- Education - Janesville Sesquicentennial
-
- [Photograph; caption reads: The Carnegie Library, today the
Crossroads Building, served as city literary center.]
-
- Still bookin' at 100
- As Janesville prepares to celebrate the 150th anniversary
of its settlement, the city's public library
- is opening the book on its second 100 years.
- The Janesville Public Library observed its centennial year
in 1984 with a series of special events
- under the theme, "A Century of Enlightening." The
official observance of the library's 100th birthday came Jan.
7, 1984, when some 200 people attended a rededication ceremony
at the library at 316 S. Main.
- Actually, Janesville's first known center of "literary
improvement" was the Janesville Lyceum,
- established in 1856 as a center for lectures, debates and
plays.
- The lyceum did not survive, and in 1858 the YMCA established
a library in the Hyatt House.
- It, too, had a short life, records indicate.
- Next came a library founded by the Young Men's Literary Union
in about 1863, but it also soon
- died.
- In 1865, the state Legislature granted a charter to the Young
Men's Association, a group of mostly
- young and middle-aged professionals and businessmen.
- The YMA established rooms in the SMITH & JACKMAN's
Block at the northwest corner of
- Main and Milwaukee streets. By 1870, the YMA Library and
Reading Rooms moved across the street to the LAPPIN's
Building - just west of the much larger LAPPIN-HAYES
Block.
- The YMA library continued until about 1882, when it too went
under due to a lack of funds with
- 3,000 volumes on its shelves.
- With the future of the volumes in limbo, a group of some
82 local women organized the Public
- Library Association with the goal of establishing a free
public library.
- The group raised $500 by the end of 1882 and bought the YMA
library volumes for $150.00. Its
- fund drive was boosted further by a benefit circus by Colonel
Burr ROBBINS - his show was wintered in Janesville - which
raised more than $750. Two productions of "Faust" featuring
then-famous actress Minerva Guernsey raised another $123.
- Other donations poured in, and the PLA opened its library
Feb. 17, 1883, in the BENNETT
- Block at the southeast corner of Milwaukee and River streets.
All Janesville residents 15 and older were granted borrowing
privileges.
- The voters finally approved a referendum for a public library
by a 1,209-39 vote on April 3, 1883.
- On Jan. 7, 1884, the PLA library was sold to the Board of
Trustees of the Janesville Free Public Library for $1.
- In 1887, the JPL moved to a larger headquarters at the Phoebus
Block, now 23 W. Milwaukee,
- and paid $250 annual rent. But by 1897 library leaders acknowledged
the need for larger quarters, and a fund drive began in earnest
in 1901.
- The library fund drive's biggest boost was a $30,000 donation
from the Andrew Carnegie
- Foundation, plus a $10,000 bequest from the F. S. ELDRED
estate. The city bought a lot on what is now South Main Street
for $17,000. Construction began in 1902 and the two-story building
opened June 15, 1903.
- The Carnegie Library served the city untnil April 1968, when
the present library opened. The
- added space helped boost circulation 30 to 50 percent shortly
after the new library's opening. The Carnegie Library now houses
the city's senior citizens center and this summer is undergoing
a $600,000 renovation.
- Today, JPL's resources serve more people than ever. It circulated
nearly 520,000 books and
- other materials in 1984, processed nearly 100,000 requests
for information, had an attendance of 325,000, had more than
22,000 registered borrowers and boasted a collection of more
than 180,000 books, periodicals, records, tapes and other materials.
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