John F. Germany Public Library is the flagship library of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System (THPL), as well as a member of the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative, and a member of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium. Located in

Downtown Tampa, Florida Downtown Tampa is the central business district of Tampa, Florida, United States, and the chief financial district of the Tampa Bay Area. It is second only to Westshore regarding employment in the area. Companies with a major presence downtown i ...

, the 140,000 sq. ft.

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

acts as the central reference and resource center for THPL, as well as the local library branch. John F. Germany Library is the largest in the THPL System and houses several special collections."Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative." John F. Germany Public Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2014. http://www.hcplc.org/hcplc/locations/jfg The library features a creative space known as the HIVE and has various special collections including a Florida History collection, Genealogy Collection, and more than 20,000 photographs in the

Burgert Brothers The Burgert Brothers were early photographers, most prominently known for documenting the growth of Tampa, Florida. Their photos span the late 1800s until the early 1960s. They depict times of war, natural disasters such as the 1921 Tampa Bay ...

Collection. The library also features a children's play area and the Realia Collection with more than 470 models, tools, and learning aids available for checkout.

History

Carnegie Library

In 1912, the City of Tampa received a grant from the Carnegie Foundation to start development on a building for a main Tampa library on Seventh Avenue. Architect Fred J. James designed the building, and the physical work was completed on the facility on June 30, 1915. However, the opening of the facility was delayed for two years due to funding constraints. On April 17, 1917, the Tampa Public Library opened to the public with a collection of 3,800 books."History of the John F. Germany Library." Library History. http://www.hcplc.org/hcplc/thpl/history/jfghistory.html The Carnegie building on Seventh Avenue served as the main library's building until the need for a larger building became a necessity with the increase of population in

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough C ...

to 400,000 people. The Tampa City Council, along with community aid, began plans for a new building. The new building, located less than one mile away from the original Carnegie building, began in 1965 and is still in use today.

New library and name change to John F. Germany

The new Tampa Public Library opened to the public on April 21, 1968. Designed by architectural firms McLane, Ranon, McIntosh & Bernardo, and McElvy & Jennewein, the new facility was 100,000 sq. ft. and held more than 500,000 books. Nine years later, a new 50,000 sq. ft addition was made to the original building. Designed by architectural firm McElvy, Jennewein, Stefany & Howard, the new addition was connected to the original building by an elevated glass walkway. This addition was dedicated on May 23, 1976. The Tampa Public Library was renamed on November 1, 1999, to the John F. Germany Public Library in honor of library supporter, civic leader, and former judge, John F. Germany. In the 1960s, Germany was chairman of the Friends of the Library Organization while a sitting Hillsborough County circuit judge. After looking over the city budget he goes to the mayor to use funds from cigarette taxes to pay for the expansion plan. He once called the downtown library on Ashley Street his most significant accomplishment. It was there in February 2015, former John F. Germany Public Library Chief Director Andrew S. Breidenbaugh was named director of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System.

The HIVE

Opened to the public on November 15, 2014, The HIVE is a 10,000 sq. ft. public community Makerspace located on the third floor of the West Building of the John F. Germany Public Library. UPDATE: In the beginning of 2018, the building that connects the William F. Poe Parking Garage to the Germany Library was closed and given back to the city of Tampa. The HIVE makerspace is now inside the Germany Library. It is located to the right of the building's main entrance on Ashley Drive. *''The Media:scape'' is a collaborative workspace featuring seating for 12 and a 42-inch display monitor with

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HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...

, and mini connectors. *''The Makerspace'' is a community workspace for building, tinkering, fabricating, and creating. Equipment includes two

Makerbot MakerBot Industries, LLC is an American desktop 3D printer manufacturer company headquartered in New York City. It was founded in January 2009 by Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, and Zach "Hoeken" Smith to build on the early progress of the RepRap Proje ...

Replicator

3D printers 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

Arduino Arduino () is an open-source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardware products are licensed under ...

Uno Boards & Accessories,

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...

kits, Little Bits Deluxe kits, Shapeoko 2 CNC

milling machine Milling is the process of machining using rotary cutters to remove material by advancing a cutter into a workpiece. This may be done by varying direction on one or several axes, cutter head speed, and pressure. Milling covers a wide variety of d ...

, and work stations featuring hand tools,

soldering Soldering (; ) is a process in which two or more items are joined by melting and putting a filler metal ( solder) into the joint, the filler metal having a lower melting point than the adjoining metal. Unlike welding, soldering does not inv ...

irons, and glue guns. *''The Robotics Center'' is a workspace and scrimmage zone for school teams participating in FIRST, VEX,

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, or any variety of robotics programs. *''The Arts Center'' is a space to work on all things arts and crafts, including painting, drawing, sculpting,

scrapbooking Scrapbooking is a method of preserving, presenting and arranging personal and family history in the form of a book, box or card. Typical memorabilia include photographs, printed media, and artwork. Scrapbook albums are often decorated and frequ ...

screenprinting Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mes ...

sewing Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a sewing needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era. Before the invention of spinning yarn or weaving ...

knitting Knitting is a method by which yarn is manipulated to create a textile, or fabric. It is used to create many types of garments. Knitting may be done by hand or by machine. Knitting creates stitches: loops of yarn in a row, either flat or i ...

quilting Quilting is the term given to the process of joining a minimum of three layers of fabric together either through stitching manually using a needle and thread, or mechanically with a sewing machine or specialised longarm quilting system. ...

, and

embroidery Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen ...

. Equipment includes

Singer Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

sewing machines, Singer sergers, a Brother embroidery machine, an Accuquilt Go! fabric cutter, a Silhouette Cameo paper and vinyl cutter, and other sewing tools. *''The Recording Studio'' is a space available for booking equipment for recording and editing audio/video projects. Equipment includes a 27-inch

iMac iMac is a family of all-in-one Mac desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its debut in August 1998, and has evolved through seven distinct forms. In it ...

, a

Chromakey Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to r ...

green screen, a

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

camera with tripod,

Behringer Behringer is an audio equipment company founded by the Swiss engineer Uli Behringer on 25 January 1989, in Willich, Germany. Behringer was the 14th largest manufacturer of music products in 2007. Behringer is a worldwide, multinational group ...

Mixer, wireless microphones, headphones, and more. *''The Flexspace'' is a multi-use space with seating for fifty, dual projectors with VGA and HDMI, tables, and whiteboards.

Special Collections and Attributes

*The Germany Library offers Art exhibits, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) activities, training or classes. The Germany Library also participates in Fourth Friday. This is a Tampa initiative to have people of the community to interact with what is offered in Downtown Tampa. *Florida History & Genealogy Library

References