Library and community center from Library Road
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Established | 1914 |
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Location | Briarcliff Manor, New York |
Collection | |
Size | 32,724 |
Access and use | |
Circulation | 83,691 |
Population served | 7,867 |
Other information | |
Budget | $618,517 |
Director | Shelley Glick |
Staff | 2 3⁄4 full-time; 8 part-time |
Website | Official website |
Coordinates | 41°8′47.8″N 73°49′27.8″W / 41.146611°N 73.824389°WCoordinates: 41°8′47.8″N 73°49′27.8″W / 41.146611°N 73.824389°W |
The Briarcliff Manor Public Library is the public library serving the village of Briarcliff Manor, New York, and is located the edge of the village's Walter W. Law Memorial Park. The library is a founding member of the Westchester Library System. It is staffed by a director and eleven employees, including reference and youth librarians, and is governed by a seven-member board, with a liaison to the village board of trustees. The library offers computer classes, book discussion groups, young adult programs, a children's room and a local history collection. The library building also houses the Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society, the Briarcliff Manor Recreation Department, and the William J. Vescio Community Center.
The library was founded in 1914 in the Briarcliff Community Center. Around 1921, the library was established as the Briarcliff Free Library, an association library within the New York State library system. From the building's destruction in 1929 and over the next thirty years, the library was without a permanent location, and was moved between sites including public school buildings and the village recreation center. In 1959, the library purchased the former Briarcliff Manor station of the New York and Putnam Railroad, which had been ordered and funded by Briarcliff Manor founder Walter Law in 1906. In 1964, the association library became a public library and adopted its current name. In 1981, the trackbed which ran alongside the building became part of a 48-mile-long (77-kilometre) rail trail, consisting of the South County, North County, and Putnam County Trailways. The biking, running, and walking trail stretches from the Bronx north to Brewster. After library renovations in the 1980s and 1990s, a significant expansion was completed in 2009, adding the section in which the library is housed today. In 2016, the village's community center opened in the original portion of the building.