The Tacoma Public Library system serves residents of

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Pa ...

. It operates eight library branches, which include a central library in downtown Tacoma, two regional locations in north and south Tacoma, and five neighborhood branch locations. Tacoma Public Library has nearly 150,000 registered users, and over 2 million items in circulation. Tacoma Public Library serves a population of 198,100 people. The Main, or central, library is one of 43 Carnegie libraries built in the state of Washington. Carnegie libraries are those built with money donated by philanthropist

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

. This particular library was built in 1903. The Main library has been expanded since the original building was erected, and the Carnegie portion of the building now houses the Northwest Room and the Handforth Gallery. The Northwest Room holds a special collection of information on Tacoma and the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

. It includes

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...

rare books Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is ''bibliophilia'', and someo ...

, and

newspapers A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports ...

. The Handforth Gallery displays the work of local artists year round. Tacoma Public Library offers the use of computers, databases, books, DVDs, music, ebooks, downloadable audio books, as well as programming for children, teens and adults. The library director is Kate Larsen

Branches

*Downtown Tacoma (Main) Library *Fern Hill Branch Library *Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library (closed due to budget cuts on January 29, 2011) *Kobetich Library *Moore Library *Mottet Library *South Tacoma Branch Library *Swan Creek Library & Literacy Center (closed due to budget cuts on January 29, 2011) *Swasey Branch Library *Anna Lemon Wheelock Library

References

*http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM1GNP *http://www.tacomapubliclibrary.org *http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/libraries/librarysearch/Library_detail.asp?Search=1&details=0&LibraryID=WA0068&ID=WA0068 *http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/50carnegie/50facts5.htm

External links

Tacoma Public Library
Public libraries in Washington (state) Education in Tacoma, Washington Buildings and structures in Tacoma, Washington {{Library-stub