Champaign Public Library

Last updated
Champaign Public Library
Champaign Public Library.jpg
View of Champaign Public Library from Randolph Street Entrance
Champaign Public Library
40°06′40″N88°14′46″W / 40.111°N 88.246°W / 40.111; -88.246
Location200 West Green Street
Champaign, Illinois
United States
Type Public library
Established1876
Branches2
Collection
Size403,000 volumes (2022) [1]
Access and use
Circulation1.5 million
Population served88,000
Members26,000
Other information
Budget$8.2 million
DirectorBrittany Millington
Website www.champaign.org

The Champaign Public Library is a library system in Champaign, Illinois. It has two branches: the main library in downtown Champaign and its Douglass branch. With its new location opening on January 6, 2008, the Champaign Public Library almost tripled its square-footage and opened with a collection of almost 285,000 volumes. [2]

Contents

History

The Champaign Public Library traces its roots as a private, member-sustained group of readers in 1868. The small group of about forty members all paid dues to sustain their private collection of more than 300 volumes in a cozy reading room in downtown Champaign on Main Street. Ten years later in 1876, the group voted to dissolve itself in favor of enabling public access to their collection.

The public library was officially created by the City Council on July 21, 1876 and budgeted $1,000 for the library. When the library opened it had almost 750 volumes in its collection.

In 1894, Champaign banker and philanthropist A.C. Burnham announced a substantial gift of $50,000 for a new library as a memorial to his wife, Julia Finley Burnham, a former member of the library board. Of the total, $40,000 was for the site and building and $10,000 was for a book endowment. The Burnham Athenaeum at 306 W. Church Street opened on December 17, 1896, with two librarians and 5,593 books. When it closed, the same building was bursting at the seams with forty employees and over 100,000 items.

An approximately 40,000-square-foot Main Library at 505 S. Randolph Street was dedicated in November 1977. Designed by Hammond Beeby and Associates of Chicago, the building was funded largely by a $2.3 million referendum.

In 2008, the library expanded to a new location and replaced the 40-year-old building that the community had outgrown. The new building, designed by Ross Barney Architects of Chicago, Illinois contains 121,000 square feet of new and improved space.

Main Library

Construction for the new library building began in 2005 and it opened for public use in 2008.

Library awards

In 2013 the library received the following awards from the Library Leadership and Management Association (a division of the American Library Association): [3]

In 2014, the library was awarded a John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award for the "Show Some Library Love" fundraising campaign. The national honor includes a prize of $10,000. [ citation needed ]

Design awards

Below are awards the library has received based upon its design and state-of-the-art engineering. [4]

Douglass Branch Library

Originally organized as a joint project between Champaign and neighboring Urbana in 1970, the Douglass branch was located within a single room at the Douglass Community Center on North Sixth Street in Champaign. By 1972, the branch was absorbed by the Champaign Public Library and was relocated to a small building on Bradley Avenue until June 1997 where the branch currently operates on East Grove Street in Champaign by neighboring Douglass Park. [5] Both the library and the park are named after abolitionist and journalist Frederick Douglass. After escaping slavery in Maryland, Douglass became a noted advocate for equality among all people and lectured in Champaign at least once while traveling north. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston Public Library</span> Library in Massachusetts, US

The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth, meaning all adult residents of the state are entitled to borrowing and research privileges, and the library receives state funding. The Boston Public Library contains approximately 24 million items, making it the third-largest public library in the United States behind the federal Library of Congress and New York Public Library, which is also privately endowed. In 2014, the library held more than 10,000 programs, all free to the public, and lent 3.7 million materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Institute of Architects</span> Professional association for architects

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C. The AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach programs, and collaborates with other stakeholders in the design and construction industries. The current leadership of the AIA includes Lakisha Ann Woods, CAE, serving as EVP/Chief Executive Officer, and Emily Grandstaff-Rice, FAIA, serving as the 2023 AIA President.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seattle Public Library</span> Municipal library system of Seattle, Washington, U.S.

The Seattle Public Library (SPL) is the public library system serving the city of Seattle, Washington. Efforts to start a Seattle library had commenced as early as 1868, with the system eventually being established by the city in 1890. The system currently comprises 27 branches, most of which are named after the neighborhoods in which they are located. The Seattle Public Library also includes Mobile Services and the Central Library, which was designed by Rem Koolhaas and opened in 2004. The Seattle Public Library also founded the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library (WTBBL), which it administered until July 2008.

Poplar Creek Public Library District is a public library in Illinois, United States, which serves residents of Streamwood, Hanover Park, Elgin, Schaumburg, and Bartlett. Created by a 1966 referendum in Streamwood, it currently has one main Streamwood facility and one Hanover Park branch. It serves 66,000 residents, though many of its towns are served only in-part by Poplar Creek, with other residents being patrons of the Schaumburg Township District Library, Gail Borden Public Library District, or the Bartlett Public Library District.

Will Bruder is an American architect.

