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28 January 1895
Opening: The Fort Wayne Public Library was formally opened at a public meeting on 28 January 1895, Mayor Chauncey B. Oakley presiding. Circulation began the next morning, 29 January 1895, at 10 a.m., from two rooms in City Hall — the building that today houses the History Center.
The collection: The library opened with 3,606 volumes: 117 given by the Woman's Club League, 800 from the Allen County Teachers' Association, about 1,500 purchased, and the Fort Wayne High School library's books — a shelf of which had once belonged to the Working Men's Institute library. Cataloging followed the Dewey decimal system from the start. One Allen County Genealogical Society page prints the opening collection as 8,606 volumes; the centennial history and the library's other timelines give 3,606, and that is the figure carried here.
First librarian: Susan Hoffman, who had run the Hamilton reading room, was the library's first librarian.
Sources:
- Slater-Putt, Beyond Books (1995), ch. 2 — the opening meeting, the first day's circulation and the makeup of the 3,606 volumes.
- Allen County Public Library timeline, as carried in Wikipedia, "Allen County Public Library" — opened in City Hall on January 28 with 3,606 volumes.
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, libraries page — the divergent 8,606 figure, noted here and not followed.