Nashville Public Library | |
---|---|
36°09′44″N86°46′54″W / 36.1621°N 86.7817°W | |
Location | Nashville, Tennessee, United States |
Type | Public library |
Established | 1901 |
Branches | Main Library, 20 Branches, Metropolitan Government Archives of Davidson County, Talking Library |
Access and use | |
Population served | 1.5 million (Davidson County) |
Other information | |
Budget | 32,080,600 [1] |
Director | Terri Luke (Interim) |
Employees | 366 [1] |
Website | https://library.nashville.org |
Nashville Public Library (NPL) is the public library system serving Nashville, Tennessee and the metropolitan area of Davidson County. In 2010, the Nashville Public Library was the recipient of the National Medal for Museum and Library Service. [2] The library was named the Gale/ Library Journal 2017 Library of the Year. [3]
A succession of public libraries, known by a variety of names, served the people of Nashville. The early libraries were generally small, offered a narrow range of services, and operated on a fee schedule. In 1897, the Tennessee General Assembly authorized cities of a certain size to establish and maintain free public libraries and reading rooms. With this authority, in 1901 the Howard Library became Nashville’s first free circulating library. Also in 1901, Andrew Carnegie offered to donate $100,000 for a new library building if the city would take care of its maintenance. The city accepted those terms, and in 1904, the Carnegie Library Building was completed on Polk Avenue. Andrew Carnegie enabled the building and opening of an additional three branches between 1912 and 1919. Two buildings are still in use today, the North Branch and the East Branch.
The Carnegie Library Building was razed and replaced with the Ben West Public Library in 1963. The Main Library was housed in the Ben West building for 38 years. [4]
The new Main Library Building, designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, was opened in 2001. [5] Previously on the site for the Main Library was a downtown shopping mall called Church Street Center. [6]
Beginning in the 1940s, bookmobiles were used across Davidson County. Their extensive routes reached many residents, including those living in rural areas. [7] The first bookmobile was formed by the Library State Project in 1941. In 1947, the Nashville Public Library created its bookmobile known as "library-on-wheels". [8] It made weekly rounds throughout the county until the program ended in 2008. [7]
In 1912, Andrew Carnegie offered another $50,000 to the Nashville City Council for the creation of two new library branches: one for white residents and the other for African-Americans. [9] At the time, Nashville's library only allowed African-Americans to check out books from bookmobiles. [10] Carnegie had previously donated $20,000 to construct the first library at Fisk University, known today as the Carnegie Academic Building. [9]
The Negro Branch of the Carnegie Library (later the Negro Branch of the Nashville Public Library) opened in 1916. [9] At the time, about a third of the city's population was African-American. [11] It was one of the few libraries in the South that rendered library services to African-Americans. [9] The library closed in 1949, years before Nashville desegregated its libraries. [11]
The Hadley Park Branch Library opened in 1952 and was built to serve the African-American community. It continues to serve a predominantly African-American population today. [12]
There are 20 library branches in the Nashville Public Library system. They are:
The Nashville Public Library features a variety of public programming. The library offers puppet shows in the Main Library as well as throughout the Nashville community. [14]
The library offers digital collections, e-book and audiobook downloads, language learning services, and computer classes. There are a variety of book clubs hosted throughout the library system.
In 2010, the Nashville Public Library began partnering with Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools to offer the students access to the public library materials. Called "Limitless Libraries," this program offers access to approximately 1.5 million information resources. [15]
The Main Library's Special Collections Division contains several archival and oral history collections highlighting Nashville history. Among them, the Civil Rights Room, documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Nashville, [16] and an oral history collection documenting the 2010 Tennessee floods in Nashville.
In 2017, NPL eliminated overdue fines in order to increase accessibility of book borrowing. [17]
Friends of the Nashville Public Library is a non-profit that offers memberships and supports the library through book sales. The Friends of the Nashville Public Library offer support for the summer reading program as well other programs and collection development. [18]
The Nashville Public Library Foundation is a non-profit founded in 1997 to raise funds for the Nashville Public Library. Depending on private donors, the Nashville Public Library Foundation offers funds for various programs, services, and building improvements in the library system. [19] These include funding of the Bringing Books to Life pre-school literacy program, the Special Collections' Civil Rights Room, and $5 million in collection development funds. [20]
On December 2, 2015, The Nashville Public Library unveiled the new Kidman-Urban Puppet Stage in the children's section of the library, made possible by a donation from Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, long time supporters of the library. [21]
Fisk University is a private historically black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its 40-acre (16 ha) campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is the public library system of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is the sixteenth largest public library system in the United States by holding and the seventh by number of visitors. Like the two other public library systems in New York City, it is an independent nonprofit organization that is funded by the city and state governments, the federal government, and private donors. In marketing materials, the library styles its name as Bklyn Public Library.
The Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition was an exposition held in Nashville from May 1 – October 31, 1897 in what is now Centennial Park. A year late, it celebrated the 100th anniversary of Tennessee's entry into the union in 1796. President William McKinley officially opened the event from the White House, where he pressed a button that started the machinery building at the fair; he would visit in person a month later.
The Ottawa Public Library is the library system of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The library was founded in 1906 with a donation from the Carnegie Foundation.
The Denver Public Library is the public library system of the City and County of Denver, Colorado. The system includes the Denver Central Library, located in the Golden Triangle district of Downtown Denver, as well as 25 branch locations and two bookmobiles. The library's collection totals more than 2 million items, including books, reference materials, movies, music, and photographs. Of that total, more than 347,000 items are in specific collections including the Western History and Genealogy Department, Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library, and Reference Department holdings.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard between West 135th and 136th Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it has, almost from its inception, been an integral part of the Harlem community. It is named for Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
For other Carnegie Libraries, see Carnegie library (disambiguation)
The Jacksonville Public Library is the public library system of Jacksonville, Florida, United States. It primarily serves Jacksonville and Duval County merged areas, and is also used by the neighboring Baker, Nassau, Clay, and St. Johns counties. It is one of the largest library systems in Florida, with a collection of over three million items. A division of the city government, the library has the third largest group of city employees, after the city's fire department and sheriff's office. There are twenty-one branches and a main library in the system.
The Fullerton Public Library (FPL), is a public library system that serves the City of Fullerton, California and its surrounding communities.
The Kitsap Regional Library is a public library system in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It has nine locations that serve over 280,000 residents in Kitsap County; its collection includes over 300,000 items that have an annual circulation of 2.4 million. Founded in 1945 as the Kitsap County Rural Library District, the modern system was formed from a 1955 merger with the Bremerton city library.
The Miami-Dade Public Library System (MDPLS) is a system of libraries in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
The El Paso Public Libraries is the municipal public library system of El Paso, Texas. The library serves the needs the public in El Paso, Texas, Chaparral, New Mexico and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. It consists of 14 branches and one Bookmobile service. Multiple outreach services are also available including a Homebound service.
Memphis Public Libraries(MPL) is a public library system serving Shelby County, Tennessee.
Monroe County Public Library (MCPL) serves the 138,000 citizens of Monroe County, Indiana, through the Main Library in downtown Bloomington, the Ellettsville Branch, and the Bookmobile. The library’s special services include the Learn and Play Space, a preschool discovery center; VITAL, an adult literacy program; CATS, a five-channel community access television network; the Indiana Room, a local history and genealogy collection and grants center (part of the Foundation Center’s Cooperating Collections National Network); and service to inmates at the Monroe County Correctional Center.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
African Americans are the second largest census "race" category in the state of Tennessee after whites, making up 17% of the state's population in 2010. African Americans arrived in the region prior to statehood. They lived both as slaves and as free citizens with restricted rights up to the Civil War.
Tent City, also called Freedom Village, was an encampment outside of Memphis in Fayette County, Tennessee for African Americans who were evicted from their homes and blacklisted from buying amenities as retaliation for registering to vote during the Civil Rights Movement. It began in 1960 and lasted about two years.
Annie Lou McPheeters was an African American librarian and civil rights activist. She was known for starting the Negro History Collection at the Auburn Carnegie Library, in Atlanta Georgia. The Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System named the Washington Park/Annie L. McPheeters Branch Library in honor of her work.
The Athens Regional Library System (ARLS) is a consortium of 11 public libraries across five counties, comprising the Athens – Clarke County metropolitan area as well as Franklin County in northeast Georgia, United States.
Marian M. Hadley was Nashville, Tennessee's first African American librarian, serving as the first librarian of the Nashville Negro Public Library, a branch of the Nashville Public Library for African American patrons. She went on to work at the Chicago Public Library for almost twenty years, building and promoting the library's collection of African American history and culture.