History
The first public library branch to serve the Broad Ripple Community opened its doors on December 15, 1930 in a storefront building on East 63rd Street. Eight years later the library relocated to the first floor of the Masonic Lodge Building on what is now Guilford Avenue. The first building constructed as a library for Broad Ripple opened on March 28, 1949. This new facility served the community well until the early 1980's, when a new 11,500 square-foot branch library opened on a two-acre tract of land in Broad Ripple Park on March 22, 1986. The Broad Ripple Library again faced the need to grow but with no feasible way of expanding on its two-acre tract. The Kite Development Corp. approached library officials with a lease proposal offering over 33,000 square feet of space to the library as an anchor store in Glendale Mall. The Glendale Branch Library opened its doors to the public on October 23, 2000 and became the country's first full-service library in a major shopping mall.
Specialties
The Indianapolis Public Library is the community's place to access essential information resources, technology, programs and services; foster reading and learning and promote the social, economic, recreational and lifelong learning interests of its diverse population. (Mission Statement, as adopted by the Library Board November 20, 2008) IndyPL's collection of over 2.1 million items includes a variety of formats: books, books on tape, magazines, large print materials, audiocassettes, videocassettes, compact discs and DVD's. Foreign language materials are an integral part of the Library's collection. Items may be checked out by patrons with a library card, which may be obtained free of charge at any Library location.