Guide
Using CityScroll
Four ways in, depending on whether you want to learn, do something, understand something, or look something up.
Where to start
CityScroll gathers public records that New York City agencies already publish — contracts, land-use applications, rules, meetings, civil-service exams, and the agencies and organizations attached to them — and keeps each one linked to the official source it came from.
If you are here for the first time, start with the first tutorial. It uses one real search and takes about ten minutes, and you do not need an account or an email address to follow it. The two that follow it trace a single published notice back to the law behind it, and an agency through an organization it pays to one award.
If you already have a task, go straight to How to. If a record has left you with a question about what it means, or a word you have not met before, Understand and Reference answer those without asking you to work through a lesson first.
Start here
Tutorials. A guided walk through one real example, so you finish knowing how a whole journey works rather than what one button does.
- Explore housing across city records I want to learn how this works — where do I begin?
- Trace a notice to the duty behind it How do I get from a published notice to the law that required it?
- Trace an award and keep the trail How do I follow an agency to a vendor to an award, and keep that path?
How to…
Short directions for a task you already have in mind, with the labels you will actually see.
- Check the evidence behind a connection Why does this say two records are connected?
- Look at records as of a day What did an agency's record set look like on a given day?
- Collect records, add notes, and export them How do I keep a set of records together and take them with me?
Understand
Background on what a record does and does not tell you, and where the limits of the data are.
- What a public record tells you Does this record mean the city decided something?
- How records are connected What does a connection between two records actually claim?
- What dates and blanks mean Why is this blank, and which date am I looking at?
- Flags and historical patterns What does this flag mean, and how far can I trust it?
Reference
Definitions, controls, and coverage to look up while you work.
- Glossary What does this term mean?
- Controls and what they give you What can this control do, and what do I get back?
- Where the records come from Where does this come from, and what is covered?
About this guide
Every article carries the date an editor last checked it against the live site. That date is written by hand after the check; it does not move when the site is rebuilt.
These pages are published in English first. The rest of CityScroll offers other languages, and guide articles will follow through the site's usual translation process — until then, treat what you read here as the English version.
Something here wrong or missing? The feedback form on the About page reaches the people who maintain it, and needs no account.