Des Plaines Public Library

Des Plaines Public Library is a public library serving the city of Des Plaines, Illinois. It is located at 1501 Ellinwood Street, in Des Plaines, Illinois.

History

The construction of a library in Des Plaines was first proposed in 1896, but was defeated by a vote of 142 to 50. In 1904, a subscription library called the Tabard Inn was established in F.C. Walton’s drugstore on Ellinwood Street in Des Plaines, Illinois, with F.C. Walton himself paying for most of the service, and in April 1905, another proposition to establish a Free Public Library finally carried by a majority vote. Prior to approval of the library proposition, Dr. Clarence A. Earle corresponded with philanthropist Andrew Carnegie asking him to fund the building of a library, resulting in a $5,000.00 construction grant. The first Library Board meeting was held on May 2, 1906, in the Village Hall located at the corner of Ellinwood and Lee Streets in Des Plaines, Illinois.

The first Des Plaines Public Library building was constructed on the corner of Miner Street and Graceland Avenue, and was dedicated on October 5, 1907. Mrs. Sarah Weeks was the first librarian, receiving a salary of $10 per month and remaining in the position until 1915. The library’s initial collection consisted of 725 books, and business hours were Tuesday and Saturday from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m.

Des Plaines, Illinois

Des Plaines /dᵻsˈpleɪnz/ is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The city motto is "Good Move." As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 58,364. It is a suburb of Chicago and is next to O'Hare International Airport. The Des Plaines River runs through the city, just east of its downtown area. Des Plaines is the home of the first franchised McDonald's opened by Ray Kroc in 1955, which is preserved as a museum on Lee Street, north of downtown.

History

Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwe (Chippewa) native American tribes inhabited the Des Plaines River Valley prior to Europeans' arrival. The first white settlers came from the eastern United States in 1833, after the Treaty of Chicago, followed by many German immigrants during the 1840s and 1850s. In the 1850s, land in the area was purchased by the Illinois and Wisconsin Land Company along a railroad line planned between Chicago and Janesville, Wisconsin. In 1852, the developers built a steam powered mill next to the river, to cut local trees into railroad ties. Socrates Rand then bought the mill and converted it into a grist mill, which attracted local farmers. The Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad made its first stop in the area in the fall of 1854.

Forest Park (CTA station)

Forest Park is a station on the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system, located in the city of Forest Park, Illinois and serving the Blue Line. Before the Congress Line was built, it served as terminal for the Garfield Line. It is the western terminus of the Forest Park branch. The station was known as Des Plaines until 1994. It is also referred to as the Forest Park Transit Center by Pace because it is a major terminal for Pace buses. The station contains a 1051-space Park and Ride lot which uses the "Pay and Display" system, in which fees are paid at the lot entrance. It is located next to the Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad tracks but that railroad line curves away from the station towards the Madison Street level crossing where its ownership ends.

History

Forest Park opened in 1902, as a local interurban station on the Aurora Elgin and Chicago Railway. On March 11, 1905, the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad extended its Garfield Park rapid transit service west over the tracks of the Aurora Elgin and Chicago. At this time Forest Park became the western terminal for the 'L' while continuing to serve as an interurban station. In 1958, the Congress Branch opened in the median of the Eisenhower Expressway, the blue line was rerouted and connected to the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway Station LaSalle making Forest Park, the southern terminus of the blue line. Forest Park, however, is one of the few stations in the Congress Branch line that is not in the median of the Eisenhower Expressway, and is 350 meters (1,148 ft 4 in) north of it. In 1966, the park-and-ride schedule of 1051 seats was opened and a new station was built and completed in December 1982 along with the Transit Center that provides connection to many bus lines.

Des Plaines station

Des Plaines is one of two commuter railroad stations on Metra's Union Pacific/Northwest line in the City of Des Plaines, Illinois. The station is officially located at 1501 Miner Street (US 14), and lies 16.7 miles (26.9 km) from the Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago. In Metra's zone-based fare system, Des Plaines is in zone D.

Parking is mostly available along the streets on either side of the tracks. Primarily this includes Miner Street between southeast of Perry Street and west of Des Plaines River Road. Other parking areas exist along Ellinwood Street between Pearson Street and Des Plaines River Road east of the Des Plaines Public Library, a lot on Webford Avenue off of Graceland Avenue (Southbound US 12-45), and on Prairie Avenue east of Pearson Street.

One train running outbound from Chicago each weekday terminates at Des Plaines.

Pace Bus connections

References

Public library

For public libraries in North America, see Public libraries in North America.

A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is generally funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants.

There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries. The first is that they are generally supported by taxes (usually local, though any level of government can and may contribute); they are governed by a board to serve the public interest; they are open to all, and every community member can access the collection; they are entirely voluntary in that no one is ever forced to use the services provided; and they provide basic services without charge.

Public libraries exist in many countries across the world and are often considered an essential part of having an educated and literate population. Public libraries are distinct from research libraries, school libraries, and other special libraries in that their mandate is to serve the general public's information needs rather than the needs of a particular school, institution, or research population. Public libraries also provide free services such as preschool story times to encourage early literacy, quiet study and work areas for students and professionals, or book clubs to encourage appreciation of literature in adults. Public libraries typically allow users to borrow books and other materials, i.e., take off the premises temporarily; they also have non-circulating reference collections and provide computer and Internet access to patrons.

Public Libraries (journal)

Public Libraries is the official trade journal of the Public Library Association, a division of the American Library Association. It is devoted exclusively to public libraries. The print edition is published six times a year and is a delayed open access journal, with older issues available as PDFs on the journal's website.

Early history

Public Libraries' first issue came out in May 1896. According to its Prospectus, the magazine came about as a response to "many letters of inquiry...which the larger libraries receive from the smaller ones in every part of the country" about the "small details and elementary principles of [library] work."<ref name=""Prospectus">Public Libraries 1.1 (1896): 3."></ref>

[Public Libraries] will deal with all phases of library work in a concise, simple way, such as will give the best aid to those who need it." To that end, the Prospectus outlined what the magazine set out to cover in 1896--"a large variety of items of news, such as will encourage and inspire small libraries as well as large, to put forth their best effort to accomplish something of value to the library world." The first issue contains the outline of a future ALA publication, the "ALA Library Primer" which concerns itself with both practical and philosophical concerns about establishing a library, such as suggestions for selecting books ("Every library building should be planned specially for the kind of work to be done, and the community to be served" and the qualities that should be looked for when hiring a librarian ("The librarian should have culture, scholarship, and executive ability.")