The Fort Collins Public Library is the public library of the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, US and an administrative department of the city government. The library as an institution dates from the late nineteenth century when a collection was housed on South College Avenue in downtown. In 1903, the library acquired its first dedicated structure by a donation from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. It was the sixth public library in the state. The Carnegie Library building, located in Library Park (formerly Lincoln Park) was used to house the library collection until 1974, when the current Main Branch was constructed on the east side of Library Park. The former Carnegie Library now houses the Fort Collins Museum. In the 1990s, a second branch of the library was constructed on Harmony Road in southwest Fort Collins. The library has an extensive collection on the history of Fort Collins and Larimer County.
The library maintains the Barton Early Childhood Center and, in partnership with Front Range Community College, the Harmony Library. The library also participates in innovative cooperative projects with the local school district and Colorado State University. The library holds about 270,000 items; its special local history archive moved to nearby Fort Collins Museum from April 1, 2007.
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“‘Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it.”
—Miguel De Cervantes (1547–1616)
“Though taste, though genius bless
To some divine excess,
Faint’s the cold work till thou inspire the whole;
What each, what all supply,
May court, may charm our eye,
Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!”
—William Collins (1721–1759)
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—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge; it blossoms through the year. And depend on it ... that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last.”
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816)