Search Results for “columbia public library”

Source: Columbia Public Library

The Columbia Public Library (CPL) is the public library of Columbia, Missouri, and was established as a tax-funded public library in the town in 1922. It is the headquarters of the Daniel Boone Regional Library system (DBRL), which serves the city of Columbia, (the county seat of surrounding Boone County), and the further surrounding adjacent Howard and Callaway Counties / areas.

The previous library building was demolished and reconstructed at its current location on Garth and Broadway in 2002. The Columbia Library District merged with the Boone County Library District in 2017. In 2023, Columbia Public Library had 367,482 visits and a circulation of 1,397,283.
Prior to receiving tax support, the town public library ran on donations and moved across numerous downtown locations over the decades of the 20th century. Soon after the Tuesday Club organized in town in 1899 as a women's literary and culture society, they helped to establish, purchase, stock, and run a free public library in Columbia.
The community unfortunately narrowly voted down a library town / county tax levy in 1917, but five years later in 1922, the library tax levy finally won 75% of the vote. 1922 was notably the first chance that Columbia and Missouri's women had the right to vote on the issue, with the passage and ratification two years earlier in 1920, of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of 1787, approving women's suffrage / voting.