Northborough has a long legacy of public libraries

Northborough Then Now

By Zenya Molnar History Columnist

NORTHBOROUGH – It’s 1874 and you are looking for a book at the library, which was a room at the town hall. You reference the finding list, titled Classified List of Books of the Northborough Free Library, and skim the table of contents for topics such as philosophy, useful and industrial arts, language, geography and travels, and fiction.

Everything is organized under the name of the author; otherwise, if you are looking for a title, you must use the card catalogue. You would have access to about 1500 volumes, and you would see three magazines — Littell’s Living Age, The Atlantic Monthly, and Harper’s Monthly. You would also be using an oil lamp, which would eventually be replaced with electric lights in 1908-09.

Let’s go back to the very beginning of the story. In as early as 1792, a social library was established by 30 men and had 100 books. Then in 1817, “The Young Ladies’ Library” formed, in which 60 members gathered weekly to work on braiding or sewing and listen to their pastor read books, the proceeds of their labor going towards the purchase of books and charitable donations.

About 10 years later in May of 1827, the Free Parish Library was founded, which was managed by the church, and later that year, the Free Library of the Congregational Society in Northborough was established, when the books from the social library were added to the collection. Any resident over 16 years old could borrow books, which were mostly of a religious nature, free of charge. After a few more libraries