Reference
Where the records come from
Which publishers CityScroll reads, how current their records are, and what falls outside what it can show you.
Where does this come from, and what is covered?
Everything here was published by someone else
CityScroll holds no records of its own. Every record on it was published by a New York City agency, a state body, or another official publisher, and every record keeps a link back to that published copy. CityScroll is independent of city government and speaks for no agency.
The largest single source is The City Record, the city's own daily publication of official notices, which is also released as open data. Alongside it sit the city's contract, budget, payroll, buildings, planning, civil-service and property datasets, and a few state publishers.
How often the sources change
Some publishers release as things happen, and some release on a cycle. That difference is the commonest reason something the city has already done has not reached this site yet, so it is worth knowing which kind of source you are reading.
| How it refreshes | What that means for what you read | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| As things happen | The publisher updates this as records are filed, so what you see follows the city closely. | 18 |
| On the publisher's schedule | The publisher releases on a cycle — daily, monthly, yearly. Between releases, the newest thing the city did may not be here yet. | 32 |
| Checked by a person | There is no machine feed, so a person re-checks the publisher's page. These carry the date they were checked. | 4 |
| A closed set | The publisher has stopped adding to this. It is complete for the period it covers and will not grow. | 4 |
| A pointer to another source | This names where the records live rather than carrying them, so the official page is the thing to read. | 1 |
That table is generated from the source registry itself rather than typed here, so it cannot drift away from what the site actually reads. The registry also carries what each source is used for and how stale it is allowed to get before it is treated as a problem, and it is published in full as the source ledger.
What coverage means
Coverage is not one number, and CityScroll does not offer one. It varies by source, and there are four different ways a source can be working perfectly and still not answer your question.
| The case | What it means for what you see |
|---|---|
| The source is complete but narrow | The City Record covers what the city publishes in The City Record. Things the city does elsewhere are not in it |
| The source is read but not joined | The record is here and the record that would connect it to what you are reading is not, so the connection is absent although both ends exist |
| The source is closed | The publisher has stopped adding to it. It stays because it is the record of its period |
| The source is paused | It is not currently being read. It stays listed rather than quietly disappearing, so a stopped feed cannot be mistaken for a subject with nothing in it |
For how much is here and what period it spans, the stats page is the place. For the endpoints, feeds and upstream datasets, the API page is.
What is not covered
- Anything the city has not published. Where a decision was made and no public record of it was released, you will not find it here. That absence tells you about publication and nothing about the decision.
- Anything published in a form that cannot be joined. A document released only as a scan, or with no identifier tying it to anything else, may be published and still unreachable from a record you are reading.
- Anything private. Records about identifiable individuals — exam scores, applicant details — are not published by the city as open data and are not here.
When a source is having a bad day
A source that could not be reached is a different thing from a source with nothing to say, and the site keeps them apart. A page that could not load its records says so, and retrying or opening the official source is the way through. Reading a temporary failure as an absence of records is the mistake this distinction exists to prevent.
The same goes the other way. A record set that is genuinely empty says it is empty, rather than showing an error and leaving you to guess.