The disastrous fire of April, 1911, swept it all away. By 1911 the Library had 70,000 volumes, making it the largest public library in the state. In September 1906, a Children’s Room was opened. At this time the Library was housed in rented quarters in the business district. In 1905, the Library, which had previously exacted a small fee from its users, became entirely free. The Board is essentially the same today, except, under the reorganization of the city to a City Manager form of government, the Mayor no longer served as an ex officio member of the Trustees. The Trustees of the Hersey Fund and the four officers chosen annually by the Bangor Mechanic Association, constituted the Board of Managers of the Bangor Public Library. These Trustees formed an agreement with the Bangor Mechanic Association, under which the Bangor Public Library was organized, using the 20,000 volumes of the Association’s library as a nucleus and $12,000 of the Mechanic Association’s funds and the $100,000 Hersey fund as endowments.
Its membership consisted of the Mayor, the City Treasurer and three citizens. The management of the legacy was entrusted to a board of five members known as the Trustees of the Hersey Fund. City Council voted to use the entire sum for the establishment of a public library. The income from this fund was to be used “for the promotion of education, and the health and good morals of citizens”. In 1883 the city accepted $100,000 from the estate of the Honorable Samuel F.
With the 1873 absorption of the Bangor Mercantile Association and its Library by the Mechanic Association, the collections of six libraries had come together in one location and were known as the Bangor Mechanic Association Public Library. The Mechanic Association’s Library was not the only one in town, but it was the one that survived. As the collection increased, it was moved to ever-larger reading rooms in several downtown locations. Members could check out two books at a time their sons or apprentices could check out one. It contained the first library of the Bangor Mechanic Association. In 1830, a small chest was kept in the publishing office of John S. It all began with seven books in a footlocker.
BANGOR PUBLIC ILIBRARY FREE
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