Walking into the new Visitors Center at New York City Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS), one would never guess that the entire exhibition on display there was completed through volunteer work and with a budget of $60,000. It is not only evident that the displays of memorabilia, photographs, and documents were a labor of love, but also truly impressive that this work was achieved despite prohibitive time and monetary constraints.

I recently spoke with Eileen Flannelly, DORIS Deputy Commissioner, about the hard work that went into creating the Visitors Center.

Just a year and a half ago, the cluster of rooms adjoining the City Hall Library were little more than a "dumping ground" for the files and paperwork of former staff. Flannelly's idea to turn the unused space into a public space for the viewing of collections materials was met with little enthusiasm and even less monetary support. In response, she rallied her employees who worked together, without financial compensation, to clear out the space, box up important materials, and dispose of unneeded items. When City Hall officials were brought in to inspect the space, their surprise over the progress was clear. With the subsequent help of a $60,000 grant and the support of her superiors, Flannelly tackled the chore of installing lighting, painting walls, locating storage and display furniture, and general sprucing up. Aided by staff members, and led by Personnel Director Naomi Pacheco and Budget Director Barbara Filiberto, the department was able to createundefinedin the span of a single fiscal year and solely through volunteer laborundefineda sparkling space to showcase the story of New York City as told through its official governmental activities.

Set amidst stunning black and white photographs taken by Eugene de Salignac, gifts given to former Mayors, and an outpost of the NYC City Store, is a sizable media room. In this room, the public can investigate digitized film, video, and audio materials, including thousands of 16-inch lacquer transcription discs and open reel tapes from the vast WNYC sound collection. MJ Robinson, former Curator of Film and Moving Image for the department's WNYC-TV collection, coordinated the creation of this portion of the space.

Flannelly says the Visitors Center receives traffic not only from tour groups from historical societies, universities, and law schools, but also from high schools, a demographic group with which she is very interested in engaging. In fact, a group of interns recently completed an innovative project using Facebook: each student was assigned a Mayor (Koch, Lindsay, and La Guardia) and assembled a profile consisting of his photos, important events, and reflections. The project was the focus of a recent meeting of the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Social Media.

In addition to the Visitors Center, DORIS has recently launched, with much fanfare and acclaim, an online gallery of nearly 900,000 photographs documenting every aspect of life in New York City. This project, the product of seven years' worth of work and counting, was led by Curator of Photography Michael Lorenzini. With the help of a long stream of interns and temporary employees, photographs in a variety of formats were selected, cleaned, digitized, described, and preserved, thereby creating a digital gallery of images that has generated so much international interest that it crashed the department’s servers within minutes of press release.

On September 13, 2012, the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, Inc. (ART) co-sponsored ART’s monthly program with DORIS, which included a presentation and exclusive tours of the Visitors Center, City Hall Library, and Conservation Lab for over 100 attendees. Many who had visited before were impressed by the transformation that has taken place.

The general public is welcome to stop by the NYC Department of Records Visitors Center at 31 Chambers Street on Mondays through Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Fridays from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. An informational video is available here.