page_title: Astor Library
section_title: Opening
hierarchical_section_title: Astor Library / Operation / Opening
caption_attribution_description: English: Cartoon satirizing the short hours and difficult staff of the Astor Library
context_page_description: The Astor Library was a free public library in the East Village, Manhattan, developed primarily through the collaboration of New York City merchant John Jacob Astor and New England educator and bibliographer Joseph Cogswell. It was primarily meant as a research library, and its books did not circulate. It opened to the public in 1854, and in 1895 consolidated with the Lenox Library and the Tilden Foundation to become the New York Public Library. During this time, its building was expanded twice, in 1859, and 1881.
context_section_description: The building was opened to the public on January 9, 1854. Hours were fixed at 10 a.m. to 5 pm. For January no books were available, but visitors were welcome. On February 1, use of books began. The library was closed on Sundays and established holidays. It was a reference library: no books could be taken from the building for any purpose. Admission was free for all persons over 14 years of age. On opening day, the building was stocked with between 80,000 and 90,000 volumes, purchased at a cost of about $100,000. The section on American history was full as possible. In linguistics, particularly oriental, the library was unsurpassed by any in the United States. The natural sciences were also fully represented, comprising about 7,000 volumes. Cogswell had made his first trip abroad for purchase of books in the winter of 1848–1849, spending something over $20,000. The distracted political state of Europe at the time seemed to offer peculiar advantages for purchases at low rates. Before he sailed, Cogswell reported that during Astor's lifetime he had paid $2,500 for book
  In 1851, Cogswell sailed abroad again. During that summer, he scoured France, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Scandinavia and Germany. The result was an addition of 28,000 volumes secured for $30,000, bringing the total of the collection to about 55,000 or 60,000 volumes, and the total outlay to about $65,000. In November 1852, Cogswell was again authorized to travel to Europe, $25,000 being put at his disposal. He sailed early in December, and remained abroad until March, spending his time mainly in London, Paris, Brussels, Hamburg, and Berlin. The result was the addition of about 25,000 volumes.
  The Astor Library's policy of being universally free, to foreigners as well as to United States citizens, also allowed it to successfully apply for donations of important and costly scientific, statistical and historical works published by different governments of Europe. A very practical appreciation of the library was shown by donations received from the federal government, from learned societies and from individuals in various parts of the United States. The state government at Albany sent extensive selections of public documents of New York. In 1855, the British commissioners of patents presented a complete set of their publications Maine forwarded complete sets of state documents, and Massachusetts and Rhode Island took a similar step in 1856.
  In the beginning, there were no printed catalogs of the library to assist readers in choosing books and readers were not admitted within the railing to take down books for examination themselves. There was interest in evening hours, but the increased expense this would have entailed and the danger of fire from gas lighting prevented it. The books were classified using the system in Brunet's Manuel du Libraire which Cogswell thought the most complete and most generally known. Cogswell thought his readers showed good taste in their selections "except the young fry, who employ all the hours they are out of school in reading the trashy, as Scott, Cooper, Dickens, Punch, and the Illustrated News." For the first year the average daily use was about 100 volumes, with a total for the year of about 30,000. No one topic seemed to dominate the rest, though on the whole the fine arts collection was the most extensively used. The number of readers in the first year varied from 30 for the lowest day to 150 for the highest. For some time, the library was beset by crowds of schoolboys who "come in at certain hours of the day to read, more for amusement than improvement, and shun their classical lessons by the use of English translations." On Cogswell's recommendation, the trustees raised the age limit to 16. In Cogswell's judgment, by this act the library "assumed its proper character, and became a place of quiet study, where every one found ample accommodation.”
  The question of a catalog was to Cogswell's mind a matter of prime importance. By the end of 1855, Cogswell was able to report that the catalog was finished, excepting only a s
caption: Cartoon by Chip from the January 7, 1892, issue of the first Life magazine satirizing the opening day of the Astor Library
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