You name it, the New York Public Library’s probably got it. Including a substantial collection of historically important erotica, apparently!
The New York Times went behind the scenes for a (tastefully edited) peek at the goods. They’ve got Playboy, sure, but it’s much more than that. “We try to buy things that are important, that we think will help document how American society thought about sexuality,” explains librarian Jason Baumann. But the best part is when one longtime librarian talks about scouring the many seedy corners of Times Square in the 1980s for “adult literature” to add to the library’s collection. (One of their go-tos is now an Aldo.) Now there’s a job.