitals, schools, companies, administrative bodies, foundations, associations and religious communities. It provides complete details of the libraries and their holdings, and alphabetical indexes of subjects and institutions.

The wisdom and insight contained in this book can help make the library a center for positive aging.