Jefferson County Library Cooperative

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." — Frederick Douglass

"Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this." - Toni Morrison

"Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark…. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed." - Germaine Greer

All Public Libraries in Jefferson County will be closed Monday, January 19, for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

“To be able to talk to your heart’s content about a book you like with someone who feels the same way about it is one of the greatest joys that life can offer.” — Haruki Murakami

“To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June.” -- Jean-Paul Sartre

"The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card." — EL Doctorow

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."
― J.D. Salinger,

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.” ― Annie Evett

All public libraries in Jefferson County will be closed on Thursday. Check here to see the libraries' hours, www.jclc.org/info/holiday...

"The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community." – Paula Poundstone

“Libraries are the most wonderful places in the world!” - Stan Lee

“One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”

JCLC Libraries will be closed for the holidays! 24 & 25 December. Many locations may be closed on additional days. Check before you go.

“Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.” -- Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson

Headed on a long car trip? Check out some audiobooks for the whole family!

JCLC 2025 year in review. We welcomed new patrons, connected with returning users, and saw thousands of materials move through our shelves and into people’s homes. 215,905 patrons served, 3,287,103 items checked out. 355,388 holds picked up.

"When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you" - Keith Richards

“Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait in line for Santa, or some such inconvenience.” ~ from David Levithan and Rachel Cohn's Dash and Lily's Book of Dares

My mother and my father were illiterate from Russia. When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn't believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They could not believe that it was free. -- Kirk Douglas

"In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us to swim." – Linton Weeks

"Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books." - Thomas Carlyle

All Public Libraries in Jefferson County will be closed on Thursday and Friday

“The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.” ― Elizabeth Drew

“A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.” ― Astrid Lindgren

"When I graduated from high school... I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for ten years." - Ray Bradbury

Many JCLC member libraries will be closed on Tuesday, November 11, in observance of Veterans Day. You should check before you go.

"If we want kids to become lifetime readers, then they need books to read, time to read, and choice of what to read."  – Kylene Beers

What can make a Friday afternoon even better? A trip to the Library! Bring the little ones, access free internet, and pick up a few good books for the weekend.

"Only love and art can do this: only inside a book or in front of a painting can one truly be let into another's perspective.  It has always struck me as a paradox how in the solitary arts there is something intimately communal." -- Hisham Matar