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1982–2021
The firsts: The library automated early and, by its own account, first. It purchased its first computer system, from CLSI, in 1982, and in 1983 became one of Indiana's first public libraries with an online catalog. In 1994, the library's history records, it was "the first library in the nation and the second worldwide to go live on the Worldwide Web"; the South Bend Common Council's 2015 resolution states the same first in the form this history carries: "the first public library in the United States to have a World Wide Web page." The digital line runs forward to a room: in 2013 the Tribune reported the library considering a digital media laboratory on the first floor of the Main Library, at a cost of about $100,000 — patrons recording and editing music, photos and video, making podcasts — with Director Napoli noting that Fort Wayne's Allen County Public Library and Chicago were building the same. The lab exists: Studio 304, named for the Main Library's address, which decamped to the temporary Keller Park Branch during the renovation and returned in 2021 expanded, with recording studios, 3D printing, laser cutting, cameras and podcast kits for borrowing, and staff to teach them.
Sources:
- St. Joseph County Public Library, "History of the St. Joseph County Public Library" — the CLSI purchase 1982, the online catalog 1983, and the 1994 web claim.
- City of South Bend Common Council, Resolution 15-54 (2015) — "the first public library in the United States to have a World Wide Web page."
- South Bend Tribune (June 2013), via Library Journal's infoDOCKET — the digital media lab under consideration, its first-floor place and $100,000 cost.
- St. Joseph County Public Library, "Studio 304" and "Locations & Hours" (2026) — the studio's present services; the Renovation page — Studio 304 at Keller Park, 2019–2021.