Dakota County Library is a public library in Dakota County, Minnesota, headquartered in the Wescott Library in Eagan. [1] [2] The system includes 10 locations.
Dakota County Library is a public library in Dakota County, Minnesota, headquartered in the Wescott Library in Eagan. [1] [2] The system includes 10 locations.
Dakota County Library as it exists today is a combination of several smaller libraries. The earliest of these were the Farmington Library, established in 1871 and the Hastings Library, established in 1873. Both were established as subscription libraries, and were relatively short-lived projects, although they paved the way for municipally funded libraries in the early 20th century. The City of South St. Paul Library was established in 1916. It initially received a $10,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation, but development of the library was halted due to the outbreak of World War I. In 1926, the library received municipal bond funding in the amount of $25,000 for the establishment of a library building, which opened in August 1927, as the first public library in Dakota County. [3]
Bolstered by the post-World War II influx to suburban areas as well as the passage of the 1956 Congressional Library Services Act, [3] public libraries in Dakota County were ready to expand. To maximize resources, the County entered into a partnership with its neighbor to the west, Scott County and in 1959, the Dakota-Scott Regional Library System was formed. Originally operated out of 2 classrooms in a Savage elementary school with 9 people on staff, the system quickly expanded, with the Farmington and Hastings libraries joining by the end of the year. By 1968, the system had opened a new library in Hastings, acquired a 6,000 book capacity bookmobile, purchased land off of County Road 42 in Burnsville for a new branch location and was using a storefront location in Burnsville as a temporary library to help alleviate demand on the other outlets. However, throughout this time, Dakota and Scott County had been growing apart from one another - both in terms of population growth and in their vision for the library's future. As a result, the assets of the collection were divided proportionately to county population and by December 31, 1968, the two-county system was dissolved. [3]
Dakota County Library was formed on January 1, 1969. The early years were a time of cooperation and technological change. The system joined the Metropolitan Library Service Agency (MELSA) in 1970 [3] and entered into a reciprocal borrowing agreement with the City of South St. Paul Library in 1975. [4] [3]
In 1971, the library made available for check out the first computer-created book catalog in Minnesota. Technological innovations continued with the opening of the Burnhaven library in 1974, which included record and cassette listening terminals. By the beginning of the 1980s, the Dakota County Library System had over 200,000 books and 175,000 patrons, and was entering a period of steady growth. 1981 saw the opening of the Wescott Library in Eagan, which has housed the system's administrative headquarters since its opening. Wescott was followed by the Galaxie Library in Apple Valley in 1990 and the Wentworth Library in West St. Paul in 1992. The Pleasant Hill Library in Hastings was built after a 1993 fire in the previous building caused 1 million USD in damage - including the destruction of an estimated 73,000 books. In 1995, a new "special service library" was opened in Farmington. Inver Glen Library in Inver Grove Heights and the Heritage Library in Lakeville both opened in 2000. [3] The 9th library branch in Rosemount is the Robert Trail Library, which is housed in a 23,000-square-foot (2,100 m2) facility and had approximately 45,000 volumes in its collection at its opening. [5] The 10th Library Branch is The Kaposia Library in South St. Paul that is opened in 2024 with 16,000 square feet of new library space.
The Dakota County Library is made up of 10 locations. The administrative headquarters are located in Eagan, Minnesota.
Locations include
Law library services are provided at the Apple Valley and Hastings libraries [6]
| In Person Visits | 1,746,785 |
|---|---|
| Virtual Visits to the Library Website and Catalog | 2,405,061 |
| Digital and Physical Items Checked Out | 4,556,015 |
| Active Borrowers | 150,513 |
| Program and Event Attendance | 93,334 |
Dakota County is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Minnesota, located in the east central portion of the state. As of the 2020 census, the population was 439,882. The population of Dakota County was estimated to be 447,440 in 2023. The county seat is Hastings. Dakota County is named for the Dakota Sioux tribal bands who inhabited the area.
Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a metropolitan area in the Upper Midwestern United States centered around the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota, and St. Croix rivers in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is commonly known as the Twin Cities after the area's two largest cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Minnesotans often refer to the two together simply as "the cities". The area is Minnesota's economic, cultural, and political center.
Burnsville is a city 15 miles (24 km) south of downtown Minneapolis in Dakota County, Minnesota. The city is situated on a bluff overlooking the south bank of the Minnesota River, upstream from its confluence with the Mississippi River. Burnsville and nearby suburbs form the southern portion of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with about 3.7 million residents. At the 2020 census the population was 64,317.
