Editing Cleveland Public Library (section)

=== Founding ===

In 1811, the idea behind the Cleveland Public Library came "out of small beginnings" when sixteen of Cleveland's sixty-four residents subscribed to its first library, established to distribute the rare printed book.  The members read books such as the history of Rome, ''[[Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets|Lives of the English Poets]]'', Goldsmith's ''Greece'', and ''[[Don Quixote]]''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Open Shelves and Open Minds: A History of the Cleveland Public Library|url=https://archive.org/details/openshelvesopenm0000cram|url-access=registration|last=Cramer|first=C.H.|publisher=Press of Case Western Reserve University|year=1972|location=Cleveland, OH|isbn=9780829502190}}</ref>
[[File:CPL Interior 2023.jpg|thumb|Main Branch Interior Hall]]
In 1867, the [[Cleveland Board of Education|Cleveland]], [[Cincinnati Board of Education|Cincinnati]], and [[Dayton Board of Education|Dayton]] Boards of Education petitioned the [[Ohio General Assembly]] for authority to levy a tax for the maintenance of free public libraries, permitting boards of education with populations over 20,000 to levy a tax of one-tenth of a mill for each dollar evaluation of their taxable property.  Cleveland Superintendent [[Anson Smyth]], who has been called the "father of the Cleveland Public Library," supported this law in his Superintendent position, helping in the laws' development.<ref>[https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4014coll10/id/8/ Anson Smyth, D.D.], Cleveland Public Digital Library, Collection Portraits, Cleveland, Ohio, Accessed March 15, 2024</ref><ref name=":0" />{{rp|18}}

The new law provided for a Cleveland library that was part of the school system, controlled by the [[Cleveland Board of Education]] throughout the first decade of the library's existence, except for the years 1871–1873.<ref name=":0" />
[[File:Cleveland Public Library main branch stairwell.png|thumb|upright=0.9|Stairwell in main branch]]
The Cleveland Public Library opened on February 17, 1869, on the third floor of the Northup and Harrington Block on West Superior Avenue,  The library room was adjacent to the Cleveland Board of Education, and opened with approximately 5,800 books.<ref name=":0" />

Luther Melville Oviatt was the first librarian at Cleveland Public Library from 1869 to 1875.  During his first year, patrons borrowed 65,000 books. Forwarding thinking in his views, Oviatt wanted to provide books that would interest both children and adults, the mechanic, businessman, and scholar. He had open shelves because, "without a catalog, the only way potential borrowers could ascertain what books were available was to look at them." Oviatt resigned in June, 1875, the victim of governing boards or their subsidiaries, who micromanaged daily operations of the library.<ref name=":0" />

Librarian [[William Howard Brett]] opened the library's first stand-alone children's room on February 22, 1898.<ref name="Cleveland Public Library Image Collections">Cleveland Public Library, Digital Gallery (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2009 from [https://archive.today/20120222222503/http://cplorg.cdmhost.com/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/p4014coll13&CISOPTR=173&COSOBOX=1&REC3].</ref> [[Effie Louise Power]] was appointed Cleveland's first children's librarian.

In 1916, the Cleveland architectural firm of [[Walker and Weeks]] won a competition to design a new library building.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The New Cleveland Public Library : May the sixth : 1925.|publisher=Cleveland: The library|year=1925|pages=3}}</ref>  Construction of their classical Renaissance design, delayed by the First World War, began in 1923 under [[Linda Anne Eastman]]. Eastman (1867–1963) was the first woman to head a major U.S. city library system and a pioneer in the modern library system. She opened bookshelves to patrons, replacing the [[New York Public Library]] system in which a librarian fetched the books.