The Institute Library (New Haven)

[1] Founded in August 1826, this association organized as an educational society and declared as its mission the "mutual assistance in the attainment of useful knowledge.

"[2] It promoted this mission through a collection of books amassed by the initial group of eight members and the scheduling of regular meetings of the membership.

[5] A center of adult education, literary discussion, and civil discourse throughout much of the 19th century, it stood as the largest circulating library in the city and the site of popular lecture series.

Speakers at the Institute included Henry Ward Beecher, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Herman Melville in 1857 alone.

In 1878, the Institute Library, as it came to be called by its membership, relocated to its current location at 847 Chapel Street in New Haven, Connecticut.

Librarian William A. Borden in the years that followed took the opportunity to experiment with new library technologies and practices with collections housed at the Institute Library; stating "[T]he Institute, again looking to the future, had become specialized in English and American literature and in biography and travel, and had taken its position as the literary, rather than the educational, headquarters of the city.