History
The Woman’s Century Club created the first library in Nampa—a traveling collection of books obtained from the Idaho State Traveling Library. In 1904, the collection was settled into two rooms of the Hickey Building and patrons were charged an annual card fee of $1.00. The Century Club Library Committee obtained a commitment for a Carnegie library in 1908 and opened with a collection of 1312 books. In 1966, the library moved to its current location in the former First Security Bank building when it was donated to the City of Nampa. In 1985, an addition of the neighboring E.H. Dewey Stores building doubled the space of the library to 23,500 square feet (2,180 m2).
1900 The Woman’s Century Club organized in Nampa with a goal of establishing a library. Club members arranged for a reading room location and a traveling collection from the Idaho State Library.
1904 Nampa City Council voted to budget tax funds to help support a public library. Club members continued to staff the fledgling library and to gather donations of books and furnishings.
1907 City support was sufficient to fund library services. The first paid librarian was Ennis McGee at $25 per month.
1908 Nampa’s Carnegie building opened in March 1908. The Woman’s Century Club had secured funding for the building from the Carnegie Foundation. The address of Nampa’s first dedicated library building was 1417 2nd Street South.
1966 First Security Bank deeded the building at the corner of 11th Avenue South and 1st Street South to the City of Nampa, for use as a library.Constructed in 1919 as the Farmers and Merchants Bank by Idaho architects Tourtellotte and Hummel, it is an example of classical revival architecture. Smith and Keys architects of Nampa received an award for the remodel of the bank building to serve as a library.
1978 The Skylight in the building was repaired and restored.
1980 The first library service to be computerized at the library was the checkout process, when Nampa joined Boise in their CLSI computer system. Soon after, Caldwell and Twin Falls Public Libraries also joined. This was the beginning of the Lynx! Consortium.
1985/1986 Expansion of the library was part of the Centennial celebration of Nampa. The library expanded into the historic E. H. Dewey Stores, an early storefront next to the former bank building, doubling the size of the library. The main entrance to the library was moved to 1st Street South.
1989 A small parking lot was created next to the library, including 16 parking spaces and book drop access.
1996 Internet access was first made available to the public in October with one dedicated computer.A new integrated library system for the consortium included a computerized catalog at Nampa. Courier service began between valley locations of the Lynx! Consortium.
2000 The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $21,163 for equipment and $23,392 in software to enable the library to increase public access to computing resources and the Internet.
2003 Consultant Anders Dahlgren presented the library Strategic Facilities Plan to the city. The report clearly stated the need for a new central library building.
2005 The Nampa City Council voted to proceed with the Nampa Development Plan, providing a funding stream for a new library.
2008 The Nampa Development Corporation began acquiring properties for a new library facility library.
Read more about this topic: Nampa Public Library
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