(Veronica) Wells … has been acknowledged as the ‘mother’ of the Plant City Public Library.”[1] Members of the public were allowed to join the library by paying a fee, and could then check out books from the collection, which took up “a few shelves” in the club room of the Woman’s Club building.

[1] In 1949, Bruton began campaigning for Plant City to begin operating its own public library.

[1] The dedication ceremony for the new building inspired John Germany, for whom a downtown Tampa library would later be named, and he returned to Plant City to learn more about how to conduct a similar campaign there.

[1] Ten years after it opened, Plant City began construction that would double the size of its library building,[6] and in 1971 the addition was completed.

[8] Mrs. Bruton died in 1989 and her husband donated $100,000 to purchase an adjacent piece of land to expand the library further.

[6] Her plans to expand the library continued; the city commission dedicated $900,000 for the construction project, which was estimated to cost $1.1 million.

[2] As part of the study, O’Donnell also made eleven recommendations on how to improve the current building, revolving around making more efficient use of the space, catering the collections to user needs, adding more computers, and creating an area for teens.

Children’s programs include Crafternoon: a biweekly arts and crafts project, Pre-K story time, and reading with a trained therapy dog.

[14] Bruton Memorial Library offers free access to multiple databases, such as JSTOR, Ancestry, Auto Repair Source, and MyHeritage.

[15] Access to e-books, e-magazines, e-audiobooks, and movie streaming is provided free through the library and runs on the following platforms: Overdrive, Libby, Hoopla, myON, axis360, RBDigital, Tumblebooks, and Flipster.

A one-day guest pass can be provided to out-of-county visitors who wish to use the computer upon showing their photo ID.