Here you see Brooklin’s much-loved Friend Memorial Public Library yesterday, which is open until 6 p.m. on Thursdays. It’s a popular community gathering spot that hosts activities, provides public computers, and lends books, videos, and compact discs, among other things.
Although the original part of this FMPL building was completed in 1912, its predecessors stem from 1896. It has had many active benefactors, including the author E.B. White and his wife Katharine Sergeant Angell White, a New Yorker Magazine editor, both of whom are buried nearby in the Brooklin Cemetery.
Small town public libraries are a tradition in New England. The first free modern public library reportedly was opened in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1833 and the first library card catalog apparently was created at Harvard University in 1840.
In 1731, Benjamin Franklin started the Library Company of Philadelphia, which may have been the first multi-member library in what is now the United States, but it was a subscription library for paying members. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 22, 2022.)