Brooklyn public library

Collecting area: Brooklyn history.

From the description of Repository description. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 155457439

The Brooklyn Ephemera Collection contains a wide variety of material, mainly memorabilia, donated to the Brooklyn Public Library in the 1960s during a program conducted by the Library to encourage local interest in the history of Brooklyn. Since most of the items are unrelated, the chief value of the collection is to provide a kaleidescopic glimpse of the social and cultural past of the borough.

From the description of Brooklyn ephemera collection, 1754-1941. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 155456201

The Brooklyn Library and the Mercantile Library Association were predecessors of the Brooklyn Public Library.

From the description of Records, 1865-1980. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 155457008

The formation of the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) system was approved by the New York State legislature in 1892 and was officially organized in 1897, just one year before the consolidation of New York City. The BPL system was originally planned as a network of small libraries with the first branch library opening in 1897 at the former Public School No. 3 in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. From 1901 to 1923, the BPL system grew rapidly when steel magnate and industrialist Andrew Carnegie provided funds ($1.6 million) for the construction of 21 new branch libraries throughout Brooklyn. Carnegie libraries, as they were generally called, were unique in that they were designed to meld beautiful architecture with functional design. Further, to receive Carnegie's funding, a library or library system had to both provide the land on which the library would be built and must also be able to pay for operational and maintenance costs following construction.

Around the same time as when the Carnegie libraries were being built in Brooklyn, the BPL system also embarked on the establishment and construction of a grand central library. In 1908, BPL hired Brooklyn-born architect Raymond F. Almirall (1869-1939) to design the new central library building. Construction on a classical style Beaux-Arts building progressed until funding difficulties halted construction in 1913. Though the foundation of the building had been dug and the frame of one wall was in place, funding problems prohibited further work on the construction of BPL’s central branch. It wasn’t until 1938, when a new architecture firm, Alfred Morton Githens and Francis Keally, was hired to redesign a new central library, incorporating Almirall's original foundation and framing (that still stood) as the basis for the new design. On February 1, 1941 the new Modern Classical style Central Library finally opened to public.

As of 2010, the BPL system consisted of 60 locations including the Central Library, the Business Library (located on the border of the Brooklyn Heights and Downtown Brooklyn neighborhoods), and 58 branch libraries located throughout Brooklyn (18 of which are Carnegie libraries). The BPL system also ranked as the fifth largest library system in the United States, with the Central Library seeing over one million visitors at its Grand Army Plaza location on the northern edge of Prospect Park.

From the guide to the Brooklyn Public Library publications, 1898-1965, (Brooklyn Historical Society)