About the Hillsdale Community Library
Library services, in one form or another, have been offered for nearly 135 years in the city of Hillsdale. In 1879 a group of women formed a library association formed with the intention to “circulate good literature among the people of Hillsdale.” The books they collected would eventually become the foundation of the Mitchell Public Library, which opened in 1908. The Mitchell Public Library served Hillsdale for 95 years until the construction of the Hillsdale Community Library in 2003, a two million dollar state-of-the-art library building.
Growing from the initial collection of 2,666 volumes, the Hillsdale Community Library collection currently stands at over 39,000 volumes and continues to grow. The new library also includes dedicated space for children’s programming, a young adults’ area and expanded technology. The new facility also includes a spacious community meeting room that not only provides programming space for the library, but also for local civic and other organizations, to use for presentations and meetings.
Fun facts About the Hillsdale Community Library:
- Over 58,900 people visited the library in 2015.
- The public access computers were used 11,246 times in 2015.
- The Wi-Fi was utilized 4,510 times in 2015.
- 7,139 hours were spent on the public access computers in 2015.
- 57,572 items were circulated in 2015.
- Ancestry.com is now available on the public access computers.
- 4,319 eBooks were downloaded in 2015.
- 4,469 patrons attended 227 programs in 2015.
- 312 kids, 116 teens, and 83 adults participated in the 2015 Summer Reading Program.
- The library held its first Summer Reading program in 1936.
- The Ladies Library Association of Hillsdale was formed in 1879 with a collection of 522 books. This collection formed the basis for the Mitchell Public Library.
- The library’s Historical Room was established in 1916 and is continuing to grow under the care of the Friends of the Mitchell Research Center.