Creative Process: Research

Today I spent the day at my absolute favorite room in all of New York City. I hesitate to put this out for public viewing because it's still a really well-kept secret in the city where nothing good is ever kept a secret.

I can't remember how I found out about the Picture Collection, but I researched movie costumes there when I used to do that about 5 years ago. It's on the 3rd floor of the NY Public Library Mid-Manhattan Branch (not the famous building with the lions out front, but the circulation library across the street). Essentially, it is a 30 foot by 40 foot room of shelves. On the shelves sit expanding file folders filled with magazine pages and book pages either loose or mounted  on heavyweight paper. These images are all sorted into files according to subject matter, and the files are in alphabetical order by subject matter.

For example, today I researched "surfing," and there were 4 overstuffed folders filled with images of surfers on the beach with surfboards, surfers riding waves, and any other surfing related images. For 3 hours, I sat just leafing through these images getting inspired. This was my favorite find: 

I tried to figure out from which book it came, but that research turned up no answers. If anyone knows, let me know, because I'd really like to get this book with this picture of beach babes of the 1930s.