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Seattle Public Library
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===Early 20th century: the first great era of growth=== On the night of January 1, 1901, the Yesler Mansion burned taking most of the library collection with it.<ref>According to {{Harvnb|Peterson|Davenport|1950|p=178}}, the library had about 25,000 volumes at the time of the fire.</ref> The library records were salvaged, along with the 2,000 volumes of the children's collection. Other than those, though, practically the only books salvaged were the 5,000 that were out on circulation at the time. The library operated for a time out of Yesler's barn, which had survived,<ref name=SPL-1915-8 /> then moved to a building that had been left behind when the [[University of Washington]] had moved from downtown to its present campus.<ref name=SPL-1915-9>{{harvnb |Seattle Public Library annual report |1915 |p=9}}</ref> By January 6, [[Andrew Carnegie]] had promised $200,000 to build a new Seattle library; he later added another $20,000 when this budget proved inadequate.<ref name=SPL-1915-8 /> The new Carnegie library was built not far from the former university campus, occupying the entire block between 4th and 5th Avenues and between Madison and Spring Streets. The land was purchased for $100,000. In August 1903, the city selected a design submitted by P. J. Weber of [[Chicago]] for a building to be constructed largely of [[sandstone]]. Ground was broken in spring 1905 and the library was dedicated December 19, 1906.<ref name=SPL-1915-8 /> Shortly after moving to these new permanent quarters, Smith was succeeded in 1907 by [[Judson Toll Jennings|Judson T. Jennings]].<ref name=SPL-1915-9 /> Meanwhile, the library began to grow in other respects. A reference department had been established in 1899. In 1903 a position was established for a children's librarian. In 1904 a plan was established to grow eventually to 12 departments. The periodical division was established in 1906, the art division in 1907, and the technology division in 1912. Branch libraries had opened in rented quarters in [[Fremont, Seattle, Washington|Fremont]] (1903), [[Green Lake, Seattle, Washington|Green Lake]] (1905), and the [[University District, Seattle, Washington|University District]] (1908). In 1908, Carnegie donated $105,000 to build permanent branches in the University District, Green Lake, and [[West Seattle, Seattle, Washington|West Seattle]] (all of which opened in summer 1910). The annexation by Seattle of the city of [[Ballard, Seattle, Washington|Ballard]] brought with it another already established Carnegie library, and a further Carnegie donation of $70,000 in 1911 built the [[Queen Anne, Seattle, Washington|Queen Anne]] branch (opened 1914) and the Columbia Branch (opened December 31, 1915 in [[Columbia City, Seattle, Washington|Columbia City]]). The land in the [[Central District, Seattle, Washington|Central District]] donated by Henry Yesler to the Ladies' Library Association was traded to the parks department and the money was city funds were used to buy land and erect a library about {{convert|1|mi|km}} east of downtown and named after Yesler.<ref name=SPL-1915-9 /> It was later renamed as the [[Douglass–Truth Branch Library]]. The 1921 opening of the permanent Fremont branch—also funded with Carnegie money—brought this era of great expansion to an end. It would be over three decades before The Seattle Public Library opened another proper branch.<ref name=SPL-hist /> <!--====The view from 1915 to 1916==== [[File:Seattle Public Library storytime 1915.jpg|thumb|Outdoor storytime, 1915]] [[File:Green Lake Library-1.jpg|thumb|The [[Mission Revival Style architecture|Mission-style]] Green Lake Branch, built 1905, is one of the surviving libraries from this era.]] The library's 1915 annual report, on the 25th anniversary of the library, attempted something of a summing up. With reference to the nature of a public library, it stated: <blockquote>'''The public library''' holds no brief for any ''ism'', but after all, what is the institution itself but a particularly good example of applied socialism. It represents government ownership of the bookshelf, for the library is supported entirely by the people of Seattle for their own welfare and use. It is our common property in books.{{sfn|Seattle Public Library annual report |1915 |p=13}}</blockquote> As for how the library selected books, the 1915 annual report explained: <blockquote>The ideal of every library is to get a good working collection in which every field of thought and action is represented and every race, nationality, profession, trade or local custom recognized: always with a due regard to proportion and balance in the collection. …[I]n a new, rapidly changing [community] such as ours… attainment [of this ideal] is a long way in the future. Even to approximate it requires much study of the community and of books. … Out in the Far West we must depend, in large part, for reviews and notices of books for our first knowledged of them. … We read carefully our two library “tools,″ the [[American Library Association]] Booklist and the [[Book Review Digest]]… We also make use of lists published by other libraries, and of publishers' notices though the latter… cannot be depended upon… Our chief dependence, however, is placed upon book reviews appearing in the better magazines. … The selection of the fiction is perhaps the most difficult of all…<br /><br />While we cannot boast that our books are “made in Seattle,” we may say that they are bought in Seattle … in so far as is consistent with the best interests of the library…{{sfn|Seattle Public Library annual report |1915 |p=16}}</blockquote> The report describes such economies as waiting for the prices of certain expensive books to drop a year or more after initial issue and that the librarians have become "practiced and merciless beggars" of government documents from around the country and the world.{{sfn|Seattle Public Library annual report |1915 |p=17}}--> Even as early as 1915, the library was collecting books not only in English but in many other languages spoken in Seattle (though all of the languages collected at that time were European: there were as yet no Asian language collections). In 1915, the library had collections in [[Croatian language|Croatian]], "Dano-Norwegian" ([[Bokmål]]), [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[French language|French]], [[German language|German]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]], [[Modern Greek]], [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Swedish language|Swedish]], and [[Yiddish]]. Ten other languages were also lightly represented.{{sfn|Seattle Public Library annual report |1915 |p=37}} Seattle also had established one of only three collections for the blind in the country west of the [[Mississippi River]], the other two being in [[San Francisco]] and [[Portland, Oregon]]. In 1915 this collection had 698 volumes.{{sfn|Seattle Public Library annual report |1915 |p=38}} In 1916, 67,097 people borrowed books from the library. That was 19 per cent of the population of the city. At that time the system appears to have had more total points of contact with the public than today, though few of these were proper branches. A civics textbook from the era indicates the library's points of contact with the public as "the central library, 9 branch libraries, 8 drug store deposit stations, 32 fire-engine houses, 420 school rooms in 77 schools, 3 play grounds and 8 special deposit stations."<ref>{{Harvnb|Fleming|1919|p=43}}</ref>
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