0.6 Chapter four: the turning tide, 1960-1982  (Page 5/14)

In 1967, Heslin reported "that the Sunday afternoon concerts were the most successful in the fifteen-year history of these events, and it is obvious that they have become an institution." Heslin also suggested that "the need for more school programs is clearly a pressing one." Late in 1967, the Society received a three-year grant ($26,700 annually) from the New York State Council on the Arts to expand its education program. A four-person education department was established in 1968 and was responsible for the Society's program for schools as well as for over­seeing the growing number of films, music recitals, and children's programs offered by the Society. Within eight years, attendance at these programs increased more than 50 percent, from 21,937 in 1964 to 33,063 in 1970. Moreover, general attendance at the Society reached an all-time high of nearly 109,000 in 1968, a year that Society leadership referred to as "one of the best in the Society's long history." At this point, attendance at all Society events was free, and as Adams pointed out, the Society "fulfills an increasingly useful function in the city's edu­cational and cultural life, at no charge to the municipal budget."

As the Society shifted its focus outward toward serving a growing constituency, the emphasis in its collections management shifted as well. The primary focus fol­lowing the Wroth report had been on cataloging the collections; as the 1960s passed, the emphasis shifted to acquisitions. In the 1967 annual report, Adams wrote: "While we are conscious of the fact that our source material must be cat­alogued and made available, we are always aware that the first objective is to strengthen our collections." In the Report of the Library in 1969, James Gregory, the librarian, wrote that "the making of thoughtful and knowledgeable addi­tions to the collections of the library is the most permanent and therefore the most important work of 1969, or any other year." Further evidence that cataloging was diminishing in importance is reflected by administrative decisions; between 1966 and 1970, the cataloging staff was reduced from five full-time catalogers to just three. By 1975, the cataloging staff had been reduced to one.

In addition to diverting resources from cataloging, management's renewed em­phasis on acquisitions and growth of the collections conflicted with the recom­mendations of the Wroth report. The report's second major emphasis, narrowing the Society's acquisitions policy both chronologically and geographically, also faded in importance through the 1960s. In 1970, Gregory issued an appeal for contempo­rary books: "Friends of the Society who have useful—they need not be rare—books are urged to offer them to the Library. A fairly common book in 1970 may be quite scarce by 2070. But the need for these current books is much more immediate. . .. A growing number of young historians are studying the recent past from sources in nearly contemporary publications. It appears that interest in current history will continue." Similarly, the Society continued to acquire, by purchase and gift, items not related to New York or the surrounding region or colonial America, includ­ing a collection of lithographs purchased in 1969 depicting the California gold rush. In the acquisitions policy adopted by the trustees in 1959, it had been rec­ommended that primary materials on the California gold rush not be acquired.