Miss Chien at the Book Chute

On Monday, June 18, 1962, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle announced the opening of a "New Borough Library": the Brooklyn Heights Branch and Business Library. The newspaper sent photographer Ben Schiff to take photos of the new library and its staff, including Janet Chien, seen in the above Photo of the Week.

In the photos that Schiff took for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Chien can be seen seated with library coworkers in the "kitchen and lunch room [that] has been added for the staff members in the 50,000 square foot building." Chien is also in a photograph of the Children's Room on the second floor; with coworker Dorothy Harris looking at new books that have arrived; and with Harris standing together in the Main Reading Room. Chien is in four photos in total in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle article on the "new two-story, air-conditioned building located in the Civic Center, 280 Fulton St." 

The above black-and-white photographic print of Janet Chien, "Miss Chien at bottom of book chute," was not published in the June 18, 1962, Brooklyn Daily Eagle article. However, it can be found online in the Brooklyn Public Library Photographs collections. 

Interested in seeing more photos from the collections? Visit the CBH online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal at Brooklyn Public Library. We look forward to inviting you to CBH in the future to research in our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. In the meantime, please visit our resources page to search our collections. Questions? Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at [email protected].