{"value"=>"<p>Records document discussion, plans and reports concerning the construction of the new Schomburg Center building, community and NYPL disputes, branch library and administration disputes, the preservation of Schomburg collections and the inclusion of new archival deposits such as the Marcus Garvey Collection and the National Negro Congress Papers. Also filed here are correspondence, minutes of meetings, memoranda, notes, inventories, pamphlets, news clippings, budgets and brochures, including \"The Schomburg Collection: a Plan for Growth,\" (1971). Records document the interaction between the Harlem community and NYPL in the cause of preserving existing papers, books, and artifacts and the collection of materials of the Schomburg Collection, and the transfer of the Collection in the Spring of 1972 from the Branch Libraries to the Research Libraries.</p> <p>The Schomburg Collection dates from 1925, when the NYPL Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints was created at the 135th Street Branch. This division was organized by Librarian Ernestine Rose with the support of NYPL Circulation Department Chief Franklin Ferguson Hopper, a Carnegie Grant for adult education and a Harlem Citizen's Committee. In 1926 the large collection of African and Afro-American books, manuscripts, etchings, and pamphlets acquired through the years by Arthur A. Schomburg, a native of Puerto Rico of African descent, was purchased for this NYPL branch by a $10,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation. The librarian from 1926 was Catherine Latimer. She was succeeded in 1932 by Schomburg, who was appointed the first Curator, a post he held, with Latimer assisting, until his death in 1938. The division was then renamed the Schomburg Collection. Lawrence Reddick served as Curator from 1939-1948. Dorothy Collins, Curator from April-December 1948, was succeeded by Jean Blackwell Hutson who remained with the Schomburg into the 1980s. In mid-December 1972 the name of the Collection was changed to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The Schomburg Center now occupies its own building which includes, besides a library and an archive, an art gallery, exhibition halls, and an auditorium.</p>"}