Founded in 1929 as an educational institution, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City was America's premier museum devoted exclusively to modern and contemporary art, and the first of its kind in Manhattan to display European modernism. While this concept is ubiquitous throughout the world today, MoMA was the first of its kind and established the canon for modern art museums, as well as created many standards and practices for general museum procedures and programs. MoMA’s collection includes more than 200,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and drawings, and design objects. The museum also owns over 22,000 films, videos, and media works, as well as film stills, scripts, posters and historical documents. Maintaining an organized digital record of these assets is paramount to MoMA’s standing as one of the world’s most reputable education and research centers for modern and contemporary art.

The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building is a part of the New York Public Library, consisting of four major research libraries and almost 90 branch libraries located throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. The Beaux-Arts building, located on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, houses outstanding collections in humanities and social sciences, as well as a children's collection. The building is being restored to its original purpose of providing library services for "the free use of all the people." Among the 15 million items and artifacts are medieval manuscripts, ancient Japanese scrolls, baseball cards, dime novels, and comic books.