New York Public Library gets down to business

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 27, 1996 | by Jeffrey R. Sipe

The largest public business library in the country is dedicated to providing `open access to information in support of education, research and entrepreneurial initiatives.'

For small-business owners, getting market and regulatory information at a reasonable price is a headache. Without the resources of a major corporation, research can be prohibitively expensive.

But New York City's public-library system just made life easier and a bit cheaper for entrepreneurs. The system, already one of the world's largest, recently christened the Science, Industry and Business Library, or SIBL, conceived with small-business owners in mind.

"We take information for granted, because it is so accessible," remarked Mayor Rudolph Giuliani at the library's dedication ceremony in late April. "SIBL is meant to broaden even more that accessibility." According to Heike Kordish, acting director of SIBL, "The half-million users who used these divisions before will triple in number this year."

Some of the million new users will be able to sit at one of the 50 on-line terminals connected to the Internet. (Outlets for laptop computers are available on 500 desks.) For the more traditional, some 1.2 million books and 110,000 periodical titles are available for library use, with another 50,000 volumes circulating. In the Electronic Information Center, researchers can browse through more than 100 standalone CD-ROM databases, networked CD-ROM files, on-line journals and other electronic resources covering the latest in science, business and government information.

In creating the new facility, librarians reevaluated everything from information sources to personnel. "It demanded a different staff from the humanities, for example," says Jennifer Kruger, head of information service. "Additionally, you'll find that, for one, we've put in a lot more copy machines here. People r searching rare manuscripts can't Xeroxing. This is different'"

SIBL's orientation toward the small-business owner came out of a combination of market research and anecdotal observations on the part of the staff. "Major corporations have access to much of what we offer here," says Kordish, "but a small company or somebody looking to start up a business can't afford that kind of on-site research capacity."

All too often, searching out information electronically can become a tedious process of elimination -- an initial accumulation of sources that often prove fruitless. SIBL's planners hope to help researchers save some time, with the Harrison S. Kravis Electronic training Center, where users can take half-hour training courses ranging from an overview of SIBL's resources to in-depth handling of specific databases. Companies will be able to rent the training center outside the library's normal hours of operation.

SIBL was built at an initial cost of $100 million, and projected annual operating costs are set at $4 million. To meet the financial demands, the library has accepted money from the city, state and federal governments and from private individuals and corporations. Consequently, a number of rooms and central information desks are named for benefactors. And in a new twist, subject areas in the electronic catalog will contain the name of corporate sponsors.

Says Kordish, "If you search for banking, for example, when it comes up you'll get a message that says,' this subject area brought to you by....' There was some controversy about this in the beginning -- that it was introducing commercialization -- but I don't think it's a problem now. After all, we've always named rooms after people."

There's a certain irony in the charge of commercialism -- SIBL is located in the former B. Altman's department store at 34th Street and Madison Avenue. "What New Yorker past the age of 30 does not miss B. Altman, the last department store that could be described as genteel?" asks Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for the New York Times.

But Goldberger gives Gwathmey Siegel, the architectural firm that designed SIBL, high marks, praising the expanse of oak paneling and gray ter-razzo that soften the high-tech stainless steel and glass. "This library has to appeal to visitors hour after hour, and to staff for years," writes Goldberger. "It gives every indication of being able to do so, with an appealing blend of dignity and efficiency.