100 Years of Kendal Library

One of Cumbria's most popular libraries celebrates its 100th birthday this year. Former librarian Margaret Dargue attended the celebrations. Margaret worked in the library from 1940 to 1948 and it’s changed a lot since then! Margaret said “there were no ‘extras’ like cds, dvds which are now in one of the side rooms. The old men used to read the newspapers in one of these. There also used to be a relief map of the Lake District in a display case which was removed during the war and is now in Kendal museum.”

Kendal library on Stricklandgate first opened in 1909 - the year Ernest Shackleton reached the South Pole and workers began pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.

The town's first public library was opened in the old Market Hall in the Market Place in 1892. But it soon became so popular that the police often had to be called in to control the crowd, especially in the Reading Room, according to a report in the Westmorland Gazette, where the library's copy of 'Punch' had to be withdrawn.

The Kendal Mercury and Times of 19 March 1909, reported that the greatest difference between the old and new libraries was in the Lending Library, which employed the new 'open access' system, by which "readers are able to handle and thoroughly examine books before borrowing them". Most of Kendal's stock is still openly accessible to all.

Kendal is the second busiest library in Cumbria and is comparatively small for the amount of use it receives. In 1999 the extension was opened which currently houses 19 public computers, newspapers and periodicals, the Local Studies Collection and one of the most comprehensive collections of mountaineering literature in the country. Look out for more celebration events at the library throughout the year.