Boston Public Library

The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth (formerly library of last recourse), meaning all adult residents of the state are entitled to borrowing and research privileges, and the library receives state funding. The Boston Public Library contains approximately 24 million items, making it the third-largest public library in the United States behind the federal Library of Congress and New York Public Library, which is also privately endowed. In 2014, the library held more than 10,000 programs, all free to the public, and lent 3.7 million materials. This building was designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 2000. Overview Boston Public Library has a collection of more than 23.7 million items, which makes it one of the largest municipal public library systems in the United States. The vast majority of the collection—over 22.7 million volumes—is held in the Central Branch research stacks. Between July 2012 and June 2013, the annual circulation of the BPL was 3.69 million. Because of the strength and importance of its research collection, the Boston Public Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), a not-for-profit organization comprising the research libraries of North America. The New York Public Library is the only other public library that is a member of the ARL, and it also has a private endowment. The library has established collections of distinction, based on the collection's depth and breadth, including subjects such as Boston history, the Civil War, Irish history, etc. In addition, the library is both a federal and state depository of government documents. Included in the BPL's research collection are more than 1.7 million rare books and manuscripts. It possesses wide-ranging and important holdings, including medieval manuscripts and incunabula, early editions of William Shakespeare (among which are a number of Shakespeare quartos and the First Folio), the George Ticknor collection of Spanish literature, a major collection of Daniel Defoe, records of colonial Boston, the personal 3,800 volume library of John Adams, the mathematical and astronomical library of Nathaniel Bowditch, important manuscript archives on abolitionism, including the papers of William Lloyd Garrison, and a major collection of materials on the Sacco and Vanzetti case.