AUBURN PUBLIC LIBRARY

For over one hundred years the Auburn Public Library has grown and given service with the growth and development of the city. Its origin starts from community members in 1890 that thought the growing city needed a literacy center. After renting space in various buildings around town the library trustees along with city officials made arrangements with steel magnate Andrew Carnegie in 1904 to construct a building of their own on the corner of Spring and Court Street. Through the years various changes and improvements have been made in the building as needed: gas lighting to electric to fluorescent;new flooring;oil heating; steel shelving replacing wooden stacks; and the expansion of the Children's department. Over the years the library has been the recipient of some unusual gifts such as a bronze memorial tablet of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in 1908 and a shadow box of wax figures from a Dicken's novel in 1955. The library was renovated in 1956 and again in 1976, then once again within the past five years with a major local fundraising effort allowing the library to increase its original size as well as add a media center and numerous community rooms. Despite the renovations the library has only been closed twice; In 1911 due to a flu epidemic and during World War I during a fuel shortage. Through out all of the renovations the library has retained its original dramatic architecture. It is currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The library boasts a circulation of more than 250,000 volumes, the highest circulation per capita for any library in Maine.