Gail Borden Public Library is a public library district located in Elgin, Illinois. District boundaries include the city and villages of Elgin, South Elgin, Bartlett, Streamwood, and Hoffman Estates. The library is a member of Reaching Across Illinois Library System, one of two multitype regional library systems in Illinois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign</span>

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is an academic research institution that is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois System. Since its founding in 1867, it has resided and expanded between the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana in the State of Illinois. Some portions are in Urbana Township.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library</span> Main library at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, US

The William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library is the main library at Ohio State University's Columbus campus. It is the university's largest library and houses its main stacks, special collections, rare books and manuscripts, and many departmental subject libraries. The library was originally built in 1912, and was renovated in 1951, 1977, and 2009. It is named in honor of the university's fifth president, William Oxley Thompson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Illinois School of Architecture</span> Architecture school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois School of Architecture is an academic unit within the College of Fine & Applied Arts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The school is organized around four Program Areas - Building Performance, Detail + Fabrication, Health + Well-being, and Urbanism. Faculty teach and conduct research in these areas in support of the School's primary objective to promote critical engagement with the design of a healthy and sustainable built environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UrbanLab</span> American architecture and urban design firm

UrbanLab is an American architecture and urban design firm with headquarters in Chicago. Founded by Martin Felsen, FAIA, and Sarah Dunn in 2001, the office is known for its focus on sustainability, creative experimentation and a collaborative approach to buildings, spaces and cities.

Frances Halsband FAIA is an American architect and educator. She is a founder, with Robert Kliment, of Kliment Halsband Architects, a New York City design firm widely recognized for preservation, adaptive reuse and master planning projects. Significant works include The Brown University Framework for Physical Planning, Long Island Railroad Entrance at 34 Street, Visitor Center at Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library, Mount Sinai Ambulatory Surgery Facility Kyabirwa Uganda. The firm received the AIA Firm Award in 1997 and the New York AIA Medal of Honor in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altgeld Hall</span> Educational in University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Studio Gang</span> American architectural and design firm

Studio Gang is an American architecture and urban design practice with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Paris. Founded and led by architect Jeanne Gang, the Studio is known for its material research and experimentation, collaboration across a wide range of disciplines, and focus on sustainability. The firm's works range in scale and typology from the 82-story mixed-use Aqua Tower to the 10,000-square-foot Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College to the 14-acre Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo. Studio Gang has won numerous awards for design excellence, including the 2016 Architizer A+ Firm of the Year Award and the 2013 National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, as well as various awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and AIA Chicago.

REX is an architecture and design firm based in New York City, whose name signifies a re-appraisal (RE) of architecture (X). Seminal projects include the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas, Texas; the Vakko Fashion Center in Istanbul, Turkey; and the Seattle Central Library. The work of REX has been recognized with accolades including two American Institute of Architects' National Honor Awards in 2005 and 2011, a U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology National Honor Award, an American Library Association National Building Award, and two American Council of Engineering Companies' National Gold Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McAllen Public Library</span> Library system serving McAllen in Texas

McAllen Public Library, or MPL, is the public library system serving McAllen, Texas, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Ross Barney</span> American architect (born 1949)

Carol Ross Barney is an American architect and the founder and Design Principal of Ross Barney Architects. She is the 2023 winner of the AIA Gold Medal. She became the first woman to design a federal building when commissioned as architect for the Oklahoma City Federal Building, which replaced the bombed Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Ross Barney's other projects include the JRC Synagogue, James I Swenson Civil Engineering Building, the CTA Morgan Street Station, and the Chicago Riverwalk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simons Architects</span>

Simons Architects (SA) is a fifteen-person architecture, design, and planning firm located in Portland, Maine.

Ross Barney Architects is an architectural firm founded in 1981 by Carol Ross Barney in Chicago, Illinois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Saldaña Natke</span> American architect

Patricia Saldaña Natke is an American architect, the founding partner and president of UrbanWorks, Ltd., a Chicago-based architecture, interiors, and urban planning firm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calgary Central Library</span> Public library in Calgary, Alberta

The Calgary Central Library, also known as the Calgary New Central Library (NCL), is a public library in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and the flagship branch of the Calgary Public Library system. The building is located in the Downtown East Village neighborhood and opened on November 1, 2018, replacing an earlier central branch built in the 1960s in Downtown Calgary.

References

  1. ↑ "Annual Report 2011-2012". Archived from the original on 2013-10-07. Retrieved 2013-07-30.
  2. ↑ "Background". Archived from the original on 2013-03-16. Retrieved 2013-07-30.
  3. ↑ "Current and previous PR Xchange Award winners". 30 November 1999.
  4. ↑ "Awards". Archived from the original on 2013-09-08. Retrieved 2013-07-30.
  5. ↑ "Our History". Archived from the original on 2013-08-17. Retrieved 2013-07-30.
  6. ↑ "Our History". Archived from the original on 2013-08-17. Retrieved 2013-07-30.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.