A Longitudinal Study: The Annual Reports of the New York Public Library's Picture Collection
Romana Javitz in the Picture Collection. 1950s. The Annual Reports of the New York Public Library Picture Collection, and published from roughly 1916 to the late 1950s, offer a surprisingly rich body of evidence for study and analysis. They are not merely internal memos; read together, they form a longitudinal study of how visual culture, user communities, and the economics of pictures changed over half a century. Several kinds of analysis are possible. Note: See also recently digitized Unfilled Calls, 1925-1928 from internal Picture Collection records. 1. Growth, Scale, and Structural Limits The most obvious thread is quantitative: the rapid expansion of both stock and circulation, and the tension between demand and infrastructure. Stock growth • 1929: 222,828 classified pictures. • 1934: 456,588 pictures (almost doubled in five years). • 1936: 625,668 pictures. • 1939: 877,405 pictures. • 1943: 1,058,611 pictures. • 194...