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.
A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants.
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress and the fourth-largest public library in the world. It is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing.
The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. The museum operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, Capitol Hill; and Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened in 2007.
The Los Angeles Public Library system (LAPL) is a public library system in Los Angeles, California. The system holds more than six million volumes, and with around 19 million residents in the Greater Los Angeles area, it serves the largest metropolitan population of any public library system in the United States. The system is overseen by a Board of Library Commissioners with five members appointed by the mayor of Los Angeles in staggered terms, and operates 72 library branches throughout the city. In 1997 a local historian described it as "one of the biggest and best-regarded library systems in the nation." It is not to be confused with the LA County Library system which operates several library branches across certain areas of Los Angeles County.
The Boston Athenaeum is one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States. It is also one of a number of membership libraries, for which patrons pay a yearly subscription fee to use Athenaeum services. The institution was founded in 1807 by the Anthology Club of Boston, Massachusetts. It is located at 10½ Beacon Street on Beacon Hill.
The San Diego Public Library is a public library system serving the city of San Diego, California.
Mechanics' Institute is a historic membership library, cultural event center, and chess club housed at 57 Post Street, San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1854 as a mechanics' institute, an educational and cultural institution to serve the vocational needs of out-of-work gold miners. Today the Institute serves readers, writers, downtown employees, students, film lovers, chess players, and others in search of learning and a community for the exchange of ideas.
Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD) is a nationally recognized system of public libraries serving a population of more than 650,000 across 2,070 square miles in El Paso County, Colorado. Pikes Peak Library District has resources for children, teens, adults, and seniors. Library resources are available in multiple languages, large print, audio, video, and electronic formats.
A subscription library is a library that is financed by private funds either from membership fees or endowments. Unlike a public library, access is often restricted to members, but access rights can also be given to non-members, such as students.
Portland Public Library is the main library of the public library system in Portland, Maine, USA. It is located at 5 Monument Square on Congress Street in the Old Port of Portland, Maine. The library has three neighborhood branches, Burbank branch, Peaks Island branch, and Riverton branch.
Saratoga Springs Public Library (SSPL), established in 1950, is a public library located in Saratoga Springs in the Capital District area of New York. SSPL serves the Saratoga Springs City School District.
Charleston Library Society, founded in 1748, is a subscription library in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Providence Athenaeum is an independent, member-supported subscription library in the College Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. The building is open to the public, but only members can check out items from the collection.
The Cambridge Public Library (CPL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts consists of unified city-wide system maintaining: a main branch, of notable aesthetic architectural value, plus a further six localized branches sited throughout the city. Having evolved from the Cambridge Athenaeum, the main library branch was built at its present site in 1888. The main library most recently underwent renovation, and a modern building addition significantly expanded the overall branch in 2009, thus greatly increasing the area of the branch, more than tripling its square footage.
Auckland Libraries is the public library system for the Auckland Region of New Zealand. It was created when the seven separate councils in the Auckland region merged in 2010. It is currently the largest public-library network in the Southern Hemisphere with 55 branches from Wellsford to Waiuku. Currently from March 2021, the region has a total of 56 branches.
The Portsmouth Athenæum is an independent membership library, gallery, and museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. It preserves and provides access to an extensive collection of manuscripts, rare books, photographs, artworks and artifacts, and digital collections related to local history and genealogy, in addition to a circulating library for its membership. As an intellectual center of the community, it sponsors exhibitions, concerts, lectures, and other educational and cultural programs. The building, dating to 1805, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973.
The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library is a non-profit membership library located in La Jolla, in the city of San Diego, California. It was incorporated as the Library Association of La Jolla in 1899. It has a rich history, closely entwined with the history of the La Jolla community.
The Johannesburg City Library is situated in the central business district of the City of Johannesburg. The Library is located in an Italianate building designed by John Perry which first opened in 1935. It has over 1.5-million books and items in its collection and more than 250 000 members.
Dunedin Athenaeum and Mechanics' Institute is an adult education institute based in a heritage building in Dunedin, New Zealand. The private organisation provided classes and a library for members. Presently it operates a subscription lending library, and includes a basement theatre that has been operated by the Dunedin Collaborative Theatre Trust since 2016. The Athenaeum building is one of the oldest athenaeums in New Zealand still used for its original purpose, and is classified as a "Category I" historic place by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, previously known as the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.
