Hennepin County Library
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Established | 1885 |
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Location | Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States |
Branches | 41 (list) |
Website | www |
Hennepin County Library is a public library system serving the entire population of Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA. The current iteration of Hennepin County Library was formed by the merger of urban Minneapolis Public Library and suburban Hennepin County Library on January 1, 2008. The system has 41 library locations, deposit collections at nursing homes and correctional facilities, mail service to the homebound and extensive outreach services. The Library is a department of Hennepin County Government. The library headquarters are in the Ridgedale Library in suburban Minnetonka.[1] The library system has an eleven-member advisory Library Board appointed by the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners.[2] It is a member of the Metropolitan Library Service Agency, a consortium of eight Twin Cities library systems.
Minneapolis Public Library was founded in 1885 with the establishment of the Minneapolis Public Library Board by an amendment of the Minneapolis city charter. Minneapolis Public Library’s first building was the Main Library, opened in 1889. Minneapolis Public Library later added community library branches to supplement the main library. The first branch was North Branch, established in 1890, more branches in south and east Minneapolis followed and the system grew with the city.[3]
Hennepin County Library started in 1922 as a horse-drawn "bookmobile" to areas outside the core city of Minneapolis. The system saw a large increase in use in the period between 1950 and 1980 as more people moved into suburban areas of the county. By 1952 there were 24 libraries in the system, additional city libraries such as Hopkins, were incorporated into the county system. Hennepin County Library opened its first area library, Southdale, in 1973. In the early 1970s plans were in place to merge the Minneapolis Public Library with the HCL, however the Minneapolis library system reconsidered and merger plans were put on hold.[4] Ultimately the two library systems reached an agreement and the merger was finalized on January 1, 2008 under the name of Hennepin County Library.[5]
Contents
Libraries[edit]
Minneapolis[edit]
Suburban Hennepin County[edit]
- Augsburg Park Library (Richfield)
- Brookdale Library (Brooklyn Center)
- Brooklyn Park Library
- Champlin Library
- Eden Prairie Library
- Edina Library
- Excelsior Library
- Golden Valley Library
- Hopkins Library
- Long Lake Library
- Maple Grove Library
- Maple Plain Library
- Minnetonka Library
- Osseo Library
- Oxboro Library (Bloomington)
- Penn Lake Library (Bloomington)
- Plymouth Library
- Ridgedale Library (Minnetonka)
- Rockford Road Library (Crystal)
- Rogers Library
- Southdale Library (Edina)
- St. Anthony Library
- St. Bonifacius Library
- St. Louis Park Library
- Wayzata Library
- Westonka Library (Mound)
City locations[edit]
Bookmobile[edit]
The Hennepin County Free Library started operating a bookmobile (then called a book wagon) in 1922.[6]
HCL directors[edit]
- Gratia Countryman 1922–1925
- Ethel Berry 1925–1947
- Helen Young 1947–1969
- Robert H. Rohlf 1969–1994
- Charles M. Brown 1994–2004
- Amy Ryan 2005–2008
- Lois Langer Thompson 2009–2018
- Janet Mills (interim) 2018-
References[edit]
- ^ "About Hennepin County Library Archived 2010-02-25 at the Wayback Machine." Hennepin County Library. Retrieved on March 24, 2010. "Hennepin County Library launched in 1922; its headquarters are at Ridgedale Library in Minnetonka, Minn."
- ^ "[1]." Hennepin County Library Board. Retrieved on January 20, 2015.
- ^ "Library Book," by Bruce Weir Benidt, published 1984.
- ^ History of Hennepin County Library, "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-11-03. Retrieved 2011-11-02.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link), p. 17
- ^ "Library Merger Updates." Hennepin County Library. Retrieved on October 4, 2010. "[...]allowing the merger to take place Jan. 1, 2008."
- ^ Hennepin County Library, "In the Beginning", "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-04-20. Retrieved 2014-10-04.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link), retrieved October 4, 2014.
External links[edit]
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