Dear Valued Customer:

Welcome to our new website! We have spent two years creating an innovative, dynamic site with more information than ever before - much of it searchable. Our staff is committed to keeping it fresh and user friendly, but it is you who can tell us if it works, so please use the feedback tool and let us know your thoughts.

You may notice that the Free Library of Philadelphia also has a new look. In thinking about who we are and our mission of providing all segments of the population free access to information and ideas, we thought a great deal about the power of the word FREE. We are here to provide FREE access to knowledge for all; we are a FREE public space open to all; we encourage the FREE exchange of ideas; we are inextricably linked to the city where FREEdom was born.

This Library system of 54 branches, this website, and your Library card enable you to exercise your FREEdom to be informed. Visit us often and feel FREE to let us know what you think!

Siobhan A. Reardon
President and Director

Mission: The Free Library of Philadelphia advances literacy, guides learning, and inspires curiosity.

Vision: Building an enlightened community devoted to lifelong learning.

The mission of the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation is to develop resources in order to expand, enhance, and support the services, collections, building programs, and other activities of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Through its Board of Directors, the Foundation will seek those resources from individuals, corporations, foundations, and other organizations. Additionally, the Foundation will provide faithful stewardship of the resources and special collections which it owns, and of the funds which the Foundation raises or which have been entrusted to it. The Foundation will also ensure efficient and appropriate expenditure of funds in keeping with the goals and mission of the Free Library, as well as the expressed wishes of donors. Finally, the Foundation will, from time to time, manage and administer those programs whose funding is raised through the Foundation, in concert with the Board of Trustees of The Free Library.