Inver Grove Heights is a city in Dakota County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 35,801 at the 2020 census. The city was formed on March 9, 1965, with the merger of the village of Inver Grove and Inver Grove Township.
Minnesota State Highway 55 is a state highway that runs 221 miles (356 km) across the central part of state taking a diagonal route from its western most at the North Dakota state line near Tenney to its easternmost point at the intersection with U.S. Highway 61 (US 61) in Hastings. In Minneapolis and Golden Valley, portions of the route are also signed as Olson Memorial Highway.
Minnesota State Highway 3 (MN 3) is a 43.749-mile-long (70.407 km) state highway in Minnesota, which runs from its intersection with MN 21 in Faribault and continues north to its northern terminus at an intersection with MN 5 in downtown Saint Paul. Until the resigning of a previously unsigned highway in 2019, the route's northern terminus was an interchange with MN 62 in Inver Grove Heights.
Area code 651 is the telephone numbering plan code for Saint Paul, Minnesota, and the eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities. A dogleg portion also extends to the southeast along the Mississippi River to include cities such as Hastings. The region was the fifth area code created in the state in 1998, when it was carved out of area code 612.
County State-Aid Highway 42 (CSAH 42), usually called County Road 42 (CR 42), is a 33.347-mile-long (53.667 km) county highway in Dakota and Scott counties in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is a primary arterial highway in the two counties. These two counties form the southernmost portion of the 13-county Twin Cities metropolitan area, although CSAH 42 travels across the northern reaches of the two counties.
Independent School District 196 is a K-12 public school district located in the south suburban Twin Cities, near both Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota.
Eagan is a city in Dakota County, Minnesota. It is south of Saint Paul and lies on the south bank of the Minnesota River, upstream from the confluence with the Mississippi River. Eagan and the other nearby suburbs form the southern section of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area. Eagan's population was 68,855 at the 2020 census. The city was home to the headquarters of Northwest Airlines.
The Minnesota Valley Transit Authority, also known by the acronym MVTA, is a public transportation agency that serves seven communities in the southern portion of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. The agency provides fixed-route and demand-responsive transit within the service area of the communities and to select destinations in the region.
Minnesota Hockey is the statewide governing body of amateur hockey in Minnesota and an affiliate of USA Hockey. Since 1947, Minnesota Hockey has been providing volunteer services for the development and promotion of all youth hockey in Minnesota. Robert Ridder was the founding president of the MAHA, and affiliated the state group with the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States.
The Metro Orange Line is a bus rapid transit line in the Twin Cities, Minnesota operated by Metro Transit. The line operates primarily along Interstate 35W from downtown Minneapolis through Richfield and Bloomington before terminating in Burnsville, Minnesota. The Orange Line provides access to 198,000 jobs with roughly a quarter of them outside downtown Minneapolis. The route serves a mix of stations located in the center of the highway, stations near highway exits, and on-street stations. The line has features typical of bus rapid transit systems with off-board fare payment, articulated buses with extra doors, stations with improved passenger amenities, and transit-only bus lanes on portions of the route.
The Apple Valley Transit Station is a transit facility located in Apple Valley, Minnesota. It is owned by the City of Apple Valley and the MVTA. The transit station is near Cedar Avenue and Gaslight Drive. This station has 337 parking spaces and is almost full almost each weekday. It also serves the nearby communities of Lakeville and Farmington.
The Eagan Transit Station is a transit facility located in Eagan, Minnesota. Riders also hail from the nearby communities of Mendota Heights and Northern Rosemount. The Park & Ride lot has 750 parking spaces for bus passengers and retail employees.
Sandra A. Masin is a Minnesota politician and member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represents District 51A, which includes portions of the city of Eagan in Dakota County, which is in the southeastern part of the Twin Cities metropolitan area. She is also a business woman, working in financial services, real estate sales and insurance.
Dodd Road Discontiguous District is a set of three road segments in Minnesota's Le Sueur and Rice counties, which were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. They preserve segments of Dodd Road, a private road built by William B. Dodd. It was a privately funded road built between Mendota and St. Peter in 1853, and was a key transportation artery in early south-central Minnesota.
The Dakota County Tribune is an American English-language weekly newspaper headquartered in Apple Valley, Minnesota, which serves the Apple Valley, Farmington and Rosemount communities in Dakota County. It was founded in 1884.
Robert C. Jensen was an American farmer and politician.
