NOTICE

For immediate release: 2004 August 4

For more information -- Glenn A. Walsh:

Daytime: E-Mail < gawalsh@andrewcarnegie.cc >

Evening: Telephone 412-561-7876

Internet Web Site: < http://www.andrewcarnegie.cc >

DOWNTOWN PITTSBURGH LIBRARY CENTER CLOSES AUG. 6;

NEW DOWNTOWN LIBRARY TO OPEN IN FALL

Pittsburgh, Aug. 4 – An innovative library collaboration, located in historic and ornate downtown buildings, ends this week with the closing of The Library Center at Point Park University, 414 Wood Street in Downtown Pittsburgh. The Library Center will close to the public on Friday, August 6 at 5:00 p.m.

When it opened on 1997 May 12 at a cost of $8.7 million, The Library Center was the nation’s first public library/private college partnership, uniting the Downtown and Business Branches of The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh with the academic library of Point Park College (now Point Park University). Located in five adjoining buildings built near the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth centuries, which once comprised a portion of Pittsburgh’s original Fourth Avenue Financial District, the 60,000 sq. ft. [on three floors plus a lower level and fourth floor board room] Library Center at Point Park University boasted historic exteriors and interiors reminiscent of the historic library buildings built in the same era by Andrew Carnegie.

Citing high operating costs, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh decided to move the Downtown and Business Libraries to a new, smaller Downtown site. Currently under construction, the new 12,300 sq. ft. library will be located in an existing office building at 610 Smithfield Street, directly across the street from the Barnes and Noble Book Store.

With the end of public library service in the Wood Street building, Point Park University has announced that their academic library will return to the Helen-Jean Moore Library site in Thayer Hall. The buildings which currently comprise the Library Center, which are owned by Point Park University, will be reused for classroom and other academic purposes.

Prior to The Library Center, these buildings had been known as The Bank Center, a three-floor arcade of retail shops. With the conversion to The Library Center, the retail spaces were redesigned for public library use. The former Bank Cinemas [Cinemas I & II], on the second floor, were converted to a newly-designed 200-seat lecture hall, named the George R. White Theatre.

For more information –

Library Center Web Page:

< http://www.carnegielibrary.org/locations/librarycenter/ >

History and Photographs of The Library Center

< http://www.carnegielibrary.org/locations/librarycenter/about/ >

Articles from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette –

Carnegie Library to move its Downtown branch By Marylynne Pitz

2004 February 18:

< http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04049/274575.stm >

Editorial: By the book / Carnegie Library meets its responsibilities wisely

2004 February 24:

< http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04055/276661.stm >

Point Park University library returns to former site By Bill Schackner

2004 July 31:

< http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04213/354603.stm >

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