The Luzerne County Library System (LCLS) is an organization that administers ten libraries in

Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Luzerne County is a county in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and is water. It is Northeastern Pennsylvania's second-largest county by total area. As of ...

. Founded in 1984, it is headquartered at the

Osterhout Free Library The Luzerne County Library System (LCLS) is an organization that administers ten libraries in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1984, it is headquartered at the Osterhout Free Library in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Along with hosting vario ...

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in the 2020 census. It is the s ...

. Along with hosting various permanent and temporary collections of books and media, the member libraries provide various services and activities.

Description

Isaac Smith Osterhout willed a substantial portion of his estate for the establishment of a free public library. In 1887, the board of directors hired Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey decimal system, to act as an adviser. Dewey recommended that the board buy the First Presbyterian Church, an edifice built in 1849, and use it for approximately 10 years until permanent arrangements could be made. As it happened, this became the permanent arrangement. The Gothic architecture of the church proved quite suitable for a library. The library trustees hired Hannah Packard James to be the first head librarian and assigned her the task of organizing and preparing the library for its grand opening. The original library collection (approximately 10,000 volumes) consisted of books from Osterhout’s personal collection, part of the Atheneum (a local subscription library), and 9,500 volumes purchased from Charles Scribner and Sons. The Osterhout Free Library finally opened its doors to the public on January 29, 1889 and was one of the first libraries in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Founded in 1984, the Luzerne County Library System (LCLS) is an organization that administers ten libraries in

. It is headquartered at the

. A library card from any member library allows patrons to borrow books and media from one library and return it to another.

Libraries

The library system comprises * Back Mountain Memorial Library, Back Mountain * Hazleton Area Public Library,

Hazleton Hazleton may refer to: Places * Hazleton, British Columbia, Canada * Hazleton, Gloucestershire, a village in Gloucestershire, England ** Hazleton long barrows, Neolithic burial mounds at Hazleton, Gloucestershire, England ** Hazleton Abbey, a medi ...

* Hoyt Library, Kingston * Marian Sutherland Kirby Library, Mountaintop * Mill Memorial Library,

Nanticoke Nanticoke may refer to: * Nanticoke people in Delaware, United States * Nanticoke language, an Algonquian language * Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, a state-recognized tribe in New Jersey Place names Canada * Nanticoke, Ontario ** Nanticoke Generating S ...

, Wilkes-Barre * Pittston Memorial Library, Pittston * Plymouth Public Library, Plymouth * West Pittston Library, West Pittston * Wyoming Free Library,

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

Collections

Along with permanent collections that include

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...

of old newspapers, the libraries host various temporary collections of art or memorabilia.

Services

The system has hosted lecture series about the history of the region it serves. It has activities for children, an annual Summer

reading program Educational software is a term used for any computer software which is made for an educational purpose. It encompasses different ranges from language learning software to classroom management software to reference software. The purpose of all t ...

, and an annual book sale at the Osterhout Free Library. The Osterhout has an immigration resource center, partially funded by grants. Some activities aimed at adults have included

adult coloring book A coloring book (British English: colouring-in book, colouring book, or colouring page) is a type of book containing line art to which people are intended to add color using crayons, colored pencils, marker pens, paint or other artistic media ...

References

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