The New York Public Library was established in 1895. Some of the Slavic and Eastern European material held in its collection came from the collections of the B iblibrary (Astor Library, founded in 1848) and the Lenox Library (Lenox Library, founded in 1870), the combination of which gave rise to the New York Public Library. Joseph Green Cogswell (1786-1871), the first librarian of the Astor Library, pointed out the existence of a modest collection of Slavic and Hungarian literature in its collection. In addition, the Astor Library held both retrospective and contemporary 'Rossica', i.e. works on Russia, printed in Latin and Western European languages. The Lenox Library made the largest contribution to the New York Public Library's Slavic and Eastern European collections in terms of West Slavic and Baltic translations of the Bible and liturgical works, including the second oldest printed bible in Polish, the 'Biblia Brzeska' (1563).

In 1899, the New York Public Library responded to a request from New York's Russian-speaking community by creating a separate Russian Department , whose collection grew to 1,300 volumes within the first year. Under the leadership of Herman Rosenthal (1843-1917), the first head of the department (1899-1917), its mission expanded rapidly to include materials from all Slavic countries . Accordingly, already in its first year of existence, the unit was renamed the Slavic Department and, among other things, Polish newspapers were subscribed to. Rosenthal, supported by the first director of the New York Public Library, Dr John Shaw Billings (1838-1913), established formal exchange relationships with numerous scientific societies in Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, he collaborated with Slavic booksellers in New York and Europe and actively solicited donations from those interested in or from Eastern Europe. Through these coordinated efforts conducted year after year, the Department grew rapidly and provided access to a wide range of Slavic materials, including Polish. In 1908 and 1909, the Library purchased more than 100 dramas in Polish.

The New York Public Library was initially housed in the Astor Library building . On 23 May 1911, a new library building opened at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. By 1917, the collection of the Slavic Department had grown to about 25,000 volumes in Slavic languages as well as Lithuanian and Latvian, and the number of readers reached almost 20,000 per year.

During the first two decades, the main focus of collecting activities was the acquisition of current monographs and archival periodicals. A significant number of antiquarian monographic titles were also collected during this period. The department continued to focus on building a comprehensive research collection, typically acquiring materials commonly found in academic institutions.

At the same time, branch libraries catered for the popular interests of the city's Slavic, Baltic and Eastern European readers . Collections in Polish were found in the branch libraries of Tompkins Square, Melrose, Columbus, West 40th Street and other institutions. In 1910, the book collection of Polish language editions in the branch libraries totalled over 3,000 titles. By 1930, there were more than 4,000. However, as immigrants assimilated into American society and the demand for lending collections in their native languages diminished, the Slavic Department gradually absorbed some of these collections , while others were transferred to 'The World Languages' collection at the branch Donnell Library.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the Library's collections devoted to Slavic and Eastern European literature grew considerably. Avraham Yarmolinsky (1890-1975), head of the Slavic Department from 1918 to 1955, and Harry Miller Lydenberg (1874-1960 ), chief reference librarian from 1908 to 1927 (later director of the NYPL), embarked on a purchasing expedition to Eastern Europe, focusing mainly on Soviet Russia. This expedition, which took place in late 1923 and early 1924, resulted in the acquisition of some 9,000 volumes, including both older and new monographic editions and periodicals. On his way back, Lydenberg stayed in Lviv and Warsaw, visiting libraries and making contacts. Shortly after the restoration of Polish statehood, there was an increase in purchases of Polish books and periodicals. In 1924, the Polish Books Importing Company donated a large collection of Polish newspapers to the Library. In the mid-1930s it was reported that the Library received almost all Polish government publications issued since Poland's independence through an exchange agreement!

Between 1925 and 1935, the Library also acquired books from Israel Perlstein (1897-1975), a leading American antiquarian specialising in Russian books, who made many trips to the Soviet Union to purchase materials. Perlstein, who grew up in the vicinity of Warsaw where his father managed forests on a large estate, acquired and sold to American libraries significant quantities of books offered for sale by the Soviet government from nationalised private libraries. In 1931, the New York Public Library acquired some 2,650 volumes related to the Russian tsarist family, the largest single purchase of such material.

Beginning in the early 1920s, the Library began acquiring books in "triple-oversize" or "elephant folio plate" format - mainly Russian - produced in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Orthodox Slavic collection grew significantly. In 1931 alone, the Library purchased seven printed Cyrillic books from the 16th and 17th centuries. At that time, the Library acquired the "Triod Tsvetnaya" - a book written in Cyrillic in the Old Church Slavonic language, which was printed in 1491 by Shvajpolt Fiol in Krakow.

