Columbus Metropolitan Library History
Dublin Core
Title
Columbus Metropolitan Library History
Collection Items
Columbus City Hall
The first Columbus library was one room in the old City Hall, located on the site of the Ohio Theatre.
Board of Trustees meeting minutes
Excerpt from the Board of Trustees meeting minutes that declared, “the public library and reading room will be free to every resident.”
Public Library and Reading Room
Newspapers were a major draw. The expanded space was used as a newspaper and magazine reading room.
Columbus Public Library Staff
John Pugh (center) was hired in 1881 and became chief librarian when Grover retired. Blanche Roberts (second from left, front row) became the first woman employee in 1893 and the first female chief librarian/ director in 1946.
Governor Joseph Foraker house
The T. Ewing Miller property at State Street and Grant Avenue was purchased for the site of the new Carnegie library. The site was also known as Swayne Mansion and the first Governor’s Mansion. The home was built circa 1847 for attorney Noah H.…
Carnegie Library construction
Groundbreaking for the new library was held on October 12, 1903. It took nearly four years to build.
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie funded over 2,500 libraries around the world, including 103 public libraries and eight academic libraries in Ohio. He once said, “A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never-failing…
Carnegie telegram
Although the original plan for the library included a brick façade, the Board asked Carnegie to fund another $50,000 for marble to make the building “an ornament to the city.”
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