Parkway Central Library

The library is located next to the entrance of Roosevelt Avenue. You can also check in while walking. The library is open to the public free of charge and no reservation is required. The library's architecture is very distinctive, but the interior decoration is not as spectacular as the libraries in Boston and New York.

In 1876, when the United States celebrated its 100th anniversary, the American Library Association held an important meeting in Philadelphia. The participants were about 100 library managers, including 13 women. The youngest participant was Melvyn Dewey, who was only 25 years old. He invented the Dewey classification system currently used in libraries. His proposition was "to allow the greatest number of people to get the best reading at the lowest cost." In 1890, he was elected president of the American Library Association and began to standardize the settings of libraries. This was the beginning of modern libraries. Almost every aspect of today's libraries - from how to classify books to the size and edge length of library cards - reflects Dewey's strict requirements for "standardization" and "high efficiency." It was thanks to him that in the early years without the powerful search function of computers, readers could quickly find the books they wanted among tens of thousands of collections in the library.

Beautiful place and nice people inside,there were lots of different types of books to read and enjoy.we highly recommend here

The Philadelphia Free Library is quite large in size. You can see many facilities and things throughout the library. The library is quite old and has many types of books.