The Minneapolis Central Library is a

public library A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...

located in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. It is the largest library in the

Hennepin County Library Hennepin County Library is a public library system serving Hennepin County, Minnesota, US. The current iteration of Hennepin County Library was formed by the merger of urban Minneapolis Public Library and suburban Hennepin County Library on ...

system. It bills itself as having "the third largest per capita public library collection of any major city in America with a collection of more than 2.4 million items—including books, DVDs, music, government documents."About Minneapolis Central Library
The building at 300 Nicollet Mall with two levels of underground parking was designed by

César Pelli César Pelli (October 12, 1926 – July 19, 2019) was an Argentine architect who designed some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. Three of his most notable buildings are the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Wo ...

and opened on May 20, 2006. It has over 300 computers for use by the public, an atrium, an

green roof A green roof or living roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage ...

planted with low-growing ground cover designed to "be sun- and drought-resistant", and a host of energy-efficiency measures. Minneapolis-Public-Library-190n

History

The predecessor of Minneapolis's public library was a

subscription library A subscription library (also membership library or independent library) is a library that is financed by private funds either from membership fees or endowments. Unlike a public library, access is often restricted to members, but access rights ca ...

called the Minneapolis Athenæum founded in 1859. The

Minneapolis Public Library The Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) was a library system that served the residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It was founded in 1885 with the establishment of the Minneapolis Library Board by an amendment to the Minneapolis City ...

was founded in 1885 and its first task was to build a main library. The first central library of the "Minneapolis Public Library" (also known as the main library) was built in 1889 along Tenth Street and Hennepin Avenue about six blocks south of the current building.Benidt, Bruce Weir, ''The Library Book, Centennial History of the Minneapolis Public Library'', 1984, p. 40 The library contained an art gallery primarily of work from the collection of library benefactor T. B. Walker. After many decades the library was considered overcrowded and out of date and plans began for a new library at a different location. The Minneapolis Public Library and Information Center (MPLIC), opened on January 28, 1961 at 4th St. and Nicollet Ave. (the site of the current building). The new four-story glass-and-steel building replaced the old stone castle-like one, which was torn down (the space is now a parking lot). The building included a library, as well as a planetarium, auditorium, and a small museum in its basement which became famous to school children for its Egyptian mummies. The new location in the then run-down "lower loop" district made the library a "cornerstone" of the 1960 redevelopment of downtown Minneapolis.Benidt, Bruce Weir, ''The Library Book, Centennial History of the Minneapolis Public Library'', 1984, pp. 169, 172, 173 Thirty years later library and community leaders again began to build support for a new, bigger library. Construction on the third and current library began (on the same location as the demolished second building) after Minneapolis voters approved a $140 million in funding to improve library services on November 7, 2000. The new building was designed by

, along with the Minneapolis firm Architectural Alliance, and opened to the public on May 20, 2006. At a cost of $250 per square foot, the library features a roof garden and substantial daylight. Its storage area was designed to be available to the public without staff assistance so that nearly all of the collection is accessible to the public. Between the closing of the second library and the opening of the new building, most services were provided at the interim "Central Library Marquette" location, on two floors in Marquette Plaza (formerly the

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States, covers the 9th District of the Federal Reserve, which is made up of Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, North and South Dakota ...

). The cost of providing the interim site while the old library was demolished and rebuilt exceeded $10 million. The

system, which consisted of 14 branch libraries in addition to Central, joined the 26-library

system on January 1, 2008. The administration for the unified library system remained at Ridgedale Library in Minnetonka. The Minneapolis Planetarium Society was at the second MPLIC building using a projector machine literally older than the

space age The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the space race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events, beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, and co ...

itself (delivered and installed originally in 1954, three years before the launch of

Sputnik I Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program ...

). In 2005, the

Minnesota Legislature The Minnesota Legislature is the bicameral legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota consisting of two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senators are elected from 67 single-member districts. In order to account for decenn ...

apportioned funding for the inclusion of a

planetarium A planetarium (: planetariums or planetaria) is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetariums is ...

in the new Central Library building. The Minnesota Planetarium was originally planned for the roof of the new building but was instead added to the plans for the new

Bell Museum of Natural History The Bell Museum, formerly known as the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History, is located at the University of Minnesota's Saint Paul campus. The museum's current location on the Saint Paul campus opened in 2018. The Minnesota wildlife dioram ...

at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

References

External links

{{commons category
Minneapolis Central Library website
Hennepin County Library César Pelli buildings Minneapolis Public Library Libraries in Minnesota Postmodern architecture in Minnesota

History

See also

References

External links