Leith Library is one of

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

's 28 freely-accessible libraries. It is a

category B listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

. located in

Leith Leith (; ) is a port area in the north of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith and is home to the Port of Leith. The earliest surviving historical references are in the royal charter authorising the construction of ...

, in the northern part of the city, at the foot of Ferry Road shortly before it meets Great Junction Street and North Junction Street. The stone marking the first phase of construction was laid by the then Lord Provost, Alexander Stevenson in 1929. It was designed by Bradshaw Gass & Hope and opened in 1932. The building suffered bomb damage in 1941 but was subsequently restored and re-opened in 1955. The library is currently open six days a week and, in addition to the collection of books, offers visitors computer access, a for-hire community room, public exhibition space, a knitting group and a weekly children's crafts class/workshop. Local-area MSP Ben Macpherson also hosts surgeries within the library, and the local registrar's office adjoins the main library building. To the building's rear is the Leith Theatre. As with all the City's libraries, Leith public library uses the

Library of Congress Classification The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress in the United States, which can be used for shelving books in a library. LCC is mainly used by large research and academic li ...

system for its adult collection. As of 1974, Edinburgh is the only area in the UK where public libraries utilise the US classification scheme. Children's books, and some non-English works, are indexed using the

Dewey Decimal Classification The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) (pronounced ) colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. ...

scheme.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Libraries in Edinburgh Library buildings completed in 1961 Category B listed buildings in Edinburgh Listed library buildings in Scotland Buildings and structures in Leith Libraries established in 1961 1961 establishments in Scotland