Berne Public Library

The Town of Berne Free Library was charted in 1962. It was first located up the hill from the bridge in town in a small building at the edge of Fox Creek that has once been the Floretha Shop. Later it became the Town Hall and polling place. After a vehicular collision in 1968 made the building unusable, the library moved to the Old Berne Hotel. It moved to present Berne Town Hall in 1969. This present location also houses the town offices and the museum. In 1996, the library changed its name to the Berne Public Library.

The Berne Public Library is part of the Upper Hudson Library System, which serves Albany and Rensselaer counties. It is a free library which, unlike a public library, does not have the power to tax.

The town of Berne supports the library. In 2008, it was budgeted $27,500. The town of Knox, which has no library of its own, uses the Berne library and paid Berne $800 that year for services. There are three paid employees.

The library has outgrown its space. The town reached an agreement with the former St. Bernadette's Church to house an expanded library and renovations are going on.

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  first home of the library
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  Public Library, Berne, NY
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  Berne Town Hall<br.>current home of Berne Public Library

Links

Friends of the Library

An illustrated history of the Berne Library in PowerPoint format is available at: https://docs.google.com/