Libraries

The shelves, the servers and other resources of Louisville’s libraries make up one big map – the information you need to navigate intelligently (and enjoyably) through Possibility City.

The Louisville Free Public Library circulates more than four million books, videos, DVDs and CDS every year; the summer reading program involves more than 30,000 kids. With the ability to request books online, most of its collection is within reach of your nearest branch. (The library’s website also gives users access to scores of databases from their home computers.)

It isn’t only about the books, though. The Main Library also serves as an intriguing exhibit space, and as a venue for speeches, meetings, classes, storytimes, even concerts. Its computers (and those at the 16 branches) are the chief source of free internet access in town.

And the public library is only one of the intellectual resources available and convenient to every citizen of Possibility City.

The University of Louisville’s libraries contain more than two million volumes; there’s an extraordinary photo archive, and other special collections include the world’s greatest collection about Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Tarzan books. Best deal: Any Kentucky citizen 18 years or older can get a card to check out circulating books.

Researchers into genealogy and history will want to visit the Filson Historical Society, one of the country’s leading research collections; the library at the Sons of the American Revolution’s Louisville headquarters; and the Indiana History Room at the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library. Spiritual searchers can seek out the papers of monk and writer Thomas Merton at Bellarmine University’s library. And lovers of freedom can commune with original and first edition documents in the history of liberty at the Remnant Trust in Jeffersonville.