In 1969 a survey was conducted by State Library staff of records held at the Elm Street Garage in Albany, also known as "the cage" for the Library for the Blind. Staff recommended the records (300 boxes comprising records of the Department of Public Instruction, ca. 1953, and some plates of Museum publications) be transferred as archival to the State Library and moved to the library warehouse, or elsewhere. A section in the cage would be retained for storage of magnetic/audio tapes. The aim was to reunite the whole collection of materials relating to the Education Department and house the collection in the new Cultural Education Center.
This unpublished manuscript was prepared by ecclesiastical historian Edward T. Corwin and sent after his death in 1914 to A.J.F. Van Laer, Archivist and Dutch translator with the State Library.
International exchange of publications with the New York State Library began in 1840, largely at the instigation of the French ventriloquist Alexandre Vattemare. New York first appropriated funds for Vattemare's developing system of international exchange in 1845.