Materials added to the collection during the Second World War consisted mainly of publications published before 1939 , as the conflict effectively stopped the flow of current materials from occupied European countries. After the victory in Europe, there was a spark of hope for new acquisitions. However, the Sovietisation of Central and Eastern Europe, coupled with export restrictions during the Cold War, proved as devastating to the acquisition process as the war itself . Despite these challenges, it was during this turbulent period that the Slavic Department showed an increased interest in the non-Russian nations of Central and Eastern Europe . As a result, numerous successful efforts were made to acquire materials in the languages of these nations . In 1951, the Polish Embassy in Waszygtow donated Polish books to the Library. In 1952, the Library received a collection of over 2,000 books, pamphlets and periodicals published after World War II from the Polish Research and Information Service in New York.

Despite the challenges of acquisitions during World War II and the early years of the Cold War, Yarmolinsky's retirement in 1955 marked the end of a period of unprecedented growth in the Slavic collection. By then, the collection had grown to one hundred thousand volumes , three quarters of which were Russian-language publications. In 1948, the NYPL's Russian collection was considered one of the 'Big Five' in the United States. Just two years later, it had gained a reputation for being second - after the Library of Congress - in terms of the quantity and quality of the Russian collection. During the Yarmolinsky era, numerous prominent figures visited and used the Library's collections, including the Russian social democrat Lev Trotsky (1879-1940), Brigadier General Anton Ivanovich Denikin (1872-1970) and the renowned writer Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), to name but a few.

In 1956, Jan Miś (1909-1983), a Polish linguist originally from Chorzów, took over as head of the Slavic Department . His tenure was characterised by a strategic shift in resource allocation, aimed at reducing expenditure on Russian materials while increasing investment in materials covering other Slavic and Baltic languages . In addition, Teddy prioritised re-establishing connections between the Library and institutions in Central and Eastern Europe and travelled to the Soviet Union, Poland and Czechoslovakia to establish new collaborations. Mutual agreements with libraries, universities and research institutes in the Slavic and Eastern European region were instrumental in promoting the expansion of the Library's collections in their languages. At its peak, the Library maintained exchange relationships with some 195 institutions in the region. As a result of the acquisition and donation process, the Polish collection grew significantly . In 1917 it contained 2080 items, in 1935. 5773, in 1945. 6159, and in 1966 19628. In 1968, some 300 pamphlets printed in Poland between 1570 and 1839 were purchased from Aleksander Janta-Połczynski (1908-1974).

In 1976, when Estonian-born classicist and philologist Viktor Kõressaar (1916-2002) took over as head of the Slavonic Department, the City of New York was on the brink of bankruptcy . During this financially difficult period , the Library focused on acquiring current materials, abandoning antiquarian purchases.

However, a significant change occurred in the mid-1980s , when the Department resumed antiquarian purchases alongside its regular acquisitions , thus enriching its research base. From 1984 to 2008, under the curatorship of Edward Kasinec , the son of Ruthenian emigrants from Transcarpathia, the Department led the identification of rare Slavic collections in other divisions of the Library, especially as regards materials acquired from the private libraries of the Romanov family. Significant federal and state funds have been secured for the physical conservation of older materials and the digitisation of thousands of visual materials. Numerous catalogues, checklists and articles detailing various aspects of the collection have been meticulously prepared and published.

The department hosted several major exhibitions of Slavic and Eastern European collections, alongside numerous smaller exhibitions, seminars and lectures. Notable antiquarian purchases and valuable gifts were received during this period, including the 14th-century " Mol[i]tvʹnikʹ" [Euchologion] , the second oldest Slavic manuscript in a public collection in North America also known as the prayer book of Prince Vladimir I the Great.

Significant private funds have also been raised and invested by the Library, with the proceeds used to purchase books. Karina Falencki (1915-2010), an actress, art collector and charity activist, donated funds to the Library several times in the 1990s to secure the purchase of Polish books. She did so in memory of her husband, William Falencki (1904-1990), a private investor and director of the Real Estate Corps. In 2000, a lecture and exhibition of rare Polonica was held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Walter P. Falencki Fund. Falencki Fund for Polish Collections. The event concluded with a reception at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland. The programme, organised by the Slavic and Baltic Department, included the participation of His Excellency Dariusz Jadowski, Consul General of the Republic of Poland, and Professor Andrzej Kaminski, Professor of History at Georgetown University.

Following the integration of the Slavic and Baltic Division into the General Research Division, the Library continues to acquire Slavic and East European materials. This endeavour is being closely coordinated with Columbia, Princeton and Harvard Universities , using a model of joint collection development centred around ReCAP (Research Collections and Preservation Consortium), a shared storage facility between the four institutions that was built on land owned by Princeton University. The NYPL currently holds nearly half a million volumes in Slavic and Eastern European languages, with a comparable number of titles from the region published in other languages. The Polish collection of the New York Public Library comprises approximately 85,000 monographs in Polish and more than 3,000 periodicals. To this must be added thousands of items in English, German, French, etc. relating to Poland . The combined collection of the four institutions forms a much larger Polish collection which is accessible to everyone and enables comprehensive Polish studies. The library is often visited by well-known personalities. The presidents Lech Wałęsa , Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and Vaclav Havel have all visited the library.