A Public Library Building for Plattsburg, New York

From The Plattsburgh Sentinel, Friday, May 26, 1922

Plattsburg needs a public library building. And that is one reason why the county Library Institute today is of special interest to everyone. The Library committee is indeed fortunate in having as its guest for the day John Adams Lowe of the Brooklyn Public Library, who will be the principal speaker of the evening session, giving an illustrated lecture on library buildings.

There are many cogent reasons why this city needs a public library building -- a separate building where, besides the library, may be adequately housed the many valuable documents and historic valuables of this historic community.

A public library by itself has a distinct value not attained where its housing is made but a secondary consideration.

There is little or no room for library expansion or extension work in the present quarters in the basement of the City Hall building. There isn't room enough and it is a basement. Both conditions are handicaps. Adequate service is far from easy and indeed almost impossible, in spite of the untiring efforts of the library force to give it.

There is and can be no Children's department in the present quarters, which in itself is a deplorable condition.

Children are great readers and are feeders for continued library activities by and by.

A fine library building would be a distinct ornament to the city in the presence of several fine public service structures now under way. Such a library could and doubtless would be the centre of library activities throughout Clinton County.

And one must not lose sight of the very real need, voiced in this column some time ago, of a suitable and adequate housing place for articles of historical significance. We need a museum and a museum is very often -- perhaps more often than otherwise -- connected with the library. Already priceless papers and other things telling of Plattsburg's past are lost forever and much material is now going into decay because of no place to store it.

Plattsburg needs a separate library building. The meeting today is the first real step in a campaign of education to acquaint our citizens of the possibilities of bringing the project to ultimate fruition.