Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Library

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Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Library
Silver Spring Library 9-23-16.jpg
The exterior of the library across Fenton St.
Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Library
38°59′42″N77°01′28″W / 38.9949°N 77.0245°W / 38.9949; -77.0245
Location900 Wayne Avenue,
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, United States
Type Public library
Established1931;93 years ago (1931)
Branch of Montgomery County Public Libraries
Access and use
Population served76,716
Other information
Budget$4 million
DirectorUzoma Onyemaechi (manager) [1]
Website www.montgomerycountymd.gov/library/branches/mcgee.html

The Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Library, formerly the Silver Spring Library, is part of the Montgomery County Public Libraries System. It opened to the public in 1931 and is currently located at 900 Wayne Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland. The library is named for Charles E. McGee, a Tuskegee Airman who had lived in Montgomery County.

Contents

History

Early locations

Silver Spring Library began service in 1931 at East Silver Spring Elementary School. [2]

In 1934, the library moved to Jesup Blair Community House, also known as "The Moorings." [3] Architect Howard Wright Cutler remodeled the building to serve as a library, [3] [4] and his work earned the building a nomination for placement on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. [4] The library operated out of the Jesup Blair House for 23 years.

The 1957 Silver Spring Library building 1957 Silver Spring Library.jpg
The 1957 Silver Spring Library building

Colesville Road (1957–2015)

The library opened a building of its own at 8901 Colesville Road in 1957, on land donated by the Hecht Company. At this location, the library occupied a building dedicated exclusively for the library's use for the first time.

Ellsworth Urban Park was created in an area covering 3.6 acres (1.5 ha) beside the library in 1979. The park has two playground areas where parents can take their children to play, and a tennis court.

In 1990, Marcia Billig's sculpture Lion and the Mouse was installed in the grass of the library. [5] [6]

A celebration of 58 years of service was held on March 15, 2015, the last day of service at the Colesville Road location. [2]

Current location (2015–present)

The 2015 building from the corner of Wayne and Fenton Silver Spring Library.JPG
The 2015 building from the corner of Wayne and Fenton

The current library location at 900 Wayne Avenue in Silver Spring was opened on June 20, 2015. [7] The facility was built for $64 million, including the acquisition of 1.46 acres (0.59 ha) of land, preparation of the site, design, construction, furniture, equipment and funds to improve the collection. [8] Construction was to cost $23 million, but $3 million was taken to renovate the Fillmore, a music venue nearby in downtown Silver Spring. The ground floor of the seven-story building has a coffee shop and a platform for the future Purple Line light rail station. [9] In 2022, the library was renamed for Brigadier General Charles E. McGee, a Tuskegee Airman who had lived in Montgomery County. [10] [11]

Collection

The library has a collection of 90,000 books, magazines, downloadable music, e-books, and a World Language Collection in Amharic, Chinese, French, Spanish, and Vietnamese, organized in the following way:

Teens collection (third floor)

Adults collection (fourth floor)

Children collection (fifth floor)

Other resources

In 2016, the library also offered:

Services

Study rooms

The library has 14 study rooms with space for up to 8 people. Study rooms can be reserved online every week, and can be used once a day for up to 2 hours every day. [20]

Printers and scanners

The library has four multi-function printers that can be used with a library card. Scanning of documents is free and can be stored via USB flash drives. Documents can be printed from any computer in the library and have a cost of 15 cents per black-and-white page and $1 per color page.

Hotspot

The library also has a free hotspot with up to 10 MiB/s of throughput for visitors with personal laptops, tablets or smartphones.

Online services and mobile applications

Montgomery County Public Libraries works with more than ten providers of online services and companies that offer desktop access but also developed their own applications for mobile devices such as tablets, cellphones (such as Android and iPhone), and Kindle that use its services.

Among the apps are the following:

Courtesy charging stations

Three courtesy charging stations are available, with connectors, where visitors can charge cellphones and tablets.

Accessibility

The library follows Accessibility regulations:

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Silver Spring Library". Montgomery County Public Libraries. Retrieved March 16, 2017.
  2. 1 2 "Montgomery County Public Libraries' Silver Spring Branch will close March 15". Montgomery County, MD. February 24, 2015. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  3. 1 2 McCoy, Jerry (2016-05-04). Historic Silver Spring (MD). Arcadia Publishing. ISBN   0738541885.
  4. 1 2 Bosser, Diane (2005-11-28). "House of Blair". Insights. Retrieved September 24, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Lion and the Mouse". Silver Spring Urban District. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Marcia Billig". Marcia Billig. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Silver Spring Library". Building Design and Construction. Rockville, MD: Montgomery County Department of General Services. Retrieved 2022-07-02.
  8. 1 2 "Silver Spring Library Fact Sheet" (PDF). Montgomery County Public Libraries. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
  9. ↑ Izadi, Elahe (August 27, 2010). "New Silver Spring library $3M over budget". TBD Neighborhoods. Albritton Communications. Archived from the original on August 30, 2010.
  10. ↑ Cremen, Alanea (February 25, 2022). "Silver Spring Library to be renamed after Tuskegee Airman Brig. Gen. Charles McGee". WUSA9 News. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  11. ↑ Schere, Dan (March 1, 2022). "Silver Spring Library Named in memory of Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee". Bethesda Magazine. Archived from the original on October 22, 2022. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  12. ↑ "Borrowing Library Materials". Montgomery County Maryland. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  13. ↑ "Windows PC App Installation". Cloud Library. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
  14. ↑ "How to transfer eBooks to an eReader using Adobe Digital Editions". OverDrive. September 2, 2016. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
  15. ↑ "How do I get ebooks on my Nook?". Baltimore County Public Library. July 21, 2016. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
  16. ↑ "Downloading 3M Cloud Library eBooks for NOOK". eReady Richland (Richland County Public Library). Retrieved September 4, 2016.
  17. ↑ "Mango Languages". Mango Languages. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  18. ↑ "Muzzy Club". Muzzy Learning UK. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  19. ↑ "LibX MCPL LibX Toolbar". Virginia Tech. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  20. ↑ "Silver Spring Library Study Rooms". Montgomery County Public Libraries. Retrieved February 2, 2016.
  21. ↑ "Bookmine". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  22. ↑ "3M Cloud Library". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  23. ↑ "3M Cloud Library". Apple. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  24. ↑ "OverDrive". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  25. ↑ "OverDrive – Library eBooks and Audiobooks". Apple. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  26. ↑ "OverDrive: Library eBooks & Audiobooks". Amazon. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  27. ↑ "Freegal Music". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  28. ↑ "Zinio for Libraries". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  29. ↑ "Flipster – Digital Magazines". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  30. ↑ "OneClickdigital". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  31. ↑ "ReferenceUSA for iPad". Apple. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  32. ↑ "Access My Library". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  33. ↑ "EBSCOhost". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  34. ↑ "LibriVox Audio Books Free". Google. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  35. ↑ "LibriVox Audio Books". Apple. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  36. ↑ "About Us". Kanopy.
  37. ↑ "Kanopy Streaming Video". University of Oregon . Archived from the original on 2016-09-14. Retrieved 2016-07-21.
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