The Thayer Public Library is a public
library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...
located in the town of
Braintree, Massachusetts
Braintree (), officially the Town of Braintree, is a municipality in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Although officially known as a towBraintree is a city, with a mayor-council government, mayor-council form of government, and i ...
with 102,000
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this phys ...
s, 200
periodical
A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also exampl ...
subscriptions, and 8,000
videos
Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...
,
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
s, music
CDs
The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octo ...
, and
audiobook
An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.
Spoken audio has been available in sch ...
s.
The library is a member of the
Old Colony Library Network
The Old Colony Library Network (OCLN) is a consortium of 28 member libraries located on the South Shore of Massachusetts in the United States. OCLN membership includes 26 town and city libraries and two academic libraries. OCLN's cooperative appr ...
.
About the library
The library is named for
General Sylvanus Thayer,
who helped found it through a $30,000 bequest in his will. The original building was dedicated June 4, 1874, and opened to the public in September of the same year.
It operated as a library until 1953, when it was replaced by a larger building across the street.
The 1874 building was occupied by the Braintree Water Department for many years, but is currently vacant. This building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...
in 1978.
In 1997, the 1953 library building was razed and replaced by the current three-story brick
postmodern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...
building that opened in 1999.
Antitrust lawsuit participation
In March 2008, the Thayer Public Library was notified that it was among several libraries in
that would share in the 2002 settlement of an
antitrust
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
case that was brought against
BMG,
EMI Music
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 2012, ...
,
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group Corp. (trade name, d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York C ...
, and
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainmen ...
by the
antitrust
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
division of
Massachusetts Attorney General
The Massachusetts Attorney General is an elected constitutionally defined executive officer of the Massachusetts Government. The officeholder is the chief lawyer and law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The officeholder al ...
Martha Coakley
Martha Mary Coakley (born July 14, 1953) is an American lobbyist and lawyer who served as Attorney General of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. Prior to serving as Attorney General, she was District Attorney of Middlesex County from 1999 to 200 ...
’s office, along with the Attorneys General of thirty-nine other states. The lawsuit was settled in 2002 for $144 million, and alleged that the music distribution companies illegally inflated the price of CDs by requiring retailers to sell them at or above a set level in order to qualify for substantial advertising funding.
['']The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', October 1, 2002
See also
*
References
{{authority control
National Register of Historic Places in Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Renaissance Revival architecture in Massachusetts
Libraries in Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Public libraries in Massachusetts
Library buildings completed in 1874
Library buildings completed in 1953
Library buildings completed in 1999
Buildings and structures in Braintree, Massachusetts
1874 establishments in Massachusetts
Education in Braintree, Massachusetts