Q22329565

The story

The Brooklyn Heights Branch Library traces its roots to 1852, before the Brooklyn Public Library itself existed. Prominent citizens founded the Brooklyn Athenaeum and Reading Room for the instruction of young men. Five years later, a separate group of young men established the Brooklyn Mercantile Library Association, deliberately pushing back against literature and philosophy in favor of practical knowledge. The two shared a building until 1869, when they consolidated and moved together. Their librarian, Stephen Buttrick Noyes, left for the Library of Congress in 1866, then returned to compile a catalog issued in 1881.