Cambridge Public Library

Cambridge Public Library
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
1888 building (photo 2012)
Location	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°22′27″N 71°6′38″W / 42.37417°N 71.11056°WCoordinates: 42°22′27″N 71°6′38″W / 42.37417°N 71.11056°W
Built	1888
Architect	Van Brunt & Howe (1888), William Rawn Associates (2009)
Architectural style	Other, Romanesque
MPS	Cambridge MRA
NRHP Reference #	82001931[1]
Added to NRHP	April 13, 1982

The Cambridge Public Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts is part of the Minuteman Library Network. It consists of a main library and six branches, located throughout the city.

In fiscal year 2014, the city of Cambridge spent 1.63% ($7,064,381) of its budget on the library, $66 per person.^[2]

Main building

Main branch expansion building, 2011

The main building of the Cambridge Public Library is an historic library building at 449 Broadway. It was built in 1888 with land and full construction funding donated by Frederick H. Rindge, a Cambridge native and philanthropist. Its Richardsonian Romanesque design was by Van Brunt & Howe. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

A $90 million expansion and renovation of the library, led by the Boston architectural firms William Rawn Associates and Ann Beha Architects, opened on November 8, 2009.^[3] The new addition more than triples the square footage of the building, and is the first building in the USA to make use of European Double-Skin Curtainwall technology. Architectural drawings and construction photos are available here. During most of the construction, the library collection had been relocated to the Longfellow School.^[4]

Museum of Science Community Solar System

Prior to the renovation of the main library, the library was home to a scale model of the planet Saturn in the Boston Museum of Science's community-wide solar system model.^[5] Saturn was located just outside the portion of the building that housed the old stacks, roughly where the computer workstation sign-in table is currently located. The Saturn model was packed up and shipped back to the Museum of Science and was not positioned at the reopened renovated library.^[6] Other locations in Cambridge that still have models in the historic nine planet series are the Royal Sonesta Hotel (home of Earth) and the Cambridgeside Galleria mall (home of Mars).

History of Organization

The Cambridge Public Library developed out of the Cambridge Athenaeum, which was founded in 1849 as "a lyceum, public library, and reading room with a building on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Pleasant Street where Cambridge residents could borrow books at the cost of one dollar per year.

The City of Cambridge acquired the Cambridge Athenaeum in 1858 and renamed it the Dana Library for use as a city hall and a public library. By 1866 the Library moved to the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Temple Street. In 1874, the library became free to the public and was renamed the Cambridge Public. The main building of the Cambridge Public Library at 449 Broadway was built in 1888.

Branches

Six smaller neighborhood branch libraries are scattered throughout the City of Cambridge. These are:

• Boudreau Branch, 245 Concord Avenue, West Cambridge
• Central Square Branch, 45 Pearl Street, Cambridgeport
• Collins Branch, 64 Aberdeen Avenue, West Cambridge
• O'Connell Branch, 48 Sixth Street, East Cambridge
• O'Neill Branch, 70 Rindge Avenue, North Cambridge
• Valente Branch, 826 Cambridge Street, East Cambridge

List of databases

As of 2014 the library arranges for its patrons and staff access to digital content from several providers:^[7]

Title	Provider
Academic OneFile	Cengage Learning, Inc.
African American Heritage	Cambridge Information Group
Ancestry Library	Cambridge Information Group
ARBAonline	ABC-CLIO, LLC
AtoZdatabases	DatabaseUSA.com
Biography In Context	Cengage Learning, Inc.
BookLetters
Books and Authors	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Boston Globe	Cambridge Information Group
Boston Metropolitan Collection	NewsBank
Britannica Suite	Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Business Insights: Essentials	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Cambridge Chronicle	NewsBank
ConsumerReports.org	Consumers Union
Contemporary Literary Criticism Select	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Criminal Justice Collection	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Digital Media Catalog	OverDrive, Inc.
EBSCOhost Core Collection	EBSCO Industries
Educator's Reference Complete	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Expanded Academic ASAP	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Gale Virtual Reference Library	Cengage Learning, Inc.
General BusinessFile ASAP	Cengage Learning, Inc.
General OneFile	Cengage Learning, Inc.
General Reference Center Gold	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Global Issues In Context	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Health and Wellness Resource Center	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Health Reference Center Academic	Cengage Learning, Inc.
HeritageQuest Online	Cambridge Information Group
Historic Cambridge Newspaper Collection	Cambridge Public Library via DL Consulting
Historical New York Times	Cambridge Information Group
Horn Book Guide Online	Media Source Inc.
Indieflix	IndieFlix, Inc.
JSTOR	Ithaka Harbors
Junior Edition	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Kids InfoBits	Cengage Learning, Inc.
LexisNexis Library Express	Reed Elsevier
Literature Resource Center	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Mango Languages	Creative Empire, LLC
Massachusetts History Online	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Morningstar Investment Research Center	Morningstar, Inc.
MUZZY Online	Early Advantage, LLC
National Geographic Magazine Archive	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Naxos Music Library	Naxos Digital Services Ltd.
New York Times (1985-Current)	Cengage Learning, Inc.
NoveList	EBSCO Industries
Opposing Viewpoints In Context	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Oxford English Dictionary	University of Oxford
PowerSearch	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Science In Context	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Statesman's Yearbook Online	Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group
Student Edition	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Testing & Education Reference Center	Cengage Learning, Inc.
U.S. History In Context	Cengage Learning, Inc.
Value Line	Value Line, Inc.
Vogue Archive	Cambridge Information Group
World Book Online	Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
World History In Context	Cengage Learning, Inc.
WorldCat	Online Computer Library Center, Inc.

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Cambridge, Massachusetts

References

1. Staff (2008-04-15). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
2. July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2014; cf. Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (2016). "FY 2014 Municipal Pie Report". Retrieved 2016-03-19.
3. http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/11/10/cambridge-public-library-grand-opening-a-beautiful-library-for-a-great-innovation-city/
4. http://www.cambridgema.gov/CPL/announce.htm
5. "Community Solar System Official Passport" (PDF). Boston Museum of Science. Retrieved 3 August 2011.
6. Grice, Noreen (September 7, 2006). "why does the world continually conspire to thwart me?". Charles Hayden Planetarium. Retrieved July 3, 2013. The Saturn model was brought back to the Museum of Science when the Cambridge library closed, and is currently in storage. Since the Saturn and Neptune models are not available, we revised the Community Solar System passport to give credit for those planets.
7. Cambridge Public Library. "Databases". City of Cambridge. Archived from the original on October 2014.

Further reading

• Catalogue of the Cambridge Public Library, 1887.
• The Cambridge Public Library: Its history, rules and regulations, list of officers, past and present, etc. Cambridge, Mass.: J. Wilson and son, 1891
• "Cambridge." Report of the Free Public Library Commission of Massachusetts. 1891
• Annual report. 1893-1904
• Cambridge Public Library Bulletin v.1-v.2 (1896-1897)

External links

• Cambridge Public Library Website
• Main Library Expansion Project