The New York Public Library

I finished Linda Fairsein's novel Lethal Legacy Thursday and have continued to be enthralled and haunted by the rare book trivia that spiced its pages and the the description and history of its setting: The New York Public Library. A place I've long wanted to see in person. I of course had to go search out its web site and explore it.

I found a lot of things to enthuse a bibliophile like me. The find I'm most enthused about at the moment is the free online access to NYPL Digital Gallery's more than 685,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more. Not only is browsing the images free but they provide the link and embed codes for each image. A practice common to video sites like YouTube which makes this an invaluable resource for images to illustratrate my posts.

The image at the top of this post is of the New York Public Library in its early years. The image below is of a world map about a century newer than the one that plays a significant role in Fairstein's novel.