Cleveland Public Library. Literature Department

The Cleveland Public Library Literature Department contains materials related to classic and contemporary fiction, poetry, drama, cinema, radio, television, theater, literary criticism and biography, writing and journalism, printing and publishing, library and information science, humor, and public speaking. Currently, the Literature Department holds over 500,000 volumes and has a collecting emphasis on materials pertaining to American and English literature and local theater and authors.

Before 1913, two departments, Circulating and Reference, existed in the Cleveland Public Library (CPL). When the library moved to the Kinney and Levan Building in 1913, subject departments, including a Literature Department, replaced this structure. With the opening of the current library location at 325 Superior Avenue in 1925, the Literature Department was located on the first floor. The Louis Stokes Wing was completed in 1997, and the Literature Department temporarily relocated to the seventh floor of the Louis Stokes Wing while remodeling of the Main Library Building occurred. With the completion of the remodeling in 1999, the Literature Department moved to the second floor of the Main Library Building where it currently resides.

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