Mission:

The mission of the Garwood Free Public Library is to enhance the life of the community by providing citizens of all ages with library services of a high professional quality, to meet their ever changing learning, recreational, and informational needs.

Garwood Free Public Library is a center of community life and learning offering free and open access to information, resources, programs, and technology to support the broad range of educational and leisure interests of the public.

History:

As a project that began in 1933 by the Garwood PTA, the public library was turned over to Borough control in 1939. As such, Garwood Public Library has been offering books and other materials to the residents and students of the Borough for nearly 75 years. Originally housed in a classroom in the basement of Lincoln School on Second Avenue, offering a mere 4,000 titles, the Library was moved to larger quarters in the Franklin School on Walnut Street in 1979, where the collections grew to nearly 25,000 items.

When the new Lincoln School facility was completed in 2006 the Garwood Public Library was fortunate to be part of the construction and the Library is now located in a separate, yet attached, building at the corner of Walnut Street and third Avenue, providing service to both the public and the school population. The new facility is nearly twice the size of the Franklin School location allowing for comfortable seating, separation of collections and room for growth. Currently the Library is home to about 28,000 items, meeting the needs of the community as well as supporting the curriculum of the school.