public library


Also found in: Thesaurus, Acronyms, Wikipedia.
Related to public library: Public Library Association

public library

n.
A noncommercial library often supported with public funds, intended for use by the general public.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.public library - a nonprofit library maintained for public usepublic library - a nonprofit library maintained for public use
library - a collection of literary documents or records kept for reference or borrowing
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in classic literature ?
A search of the shelves of almost any public library will bring to light a book entitled, "A Naturalist Among the Head Hunters." Mr.
I had found my way to the free public library, and was reading myself into nervous prostration.
He strolled up Bond Street or through the Burlington Arcade, and when he was tired went and sat down in the Park or in wet weather in the public library in St.
There were law students who read "Noctes Ambrosianae," the 'Age of Reason', and Bailey's "Festus," as well as Blackstone's 'Commentaries;' and there was a public library in that village of six hundred people, small but very well selected, which was kept in one of the lawyers' offices, and was free to all.
You can buy it in any book-store or draw it from the public library. You would feel ashamed of your paucity of abuse and ignorance of that noble man compared with what Saleeby has collected on the subject.
I suggested to Perry that we were in the public library of Phutra, but later, as he commenced to discover the key to their written language, he assured me that we were handling the ancient archives of the race.
Thence to a public library, but could find no satisfactory Schlegel in the directory.
Dr Hood treated his private book-shelf as if it were a public library. And if this strict scientific intangibility steeped even the shelves laden with lyrics and ballads and the tables laden with drink and tobacco, it goes without saying that yet more of such heathen holiness protected the other shelves that held the specialist's library, and the other tables that sustained the frail and even fairylike instruments of chemistry or mechanics.
By dint of constant repetition, however, these constitutional sights had very little more interest for me than so many parochial vestries; and I was glad to exchange this one for a lounge in a well-arranged public library of some ten thousand volumes, and a visit to a tobacco manufactory, where the workmen are all slaves.
This he had learnt from the fiction in his public library. Beyond that he had learnt very little.
'So meron kaming training, essential skills for public library personnel.
The benchmarking programme included visits to the National Library Board of Singapore, Singapore National Library, Central Public Library, Bedok Public Library, Jurong Regional library, Tampines Regional Library, Hrbourfron Librray and Orchard Library.

Full browser ?