Cincinnati Public Library
Like the Cornell Library, the Cincinnati PL has been transformed into a county-wide system since the building pictured in the two illustrations below. About two screens into the current site is a nice historical sketch of the development of the library. This is the material relevant to our building : The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County dates from 1853 in its present organization. However, its foundations were laid fifty years earlier in 1802 when efforts were begun to establish the first of a series of subscription libraries. The public library occupied several inadequate facilities until 1870, when the burgeoning Cincinnati library moved into its own building on Vine Street. That structure served the Queen City for 85 years until the building at 8th and Vine Streets opened. During that time the institution acquired a reputation of quality both in its collection and in its service.
The director in 1876 was Rev. Thomas Vickers, a title which raises all sorts of interesting questions. The collection was sizeable: 71,405, with an annual circulation of 443,100. The folks in Cincinnati read a lot. There were a total of 30 libraries in Cincinnati at the time, including 3 or 4 subscription or social libraries available to the public. The second largest library in town was the Young Men's Mercantile library with a collection of 36,193 volumes and a circulation of 56,256.
Robert D. Stonestreet, current director of the library, kindly sent me the elegant brochure used at the 1997 dedication of a major addition to the present building. There, about two pages in, was a reproduction of the exterior view below. Nice to see they have a sense of history in Cincinnati.
The interior view, below, certainly is a grand reading hall. One has to wonder about the heating bill, however, and what the temperature on the top layer of stacks might be.
Cincinnati PL, 629 Vine Street, 1870-1955, Exterior
