The Richards Free Library: Its First Hundred-and-Three Years. With: The Librarian Looks to the Second Century, by Andrea Thorpe.
signed first edition
1993 · Newport, New Hampshire
by Yeomans, Barbara Holden.
Newport, New Hampshire: Friends of the Richards Library, 1993. First Edition. Signed and Inscribed by both Authors. Octavo, stiff white illus. wrappers, 80 pp. Very Good+, with light foxing (age darkened spotting) to covers. From Preface: The date on the engraved sandstones resting on the ground in front of the present Richards Free Library in Newport, New Hampshire testifies to the fact that the town’s original public library building was completed in 1888. Its dedication took place on Washington’s birthday in 1889... For the last hundred and more years, Newport’s public library has been the only educational institution available to all of the townspeople throughout all of their lives... This short book is an attempt to recount the essential elements of the history of the Richards Free Library in its first 103 years. Volumes of minutes of trustee meetings, handwritten for the first sixty years but easier to read after that, have been the primary source of information, though reference has also been made to other library, local newspaper, and State Library files... (Inventory #: 61022bd)