The Town Library of Ipswich is a collection of 871 titles organised in 944 volumes published between 1474 and 1760.

[2] It is now located in the headmaster's study at Ipswich School, where they are cared for on behalf of the town.

[4] The collection was started in 1599 but the first record of a corporation decision to support the library dates to 1610 when they decided to allocate some space in the Grammar School for this purpose.

[2] The Ipswich antiquarian Richard Canning wrote in 1747 that William Smarte might be consider the "accidental Founder" of the library as his Latin books were kept in a chest by the Ipswich Corporation until 1612 and then provided an impetus for the corporation to found the library.

He introduced a fore-edge shelfmarking system and the corporation paid Basil Breame 3 shillings to draw these on many of the books held by the library in April 1651.