POTW: A Steady Gaze

Today's Photo of the Week is an arresting portrait of a librarian at BPL's Prospect branch, now known as the Park Slope Library. According to the branch page on our website, "Park Slope Library began life as a small collection of books on natural history in Prospect Park's Litchfield Mansion. A storefront library soon opened on Ninth Street until the beautiful Andrew Carnegie-funded building opened at its current location in 1906." My favorite feature of the branch is the interior window leading shaped like open books.

In this image, the librarian is seated at a desk with an open publication in front of her and of course, bookshelves behind. In the near foreground stands a row of what look to be ink wells, which are more visible in this related image. Also more visible in the related image is the poster on the wall in the background, which has photographs of "When New York Was Young." I love that even in the very earliest years of BPL, they were displaying historic photographs of our city, just as we still do today (on this very blog, no less!). Though her face is slightly out of focus, this librarian's steady gaze pierces the centuries and cannot help but grab the viewer's attention, over one hundred years later.

Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal of Brooklyn Public Library. We welcome appointments to research our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.