Heart of the Community: The Libraries We Love

The first book to sing the praises of the libraries we love, Heart of the Community: The Libraries We Love is a gorgeous coffee table book showcasing one of the icons of American life, the public library. Eighty libraries selected from over 300 nominations, hundreds of photographs, and introductory essays by Henry Winkler and Mary Pope Osborne. Includes famous authors favorite libraries and poignant stories of how libraries--great and small--have survived and thrived since colonial times. A wonderful walk through American architecture, culture, and community. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Camden Public Library in Maine to Z. J. Loussac Public Library in Alaska, America s libraries are the heart of our communities. This wondrous collection of stories and photographs includes eighty libraries chosen from hundreds of nominations from across the United States and Canada. The entries include large urban libraries like the Boston Public Library, with 6.1 million books, and The City Library of Salt Lake City, located in Library Square, an entire city block occupied by the library, cultural organizations, a coffee shop, and deli. On the other end of the spectrum is the small but mighty Bayliss Library in Glenn, California open just eight hours a week where volunteers and professionals have saved their rural library from closing time and time again. You ll find stories from the oldest libraries in America, like the Sturgis Library in Barnstable, Massachusetts, as well as from some of the newest, such as the Desert Broom Branch of the Phoenix Public Library, built in 2005, and the Village Branch in Lexington, Kentucky, which opened in 2004 in a convenient storefront location. Creative energy abounds throughout the book. The Aztec Library, for example, capitalized on an alleged UFO landing to raise the $2 million needed for an expansion. One library was a train station and another the home of the World War II journalist, Ernie Pyle. Many of the libraries ar