New York Public Library is a library system consisting of an administrative center, 4 research libraries, and 82 neighborhood branch libraries in the boroughs of Manhattan, the Broil, and Staten Island, in New York City. (The boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens have their own public library systems.) The library provides free circulating books and other materials, reference services, and research facilities. The library's full name is The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. The library was founded in 1895 with funds from a trust left by the American political leader Samuel J. Tilden. The trust made possible the consolidation of the Astor and Lenox libraries, two research libraries that were experiencing financial difficulty. The Astor Library was established in 1849 by an endowment left by John Jacob Astor, a merchant and financier. The Lenox Library was the private collection of the American philanthropist James Lenox. Upon his death in 1880 the collection became a research library. The library contracted with the city to build and operate circulating libraries in three of the city's boroughs. In 1901 Andrew Carnegie, the American steel magnate and philanthropist, provided the money to build the first 39 branches of the library. The Central Research Building, erected and still maintained by the city, was dedicated as a free research library in 1911. In the early 1990s, about 80 percent of funding for the branch libraries were provided by New York City. The research libraries are supported mostly by private endowments and gifts, and additional grants are awarded by the federal government and by the city and state of New York. The administrative center of the research libraries, and the largest library of the system, is the Central Research Building, a well-known New York City landmark. Its imposing marble structure covers two blocks from 40th to 42nd streets on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Cataloging and acquisition for the research libraries are done ha this building. Besides the Central Research Building, the research libraries include the Library for the Performing Arts, located within the Lincoln Center complex the Schomburg Center for Research Building and the Science, Industry, and Business Library (SIBL), which opened in May 1996 on Madison Avenue near 34th Street. The SIBL also has a 50,000-volume circulating collection. The other research libraries only allow their materials to be used in library reading rooms. Together, these constitute one of the greatest libraries in the world, containing some 12.5 million books and more than 27 million manuscripts, recordings, prints, and other items. They are organized into subject divisions and special collections, covering virtually every field of knowledge in every language. New York Public Library has a history about ______ years.