Minneapolis Central Library

44°58′49.74″N 93°16′11.35″W / 44.9804833°N 93.2698194°W / 44.9804833; -93.2698194

The exterior of the library on the Nicollet Mall side

The Minneapolis Central Library is a public library located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the largest library in the Hennepin County Library system. It bills itself as having "the third largest per capita public library collection of any major city in America with a collection of more than 2.4 million items—including books, DVDs, music, government documents."[1] The 353,000-square-foot (32,800 m2) building at 300 Nicollet Mall with two levels of underground parking was designed by César Pelli and opened on May 20, 2006. It has over 300 computers for use by the public, an 8,140-square-foot (756 m2) atrium, an 18,560-square-foot (1,724 m2) green roof planted with low-growing ground cover designed to "be sun- and drought-resistant", and a host of energy-efficiency measures.[1]

A photograph from around 1900 of the first central Minneapolis Public Library, which cost $324,894.[2]
The second central Minneapolis Public Library building opened in 1961 as part of urban renewal for downtown Minneapolis
The new Central Library under construction in 2004
The atrium of the Central Library
  1. ^ a b About Minneapolis Central Library Archived 2011-11-01 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Atwater, Isaac (1893). History of the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Vol. 1. Munsell. pp. 282–299.