Theme Thursday - Library

I've spent my life in libraries. I'm a book-aholic, and as you've seen from some of my photo essays here, I have a decent personal library. But public libraries offer a wider range of reading, and they're a great place to hang out, too. Plus nowadays you can check out CDs and DVDs, and even work on computers; sometimes an idea hits me while I'm out walking, and if the library is closer than my home, I go there and hop on Google to look something up.

The best of my education has come from the public library... my tuition fee is a bus fare and once in a while, five cents a day for an overdue book. You don't need to know very much to start with, if you know the way to the public library.

~Lesley Conger

So here's a tour of libraries here in Newport. Yes, we're not a very big town but I did use the plural. You'll see why below.

This is the Redwood Library and Athenaeum. It's the oldest lending library in America, and the oldest library building in continuous use in the country. It was founded in 1747 by Abraham Redwood and 46 of his friends and associates. Although it's not free - there's a yearly membership fee - it is open to membership to anyone, thus keeping it in the "public library" category.









Here's a different angle shot, showing off more of the architecture. The architect was Peter Harrison, a native-born American architect who introduced the classical style to the colonies. He also designed Newport's Touro Synagogue as well as Boston's King's Chapel and Christ Church in Cambridge, MA.











This is an earlier Newport public library building - known as the Newport People's Library (some of the books in the current library still have that stamp on them). It's right next door to the current public library; now it serves as the offices of several city departments.

And now I give you - today's Newport Public Library!

This is the view from up the hill behind the library, viewing the parking lot entrance. The block to the left in the picture is the original building. In 1999 and 2000 the entrance area and the block to the right was added; the library desperately needed to expand. Part of the expansion was a thoroughly up-to-date computer lab, as well as expanded public meeting rooms on the ground floor (you're actually looking at the second floor from this side - the building is on a hillside - which is the main level).

This is the Spring St. entrance to the library. I've always loved the lines of this architecture, and using a wide-angle lens to get this shot exaggerated the line very nicely!












Ah! Here we are! The whole point of having a library, after all: Books! This is part of the fiction section, which runs around the outer wall of the adult and reference areas.












And more books. This is looking down one of the aisles in adult non-fiction to the reference section. Books, books, books and more books! What more could a book-aholic need!








© 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger