are 290 books from the personal library kept by Puritan settler John Winthrop and his descendants. Another significant collection are the Italian-language books kept by Mozart's librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, who spent his last years in New York. He started an Italian Library Society in 1827 under the New York Society's auspices, to supplement his courses at Columbia, the first college courses in that language in the United States. Those 600 volumes made up a large share of the library's 1838 catalog, and are today separately organized as the Da Ponte collection. Head librarians Head librarians have included: 1755–56: John Morin Scott 1756–57: George Duncan Ludlow 1765–68: Thomas Jackson 1768–74: James Wilmot 1774–89: George Murray 1789–90: George Wright 1790–94: Isaac Leonard Kip 1794–97: John P. Pearss 1797–1824: John Forbes 1824–28: Burtis Skidmore 1828–55: Phillip Jones Forbes 1855–57: John MacMullen 1857–95: Wentworth Sanborn Bulter 1895–1936: Frank Barna Bigelow 1936–54: Edith Hall Crowell 1954–78: Sylvia Hilton 1978–2005: Mark Piel 2005–06: Charles Cronin 2006–15: Mark Bartlett 2015–present: Carolyn Waters See also List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets Notes References Further reading King, M. Books and People: Five Decades of New York's Oldest Library. New York: Macmillan, 1954. Glynn, Tom. "The New York Society Library: Books, Authority, and Publics in Colonial and Early Republican New York". Libraries & Culture 40:4, Fall 2005. External links New York Society Library website 1754 establishments in the Province of New York Educational institutions established in 1754 Houses completed in 1917 Libraries established in 1754 Libraries in British North America Libraries in Manhattan Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan Private libraries in the United States Societies in New York (state) Subscription libraries in the United States