DeKalb County Public Library history

City directories (some in print and some on microfilm) dating back to 1928 are currently at the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor.

The DeKalb Coun­ty Pub­lic Library has a his­to­ry of strong, capa­ble direc­tors, begin­ning with its first bona fide librar­i­an in 1930, Mrs.

The Library’s orig­i­nal home was in the Decatur Bank & Trust Com­pa­ny build­ing, and it was lat­er moved to City Hall where it remained until a new library build­ing, fol­low­ing sep­a­rate Decatur and DeKalb bond issues, was built at a cost of $180,000 on Sycamore Street in 1950.

In 1952 branches of the Decatur Library were established in Brookhaven and Doraville, and the Decatur Library was renamed the Decatur-DeKalb Library.

The build­ing quick­ly became too small and an addi­tion was built in 1954 to house an audi­to­ri­um and the Fine Arts and Cat­a­loging depart­ments.

In 1962, it was renamed the DeKalb Library Sys­tem.

The previously independent public library in Lithonia also joined the Decatur-DeKalb system, although the Lithonia library maintained a separate library board until 1971.

None was more impor­tant than the 1986 bond issue, which fund­ed expan­sions or replace­ments of four (4) exist­ing coun­ty library facil­i­ties, includ­ing the Decatur Library, as well as eleven (11) new library branch­es.

Lat­er in 1989, DeKalb Coun­ty with­drew from the region­al library effec­tive­ly dis­solv­ing it.

Of spe­cial note is DCPL’s ground­break­ing ​“Build­ing Blocks” pro­gram, an infor­mal recre­ation­al and edu­ca­tion­al project that began in 1992 at the Redan-Trot­ti Library.

She resigned in 1995 to accept anoth­er posi­tion, and Dar­ro Wil­ley was named as library director.

The Cen­ter, as the state affil­i­ate of the Library of Con­gress, has been host­ed and fund­ed by DCPL since late 1997.

Library Board Chair Herb Sprague led the 2005 cam­paign for the library sys­tem, which result­ed in the library bond pro­pos­al receiv­ing the high­est vote count of three bond pro­pos­als on the bal­lot, the oth­ers being Parks and Transportation.

Annu­al cir­cu­la­tion in 2007 was 3.5 mil­lion with library vis­its reach­ing a record 3.3 mil­lion peo­ple.