Avon Lake Public Library
Avon Lake Public Library opened in a farmhouse on the east side of Center Road in Avon Lake in 1931. In 1957, construction began on a new library building on Electric Boulevard, and the library reopened at its current location on August 11, 1958. Several notable expansion projects have been undertaken, including a 1980-1983 project that doubled the size of the library, and a 1990-1994 project that again expanded it to its current space of 55,000 square feet. In 2014, the Board of Library Trustees approved a $700,000 renovation of the 1994 addition. The renovation was completed by April 2015, and was celebrated with a reception and open house event. In 2011, the Library celebrated its 80th anniversary with a commendation from the Ohio House of Representatives and a proclamation from the city of Avon Lake. Avon Lake Public Library maintains a special collection that includes original materials and reproductions of books, manuscripts, photographs, postcards and correspondence, newspapers and periodicals, films and more documenting Avon Lake city history. While the Avon Lake Local History Collection dates from approximately 1890 to the present, most of the material in the Collection is drawn from the years 1920 to 1990. Together with Heritage Avon Lake, the library has partnered with the Cleveland Memory Project to create an online collection of historic photographs of Avon Lake history, as well as a repository of digitized documents that includes the archives of the local newspaper as well as high school yearbooks, newspapers and literary annuals. In 2012, the library announced an Avon Lake Local History Art Collection featuring over 40 items representing the history of the city, the library, Lorain County, Ohio, the Lake Shore Electric Railway and Avon Beach Park Resort, and shipping and shipwrecks on Lake Erie. In 2009 and 2010, Avon Lake Public Library was named one of the Top Ten Public Libraries in the United States in the service category of 10,000 – 24,999 patrons by Hennen's American Public Library Ratings. Starting in January 2017, 30 empty A1 Steak Sauce bottles were found in the library over the course of three months. The bottles have been found in the adult fiction and non-fiction sections of the library. No one has been able to explain their origin or purpose. As of August 2017, 55 cleaned, unlabeled bottles had been found.
History
Avon Lake Public Library is located in Avon Lake, Ohio.