Croydon Central Library

Croydon Central Library
General information
Town or city	Croydon, London
Country	England
Client	London Borough of Croydon

Croydon Central Library is Croydon's main public library, located inside the Croydon Clocktower in Croydon, south London. It is owned by the London Borough of Croydon on behalf of Croydon Council. The library is located on four floors inside the building. There are also children's rhymetime sessions.^[1][2][3]

Croydon's first central library was at 100-106 North End.^[4] The library moved to the Croydon Clocktower buildings when they first opened in May 1896, the library was located in a central wooden panelled room (later used as a local studies library and now used as the David Lean Cinema),^[5] it was then notable opening with a large collection of over 100,000 volumes and for being one of the first public libraries at the time with open access shelves.^{[3]: 225–226}

An extension was built to the Clocktower municipal buildings in the early 1990s with a new four floor library space opening in November 1993.^[6][7]

One notable chief librarian W. C. Berwick Sayers was instrumental in advancements in library classification and children's librarianship.^[8]

It was the third-most-used public library in the UK in 2010.^[9]

Croydon Libraries is part of The Library Consortium (TLC) shared catalogue.^[10]

The Rainbow Reading Group (run in conjunction with the Croydon Area Gay Society (CAGS) meets at the library monthly. The group reads LGBTQI+ books and has been running since 2011.^[11]

References

1. "Under fives sessions at Croydon Libraries" (PDF). March 2024.
2. "Croydon Central Library". Timeout. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
3. Black, Alistair; Pepper, Simon; Bagshaw, Kaye (2017). Books, Buildings and Social Engineering: Early Public Libraries in Britain from Past to Present. Routledge. pp. 314–320. ISBN 978-1-317-17328-1.
4. Croydon Council (17 November 2014). "APPENDIX 3:Central Croydon Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan" (PDF).
5. Burgoyne, Frank James (1897). Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture. Allen. p. 206.
6. "Town Hall | Croydon Council". www.croydon.gov.uk. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
7. Eccleston, Catherine J. (1997). An evaluative study of the electronic provision of information in public libraries (Thesis). doi:10.26174/THESIS.LBORO.14236853.V1.
8. Seadle, Michael Steven; Chu, Clara M.; Stöckel, Ulrike; Crumpton, Breanne (2016). Educating the profession: 40 years of the IFLA section on education and training. IFLA Publications. Berlin: de Gruyter. p. 56. ISBN 978-3-11-037526-8.
9. In 2010, Croydon Central Library was the third most utilised library in the UK Archived 2011-01-29 at the Wayback Machine
10. "Home". TLC. 19 October 2022. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
11. "Rainbow Reading Group". www.rainbowreadinggroup.org.uk. Retrieved 29 March 2024.

External links

• Croydon Central Library Webpage

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