NYPL Readex Databases now with ‘Seamless’ GC Access

Eighteen new New York Public Library Readex archival collections are now available to Graduate Center users through the Graduate Center Library’s A-Z List of Databases. These rich collections of newspapers and early American publications, previously only available online from inside the NYPL, can now be reached from anywhere through the GC Library website. Look for the NYPL lion icon that marks these resources on the GC databases list.

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Denise Hibay, NYPL’s Head of Collections, explains that the “NYPL has negotiated access to its Readex licensed products for the CUNY Graduate Center community who are all also recognized NYPL users.” 

Readex is a commercial vendor that builds online collections from the physical collections of archives and libraries. Readex digitizes physical collections, then sells the archival online collections to research libraries. Holdings of the American Antiquarian Society and the Library Company of Philadelphia are represented in Readex lists, and Readex has drawn on NYPL collections to supplement and complete some of the online series they offer.

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The NYPL and the GC have a unique partnership. Since the Graduate Center’s inception in the 1960s, NYPL has received public funding to support CUNY doctoral students and faculty, making the New York Public Library CUNY’s research library. GC students and faculty constitute about a third of the researchers frequenting NYPL’s magnificent study rooms. Over the past few years, the research libraries have expanded interlibrary loan service and book lending to extend GC access to print collections. NYPL issues every new student an NYPL barcode at GC student registration. 

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NYPL SIBL-CUNY GC loading dock sign

Readex had, up to this point, authorized on-site use only for its e-resources at NYPL. This new ‘seamless access’ brings the historical NYPL-GC partnership from the analog age into the digital age.

Carolyn Broomhead, NYPL’s Research Community Manager, says that the GC and the NYPL share “a common foundation in the devotion to knowledge as a public good. NYPL is committed to offering our researchers convenient access to information and to closing the ‘digital divide’ separating those who can use resources behind paywalls from those who cannot. We are delighted that GC students and faculty can reach our scholarly resources more easily.”

Other NYPL database vendors, including Lynda.com, Cairn.Info, Mango Languages, University Press Scholarship OnlineProQuest, and Gale, permit off-site access to all NYPL researchers using NYPL barcodes to authenticate from NYPL’s Articles & Databases list. These NYPL vendors, however, do not offer seamless, integrated access and discovery through the GC Library website that Readex does. To increase discoverability by GC users, Readex resources are included in the GC’s CUNY OneSearch, Google Scholar, and Journal Finder tools. GC librarians continue to work with NYPL librarians and their vendors to extend GC users seamless, integrated access to NYPL e-resources. 

Duncan Faherty, Associate Professor of English at the Graduate Center and Queens College, looks forward to using Readex resources from home. “If this hadn’t happened now,” says Faherty, “I would be spending lots of time on the subway this summer traveling to and from the NYPL.”

Readex Resources now available through the GC Library website:

African American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995
African Newspapers, 1800-1922
America’s Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I, 1749-1900
America’s Historical Imprints
America’s Historical Newspapers
American State Papers, 1789-1838
Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1878
Early American Imprints, Series I, Evans, 1639-1800
Early American Imprints, Series II, Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819
Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection, 1799-1971
Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980
Latin American Newspapers, Series 1 and 2, 1805-1922
Rand Daily Mail, 1902-1985
South Asian Newspapers
U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980
World Newspaper Archive, 1800-1922

 

About the Author

Prof. Polly Thistlethwaite is CUNY's Interim University Dean for Library Services.