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Gloversville Public Library 58 East Fulton Street Gloversville, New York 12078-3219 (518)725-2819 · fax (518)773-0292 gpl@sals.edu Driving Directions
Photograph of watercolor painting taken by Deborah Kantor
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Gloversville’s public library was established in 1880 as the Levi Parsons Library, quartered in a room over the Manufacturers' and Merchants Bank on South Main Street. Membership to the library was not free; each donor to the library association received a year’s membership for every two dollars of his subscription. Professor Adolph Peck, a graduate of the University of Vienna and former teacher of language, mathematics and science, was the first librarian.
During the 1880s the library suffered a series of financial reverses. The directors went to the public for help and raised $4,000.00. The use of library books was made free to all in 1888, the name was changed to the Gloversville Free Library, and a whole new class of regular readers came into being.
The present building was erected with funds provided by Andrew Carnegie. Mr. Carnegie’s grant was given largely due to his personal friendship with Dr. Peck, and on the condition that the City of Gloversville continue to support the library financially. The cornerstone was laid on August 27, 1904. Albert Randolph Ross, an architect with the New York firm of McKim, Mead and White, designed this masterpiece of Beaux Arts style, which, since 1976, has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
In 2002 the City of Gloversville began a drastic reduction of its annual appropriation to the the Library. In 2003, the Board of Trustees placed a proposition before the voters of the Gloversville Enlarged School District to establish an annual library tax levy of $200,000. The proposition was defeated in June of 2003. With the support of Sen. Hugh T. Farley, an Emergency Appeal Campaign and the generousity of community donors, the Library was able to continue through 2004. With funding sufficient for only 6 months during 2005, the Trustees turned once again to the voters of the GESD. The new proposition would not only raise $198,200 annual, but the library would become the Gloversville Public Library and 7 trustees would be elected by the voters. The proposition passed by 42 votes on June 14, 2005. On July 22, 2005 the NYS Board of Regents granted the Gloversville Public Library its charter.