A Closer Look: The Central Library stacks and vault
From the Photo series: A Closer Look: Explore Western New York’s architectural treasures series
Standing astride Lafayette Square, the Central Library of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System houses roughly 2 million volumes through more than 58 miles of shelving.
Nestled between the public floors of the library are the stacks, a multiple city-block-sized space containing hundreds of thousands of books, magazines, periodicals, maps and other historical artifacts.
Included in its masterpieces are world-famous materials in the Rare Books Rooms, iconic artwork from the John J. Audubon Collection and the Mark Twain Room, which displays pages from the original handwritten manuscript of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
Completed in 1964, the Central Library acts as the administrative hub and nerve center for the library system’s 37 sites.
Manager of Special Collections Susan Buttaccio reveals a print of a Whooping Crane from the John James Audubon Collection inside the Central Library's vault.
In this long-exposure image, books on shelves create a tunnel effect during a walk down the two-block-long Stacks Tier B. The stacks are filled with various books, maps, music sheets and other items that aren’t on display in the public areas of the Central Library.
A typo is highlighted in the play “The Tradegie of King Lear” inside Shakespeare’s first folio. In later editions of folios, the phrase is corrected as “he dies.” The first four of Shakespeare’s folios were donated to the Buffalo Central Library by Colonel Clifton, the once-president of the Pierce-Arrow Corporation.
Manager of Special Collections Susan Buttaccio (left) and Charles Alaimo, rare book and map librarian, look through a variety of war posters inside the Central Library vault.
The title page for “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” manuscript by Mark Twain.
Daguerreotype portraits sit inside the Central Library vault.
Books filled with Erie County Court records from the early 1900s sit on a shelf inside the Central Library court records storage room.
Manager of Special Collections Susan Buttaccio shows pages from the book “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili” by Francesco Colonna inside the Central Library vault. The book, which was printed in 1499, is filled with handwritten notes in several languages from various people over time who have read it.
Various automotive manuals sit on shelves inside the Stacks Tier B level. The library is home to a vast collection of the manuals, which are often requested from the public.
Bibles from the 1800s sit on a shelf inside the Central Library vault.
Rare Book and Map Librarian Charles Alaimo shows the top page of Mark Twain’s manuscript for “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The notice page includes a handwritten note from Twain, threatening: “Persons trying to find a plot in it will be shot.”
Notes are seen on a page of sheet music from the NBC Symphony collection inside the Central Library stacks.
Boxes containing sheet music from the NBC Symphony collection sit on a shelf inside the Central Library stacks.
1800s editions of the The New York Times sit on shelves inside the Central Library stacks.
Central Library Director John Spears and Joy Testa Cinquino, deputy director, stand in the map room in the Central Library stacks.
Manager of Special Collections Susan Buttaccio (right) and Charles Alaimo, rare book and map librarian, show a copy of Claudius Ptolemy’s “Cosmographia.”
Manager of Special Collections Susan Buttaccio shows a handwritten note bound inside a copy of Nicolaus Copernicus’ “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” (translated to “On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres”) inside the Central Library vault.
Works by Lord Byron sit on a shelf in the Central Library stacks.
Boxes of microfilm for various newspapers and magazines sit in drawer inside the Central Library stacks.
Books line the shelves in the two-block-long Stacks Tier B. The stacks are filled with various books, maps, music sheets and other items that aren’t on display in the public areas of the Central Library.
Books filled with Erie County Court records from the early 1900s sit on a shelf inside the Central Library.
A receipt of sale inside the vault details a transaction in which a man purchased his child away from slavery on Jan. 28, 1864 in Mobile, Ala.
A copy of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” sits on a shelf inside the Central Library vault.
Rare Book and Map Librarian Charles Alaimo shows a hidden painting of the Roycroft Campus on the pages of a 1926 printing of “American Statesman” by Elbert Hubbard.
Rare Book and Map Librarian Charles Alaimo shows blueprints of the Central Library inside the library's vault.
Books filled with Erie County Court records from the early 1900s sit on a shelf inside the Central Library.
Rolled up posters sit on a cabinet inside the Central Library vault.
Manager of Special Collections Susan Buttaccio shows pages from the book “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili” by Francesco Colonna inside the Central Library vault. The book, which was printed in 1499, is filled with handwritten notes in several languages from various people over time who have read it.
An antiphonary from 1653 titled “Antiphonarium de tempore et de Sanctis Chori monialium” shows signs of repair efforts on one of its pages. In some places, a pre-coated gelatin tissue was placed on the letters to prevent the iron in the ink from corroding the paper.
Rare Book and Map Librarian Charles Alaimo shows a broadsheet from The Buffalo Weekly Express advertising Mark Twain stored inside the Central Library vault.
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