The Rock Island Public Library is located in downtown Rock Island, Illinois. The Rock Island Public Library traces its beginnings to 1872, making it the oldest public library in Illinois. However, fee-based public libraries started in 1855 in Rock Island and have contributed to the history of Illinois most historic library system.
Read more about Rock Island Public Library: Association Library 1855-1857, Young Men’s Literary Association 1865-1871, Rock Island Public Library 1872-1901, Rock Island Public Library 1902-present, Main Library, 30/31 Branch Library, Southwest Branch Library
Famous quotes containing the words rock, island, public and/or library:
“The forest waves, the morning breaks,
The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes,
Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be
And life pulsates in rock or tree.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Beyond this island bound
By a thin sea of flesh
And a bone coast ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The only thing that was dispensed free to the old New Bedford whalemen was a Bible. A well-known owner of one of that city’s whaling fleets once described the Bible as the best cheap investment a shipowner could make.”
—For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Our civilization has decided ... that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)