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1994 · A FIRST TOO SMALL FOR ITS OWN LEG, UNTIL NOW
The page: South Bend's library was early to every machine. It purchased its first computer system 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 claim rests on the institution's own published history and a resolution of the city's own council, and it is printed at that strength — a genuine first, of the kitchen-table kind, that the trivia lists usually steal without a source. This one has two.
Sources:
- The Libraries section of this history — St. Joseph County Public Library, "History of the St. Joseph County Public Library" (the 1982 CLSI computer system; the 1983 online catalog; the 1994 sentence quoted), and the South Bend Common Council's resolution of 2015 (the first in its carried form).