A new children’s book, Our White House Looking In, Looking Out, commissioned by the National Children's Book and Literary Alliance, features contributions from over 100 children’s books authors and illustrators.  David McCullough, the historian, provided the introduction.  In an interview about the book, Mary Brigid Barrett, the Alliance’s  President, Executive Director, and Founder, describes her visits to the White House and her childhood memories of Cleveland:    

"Also during that conversation, David McCullough raised my awareness to the fact that our founding fathers and mothers adamantly believed that this great experiment of democracy was going to succeed only if all of our citizens young and old were both literate and informed. We discussed the direct link between literacy, historical literacy and civic engagements...

I had spoken and discussed these issues with both First Lady Clinton’s staff at the time and with Mrs. Bush and I’ve had the opportunity to be able to wander around the first floor of the White House and while you’re there, you do actually kind of hear the echoes of voices and footsteps in the hall. You’re being watched by all those incredible presidential portraits; the eyes of the former first ladies and the presidents looking at you and I kind of had the same feeling walking through the first floor of the White House as I did the first time I walked as a kid going into the main reading room of the Cleveland Public Library that this was my space. And that this was our house, the White House, it’s your house and my house."

-Mary Brigid Barrett

See: Interview with Mary Brigid Barrett

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When viewing images from our past we are often overcome with a desire to experience historical events firsthand.  A thorough study of history using primary and secondary sources can help us “experience” past events that have long since passed us by.

A primary source is typically created by the historical group or person we are interested in. These are sources that require some analysis on our part; they free us to form our own opinions. A secondary source is a source that contains analysis by another person based on the primary source. The benefit of secondary sources is that they illuminate the documents we are interested in by exposing us to different viewpoints.

We are proud to announce that the CLEVNET library consortium’s eMedia collection is the first to offer patrons the ability to check out and download titles in the new EPUB format. EPUB is a reflowable XML-based format for eBooks and other digital publications developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (www.idpf.org) and adopted by leading publishers and technology firms as the industry standard for eBooks. EPUB titles can be read on your PC or Mac with the free Adobe® Digital Editions software, and can be transferred to a Sony® Reader for reading on the go.

Our eMedia collection also offers thousands of audiobooks, eBooks, music, and video titles in various formats that can be checked out and downloaded right to your home computer. They can then be transferred to supported devices like MP3 Players, iPods, Smartphone and PDA’s. You can even burn some titles to CD. Titles range from New York Times Best Sellers, such as Marley & Me and The Last Lecture to classics such as Pride and Prejudice and 1984.

We’d like to welcome the start of the New Year by reminding you of many of the things the Cleveland Public Library can do for you.  In addition to our most remarkable collection of books and magazines, including many in foreign languages, we have collections of maps, photographs, newspapers, government documents, music cds, dvds, and millions of other things!  The neighborhood branches offer outstanding children’s services, computers, textbooks, and a welcoming place to be on these chilly days. The Bookmobile is out and about in the city...

Our librarians and other staff can help you with resumes and preparing for interviews; you can take Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, and many other classes. We can help you find a poem, an old recipe, a stock quote, or the name of the restaurant that your grandmother used to take you to.  We can help you find industry trends, popular names for girls, and out of town phone numbers.

In times like these, more than ever, we’re here to help.

An inventory of the Cleveland Public Library's extensive city directory collection is now available through the Library's online genealogy research page.  A treasure-trove of information for genealogists and historians, city directories can be used to research addresses and occupations of ancestors, historical advertising, property listings and brief information on companies. Someone wanting historical information about his or her street could, for example, use the 1936 city directory to look up the names and professions of everyone on the street in that year. The Library's collection is one of the largest in the country and includes all directories published for Cleveland and suburbs, as well as an extensive collection of directories for other cities in Ohio and throughout the United States.

As a member of the Federal Depository Library Program the Cleveland Public Library houses a wide variety of publications from all agencies of the federal government. Since it began participating in the program in 1886, the library has consistently selected a high percentage of all available publications, making it one of the more comprehensive collections in the Cleveland area.

In a new video produced by the Government Printing Office, "Easy As FDL: Free Information, Dedicated Service, and Limitless Possibilities,” people familiar with this program were interviewed and asked to express their opinions about what makes these depository libraries so unique and essential to the American public. To watch this short video and learn more about the U.S. Government Printing Office, the Federal Depository Library Program please click here:

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Historians, genealogists and anyone curious about Cleveland history can now search the full text of all issues of the Call and Post (1934 to the present) instantly. The research possibilities are endless and amazing: newspaper research that would have formerly been extremely time-consuming, if not totally impossible, is now done in a matter of seconds! Do you remember reading about a family member or an old neighbor in the Call & Post? Now you can find the article instantly, as long as you remember the name. Search features allow you narrow your search by date and document type (article, obituary, marriage, editorial, etc.)  To search 1934-1991, use the Call and Post database. To search 1992 to the present, use the Ethnic Newswatch database. Remote access available to CPL cardholders.