Concord Free Public Library

Ok we loooooove Concord. Everything about it. We are there every Sunday. We go to church, have a cappuccino, walk around… we love it. I love to check out libraries and read and relax… and this library is old of course… which is a good thing, but the shelving is soooo close together and boring that I felt very uninspired. It felt too much like an evidence room.
Pros:
There are some great reading spaces with couches. The kids room has space for little ones to play around a little. And I loved their «Friends of the Library» shelf. You can choose a book and drop a small cash fee in the box and read a great new book. The staff is friendly too.

Great library.

Nice cozy library… quiet, the way a library should be. Lots of nooks and crannies.

Beautiful.
When the smells of the boston public library get you down, you’ve got to head to the countryside.
Internet is a wee bit sluggish.

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Concord Public Library in May while attending a workshop on the American Lyceum. This is the kind of gorgeous, small town, New England library that most of us from outside the region come to associate with this area. Not only was it a welcoming library, but they have massive and well-​organized archives dating to the 1700s — a historian and researcher’s dream!

This place is awesome, gorgeous and full of history. I love that the first room you walk into is a beautiful open space filled literally from top to bottom with books. This is no cheap ol’ carts full of books. book shelves line the walls to the celling to the floor. Amazing. Plus they have so much great stuff… EXCELLENT stuff for the kidos!!! The staff is so friendly… ohh I love going to the Concord Free Public Library. Oh yeah and parking is super easy to find… always a plus.

I spent a good chunk of my childhood here.
Fantastic selection of DVD’s as well as books on CD.
Staff is great!
Its a nice place to go and relax a bit.
It is also very pretty!

I grew up in Concord and try to visit the library whenever I return. It is an old friend and appreciated more the older we both get. It is almost like visiting a museum with all its holdings!

This is in all honesty a gorgeous place to be. As an urban (Boston, Miami, Manhattan) dweller for most of my life, the birth of my daughter and our relocation into this gorgeous suburban environment, I needed to access reality (if fictionalized) by plugging myself into the local library.
One, it’s gorgeous and smells like gently aging books. If you’re from a city (any city) and frequent the library (any library) you know, as do I, libraries tend to smell a bit like, well, urine/​human excrement.
Not even in the bathroom. It’s so very fresh-​n-​clean.
Also, I was able to bring my baby in and there were weekly events for us to attend. The children’s’ room is awesome (thank the Divine for the functioning AC and heat when it counts), no skimping on the utilities here.
But most relevant me thinks: I found a book I had been looking for, for much (ok, all) of my life… or at least since I last read it in 3^rd grade. Who would have thought: I would move from the onliest city there ever was, to one of the oldest cities there ever was, to share a book I read in my early childhood, with my first-​born daughter.
There is a bit of magic in that.
And yes, I did cry.

It’s so cool when you walk in the front door! Oval room with stories of bookshelves — so old school, just like in the movies! Just amazing!
Back to reality, I slipped into the restroom to relieve myself in a clean atmosphere. There’s no icky restroom stench like most public restrooms.
Next stop, circulation desk. Friendly indeed. I was able to borrow a museum pass in a jiffy after making a reservation online. They are part of the Minute Man Network so I was able to use my card from a different library/​town. What convenience!

What a gorgeous library! After walking through the doors, I instantly felt smarter and looked better due to the soft lighting and muted colors of the walls and decorations. Balconies, skylights, fancy leather chairs… nothing at all like the stupid Belmont library. It didn’t even SMELL like a library, but smelled like wisdom, liberty, and a little like roses.
Super kids’ section, with awesome displays, dioramas, and toys for people to ogle over. The restrooms were clean, with automatic paper towels dispensers and nicely fragranced soap. The Community rooms are all amazing, painted in yellows and soft greens, with clawfooted desks and nice rocking swivel chairs.
When I become a ghost, this is the place want to haunt forever.

The Concord Library is for everyone who’s ever fantasized about having their own giant three-​floor study with a domed ceiling and balconies full of books that you can reach via a spiral staircase. Basically this is what you see when you walk into the library from the back — circular balconies packed with books. Getting up onto them is another matter: patrons ARE allowed on the balconies, but there are signs tacked everywhere to please let the librarians assist you with getting the books down from the shelves. But honestly, I’d say that coming into the Concord Library gives the feeling of stepping into some 19^th century person’s well-​kept book collection.
The area around the reference desks is like a small treasure hunt: it branches off into a myriad of smaller reference and study rooms, and the walls are lined with cases full of old historical volumes, next to bronze busts of random people who I suppose were influential in the founding of the library way back in the day. Tons of chairs and tables for studying, so this library is great for students.
Never fear though, there’s more to this library than that! Just like Robbins Library, there IS a much newer addition that houses most of the fiction and nonfiction circulating collection on the second floor. Ground floor is kids and YA books. There are big computer monitors placed all around with slideshow displays (Powerpoint) of upcoming events in the community. A really neat idea, and the first library I’ve seen that does this!
Parking can be somewhat of a challenge especially if you get turned around easily like me. The library’s on a busy intersection in Concord center at the fork of Main and Sudbury, and cross traffic never seems to stop. I parked on the street, where unlike Lexington Center it was FREE and a lot easier to find parking, but traffic is just as crazy.