Boise Public Library

In 1902 the Idaho State Library Commission requested from Andrew Carnegie that he establish a Carnegie library in Boise.[31] Carnegie agreed to donate $25,000 toward a library if the city provided matching funds, yearly maintenance funds of $2500, and property for a building site.[32] Voters approved a $25,000 bond levy that year, and the city purchased land on Washington Street between 8th and 9th Streets from the Independent School District at a cost of $4000.[33] The site was the location of Pioneer School (1868-1905), built by early residents of Boise City, and the schoolhouse was demolished when the library building was nearing completion.[34][35] The city council established a board of trustees to oversee the library, and library management passed from the Columbian Club to the city,[36] although the club continued to donate books and materials to the library and to raise money to furnish the new library.[37][38]

Carnegie reduced his gift offer to $15,000 in 1903 when documents he received from the Columbian Club seemed to inflate the local population to 10,000 residents, not 5900 as reported in the 1900 census. Carnegie later revised his gift offer again to $20,000.[39][40] The 1903 Polk City Directory estimated the local population at 12,256 residents, not including the population of South Boise.[41] In 1905 Carnegie reconsidered his reduction of library funding, and he added $5000 to the amount of his gift.[42]

Boise's Carnegie library was designed by Tourtellotte & Co. and built by local contractors Michels & Weber in 1904.[43] Dedication of the building occurred May 3, 1905,[44] and the library opened to the public June 22, 1905.[45] By 1964 the library had outgrown its 11,000 square feet of floor space at the Carnegie library.[46]

In the early 1970s, options for the Carnegie building included demolition and use as a senior center,[47][48] but in 1972 the building was sold at auction to Hon Investment Co. and later converted to office space.[49] The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Voters rejected bond measures for construction of a new library, once in 1967 and again in 1969,[46] but a measure to purchase and remodel a warehouse was approved in 1971. The building had been occupied by the Salt Lake Hardware Co. since its completion in 1946,[50] and it contained over 64,000 square feet of floor space.[46] After renovation of the building, the main library opened in 1973 at 715 S Capitol Blvd.

The main library floor space was designed to serve a population of 75,000 residents, and to reduce demand at the main library, the city opened branch libraries beginning in 2008, when the population well exceeded 200,000 and the main library had outgrown its building.[51]

Plans for a new main library to be built on the current library's existing site were drawn by architect Moshe Safdie in 2018 with a budget of $50-60 million. Safdie's building design, which was nearly identical to the Salt Lake City (Utah) library he designed, would cost $80 million and quickly ballooned to approximately $104 million before a spadeful of earth had been turned.[52] The building was to be divided into three areas: A library with 110,000 square feet of floor space, an event space, and offices for Boise City Department of Arts and History. Groundbreaking was expected in 2019 with an ambitious opening planned for 2021-22.[53]

This proposed library/civic center was suspended by the citizens due to several issues: (1) Concerns with the cost and the method of funding, which included various combinations of City revenues, including using Reserve funds, urban renewal district funds, lease financing with high issuance costs and interest charges, and private philanthropy; (2) Lack of broad citizen input from across the entire City limits; (3) Concerns with why the City was not using the adjacent land parcel that had specifically been purchased for future library expansion; and (4) The collateral damage of relocating “The Cabin” – a New Deal – era historic log cabin constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939 – 40, which has become an iconic downtown structure.

A small group of citizens from across the City formed Boise Working Together, a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. This group successfully drafted, circulated, and gained ballot status for two citizen initiatives requiring public votes on future library and sports park projects in Boise. Their passage by 69.1 and 75.2 percent of the voters, respectively, brought a greater measure of oversight to methods of financing that were designed to circumvent a public vote on bond issues, as well as to the overall tax burden that such large civic projects would cause to average citizens. In the future, any public library that will exceed the cost of $25 million must be put forth for a vote by the people.

• Collister (2008)
• Hillcrest (2008)
• Cole & Ustick (2009)
• Bown Crossing (2017)

• Idaho State Forester's Building
• Downtown Boise

• Media related to Boise Public Library at Wikimedia Commons
• Old City Hall, Boise localwiki
• Carnegie Library, Idaho Architecture Project
• Boise Public Library, City of Boise
• Moshe Safdie to design Boise public library, The Architect's Newspaper

• Hodges, Kathleen and Buckendorf, Madeline: A light in the window of Idaho: Boise's Public Library, 1895-1995 (Friends of the Boise Public Library, 1995)
• Idaho Statesman, "Woman's Part in the Building up of a Beautiful City," January 1, 1904, pp 17