Schomburg Center For Research In Black Culture

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research unit of The New York Public Library. A national research library, it is devoted to collecting, preserving and providing access to resources documenting the experiences of peoples of African descent throughout the world, with emphasis on blacks in the Western Hemisphere.

The Center provides access to and professional reference assistance in the use of its collections to the scholarly community and the general public through five research divisions, each managing materials in specific formats but with broad subject access. It also facilitates access to these holdings through mail and telephone reference services, inter-library and inter-institutional loans, participation in national computerized databases and publication of bibliographies and other finding aids.

The Center promotes the study of the histories and cultures of peoples of African descent and interprets its collections through exhibitions, publications, educational, scholarly, and cultural programs.