Bivens focuses on Schomburg Center history and collections
Bivens details the Schomburg Center's founding in 1925, its 11 million items, and its divisions: art and artifacts, Jean Blackwell Hudson Research Division, Manuscripts Archives and Rare Books, Moving Image and Recorded Sound, and Photography and Prints.
About the Schomburg Center.
We began in 1925 as the Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library.
In 1926, our collection grew exponentially with the purchase of the private library of our namesake, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
And since its founding, the Schomburg's collections have grown to over 11 million items,
along with hundreds of exhibitions, public programming, and a range of educational offerings we serve Harlem and the world.
Our collections focus on African American, African diasporic,
and African experiences and are organized by format.
Art and artifacts includes fine and applied art and material culture objects from the 17th century to the present.
To the present.
The Jean Blackwell Hudson Research and Reference Division holds books, serials, and microforms documenting people of African descent worldwide, with an emphasis on the Americas, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books includes more than 1,000 collections of unpublished manuscripts, personal papers, rare books, including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, the list goes on and on,
among other items that trace black diasporic life from the 16th century
to the present.
The moving image and recorded sound division preserves nearly 400 collections of audio and moving image materials, capturing the sounds and images of major black cultural and historical moments.
And lastly, the photography and prints division houses more than one million items spanning from the 18th century to today.
Providing evidence of the presence of black presence in the earliest forms of photographic technology.
Pardon me.