History
The idea to establish a Library, to provide a room for reading and games for the local young people, came about in 1896, when Iowa City had already existed for fifty-seven years. At this time, there were approximately 7500 residents and 1300 students attending the University of Iowa. When the Library first opened its doors on January 21, 1897, it contained 1300 books and twenty magazines and newspapers. It was located at 211 Iowa Avenue, and took up two rooms above a steam laundry.
Over the years, the Library would move or modify its location five times: in 1901, to 212 East College Street; in 1904, to a Carnegie library at 212 South Linn Street; in 1963, when an addition was added to the Carnegie library; and in 1981, to 123 South Linn Street. On June 12, 2004, the Library opened the doors of its new facility, built at the same location but nearly double the size of the previous building. The new Library was designed by Engberg Anderson Design Partnership, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and built by Knutson Construction. It covers 81,276 square feet (7,550.8 m2) on two floors in a building that also contains rental space.
Read more about this topic: Iowa City Public Library
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)