APRIL 15, 2021—The New York Public Library (NYPL) and The New York Institute for the Humanities (NYIH), two storied New York City institutions dedicated to scholarship, discourse, and access to knowledge, have announced a partnership beginning on June 1.
The Library's Center for Research in the Humanities—located in the iconic 42nd Street library—will collaborate with NYIH on public programming, and the administrative offices of NYIH, formerly housed at New York University, will operate out of a Library office building at 445 Fifth Avenue.
"I am hard pressed to think of a more appropriate partner for the Library than the New York Institute for the Humanities, which for decades has supported and positively impacted the humanities, shining a spotlight on key issues, developing and engaging scholarship, and encouraging and facilitating critical discourse," said William Kelly, the Library's Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries. "It is a privilege to align with this important organization, especially as New York City begins what will no doubt be a long and difficult recovery. The city needs its cultural, educational, and scholarly organizations to be strong and accessible, and this partnership certainly does that."
"We are tremendously excited to begin our new partnership with The New York Public Library," said Eric Banks, director of the New York Institute for the Humanities. "There is simply no venue more richly suited than the NYPL for the New York Institute for the Humanities, which for four decades has provided a home for conversations between distinguished scholars and writers on the most pressing topics of the day in the public humanities. As New York emerges from the pandemic and faces the difficult task of rebuilding our fragile intellectual and cultural infrastructure, these conversations are as crucial as ever, and the collaboration with the NYPL opens a marvelous new chapter for the NYIH."
The New York Public Library opened the Center for Research in the Humanities in 2019. The nine-room, 8,000-square-foot space is dedicated to quiet research, work with the Library's research collections, temporary displays, and collections-related programming, offers 56 seats exclusively for use by authors, scholars, students, and others engaged in extensive research.
The New York Institute for the Humanities was established at New York University in 1977 by founding director Richard Sennett to bring engaged scholarship and the work of leading journalists, novelists, poets, biographers, editors, and critics to bear on major issues in the public humanities. Dedicated to supporting the life of ideas beyond the academy, especially in New York, the Institute has nurtured collaborations and conversations among its distinguished group of 250 fellows and other constituencies through weekly seminars and in a range of public events, lectures, and panels, including co-sponsored programs with Princeton University Press and Stanford University's Public Humanities Program. Susan Sontag, Joseph Brodsky, and others were among its original fellows, and its current membership includes 15 Pulitzer Prize winners, 16 MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipients, and numerous recipients of the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle prizes.
About The New York Public Library
For 125 years, The New York Public Library has been a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library receives approximately 16 million visits through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at www.nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.
About New York Instiitute for the Humanities
Established at New York University in 1977, with early fellows Susan Sontag, Joseph Brodsky, and others, the New York Institute for the Humanities brings engaged scholarship and the work of leading journalists, novelists, poets, biographers, editors, and critics to bear on major issues in the public humanities. For four decades, through weekly seminars and in a range of public events, lectures, and panels, it has nurtured collaborations and conversations among its distinguished group of 250 fellows and engaged a diverse group of constituencies. It fosters intensive communication among its fellows and encourages work that addresses and responds to the place and possibilities of art and the humanities in public life. It is dedicated in particular to supporting the life of ideas beyond the academy, especially in New York, and to broadening more inclusively the intellectual vision informing public life.