Calgary Public Library
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| Country | Canada |
|---|---|
| Established | 1912 |
| Location | Calgary, Alberta |
| Coordinates | 51°02′48″N 114°03′28″W / 51.046534°N 114.057773°WCoordinates: 51°02′48″N 114°03′28″W / 51.046534°N 114.057773°W |
| Branches | 18 |
| Collection | |
| Size | 2,332,581 (2012) |
| Access and use | |
| Circulation | 17,121,718 |
| Other information | |
| Director | Bill Ptacek |
| Website | calgarylibrary |
The Calgary Public Library (CPL) is a distributed library system featuring 18 branch locations including the Central Library. It is the second most used system in Canada (after the Toronto Public Library) and the sixth most used library system in North America. This is despite the fact that the Calgary Public Library has one of the lowest per capita funding in the country, receiving as little as half the money of other Canadian public libraries.
The Calgary Public Library Board of Trustees was established on May 18, 1908. R. B. Bennett, who would later serve as Prime Minister of Canada, was among the five people appointed to the board. The first public library opened on January 2, 1912, thanks in part to the generosity of Scottish / American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
Carnegie funded $80,000 of the $100,000 cost of Calgary’s Central Library, (now renamed the Memorial Park Branch), pressuring City Hall to fund the rest.
The building was the first purpose-built public library in Alberta. It was designed by Boston architects McLean & Wright, and built out of local Paskapoo Sandstone (a soft stone that today presents a substantial preservation challenge). This library branch is a copy of a library in Attleboro, Massachusetts.
In 1929 the formal Victorian-style park surrounding the Central Library was dedicated to the honour of those who had died in the Great War. During construction of the original building, the Calgary Library Board sought out a librarian to oversee the opening of its new library. In January 1911, Alexander Calhoun, a thirty-one-year-old graduate of Queen's University, was appointed Calgary's Librarian. Calhoun served as the head of the Calgary Public Library until his retirement in 1945.
When a new downtown central library was constructed in the early 1960s, the original branch was renamed the Memorial Park branch, and still operates today. An addition to the 1960s Central Library was built in 1974, doubling the size of the building.
Calgary Public Library Facts (2012):
Today, the current Central Library building is considered too small to meet the needs of Calgary's population and lacks the infrastructure to support new technology. Preliminary planning and public consultation for a new central library have been completed, and the project is expected to cost between C$225 million and C$250 million. City Hall has allocated C$175 million to the project.
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