The Princeton Public Library serves the town of

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

. It is the most visited municipal

public library A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...

in New Jersey with over 860,000 annual visitors who borrow 550,000 items, ask more than 83,000 reference questions, log onto library computers over 90,000 times, and attend more than 1,300 programs. Its usage exceeds all but five of New Jersey's twenty-one county systems. Compared to New Jersey's largest municipal library, Newark, Princeton spends four times as much per capita, and has nearly double the number of visitors and circulation in absolute terms despite a tenth the population.

History

Bainbridge House

The town of Princeton's first purpose built libraries, among the first in the country, were those of the

Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a Private university, private seminary, school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Establish ...

, Lenox Library (1843), and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, Chancellor Green Library (1873). The town itself however would not have a library to call its own until the twentieth century. The Princeton Public Library opened in 1909, and has had three different homes. The library was originally located at the historic Bainbridge House on Nassau Street, which is the current home of the Princeton Historical Society. Bainbridge house had been built in 1766 by Job Stockton and was the birthplace of naval hero

William Bainbridge Commodore William Bainbridge (May 7, 1774July 27, 1833) was a United States Navy officer. During his long career in the young American navy he served under six presidents beginning with John Adams and is notable for his many victories at sea. ...

. The house came into the ownership of Princeton University, which rented it to the library for $1 a year.

Witherspoon Street

The growing library moved in 1966 to a building at 65 Witherspoon Street. By 2002 the library had a collection of 130,000 books in a building designed for 80,000 and the decision was made to build a new home for the library on the same site. The library was then moved to a temporary location at 301 North Harrison Street during the construction of the new , state-of-the-art library which was opened at 65 Witherspoon Street in April 2004. The new building and the library's new logos and signage were designed by Hillier Architecture. The building is named for George and Estelle Sands, who made a $5 million donation, with half going to provide an endowment. The J. Seward Johnson Charitable Trust donated $1 million and the university $400,000. The total cost of the new building was $18 million with two-thirds of that raised from private donations, $4 million from Princeton Township, and $2 million from Princeton Borough.

References

External links

Princeton Public Library
{{authority control Buildings and structures in Princeton, New Jersey Public libraries in New Jersey Education in Mercer County, New Jersey Libraries established in 1909