Middletown Public Library

I love libraries and this is the one I most frequent. While the building is not particularly grand like some of the other ones in the state, it has an amazing staff that is super helpful and kind. On one occasion they sat with me for 15 minutes trying to figure out why I could not access G-​Chat in my work email. On another occasion they allowed me to use one of their personal computers to print coupons from the internet. Speaking of coupons, they have a little table that has a whole bowl of them that someone cuts out from all of their Sunday papers.
Another really great thing is if you have fines from their particular branch, you can donate one canned good for each dollar you owe and it goes to a local food bank. How perfect is that?!

I came here to use the free wifi, as was stated on one of the Rhode Islands free wifi lists, but I couldn’t connect to it.
The building was nice a historic. Very small for a library, but it fits the size of the town.

Books
lectures
and
movies
The Middletown Public Library was first started back in the mid 1800’s when some folks took a few books and stuck them on a shelf in the back of a small school and declared it the town’s first public library. It certainly has grown since then.
The library has moved and enlarged many times over the years and had a extensive renovation in 2003. It now boosts over 80,000 items and is a sprawling building with many rooms and comfy places to sit or do research.
This library is very functional and efficient with a nice collection of both fiction and non fiction books, a large periodical section, lots of computers and audio and visual items. The building certainly isn’t as historical interesting or aesthetic pleasing as many of the other libraries in the state but it still is a nice place to relax, find some information or just talk to someone.
The Middletown Library offers lots of interesting lectures, seminars and movies for the community and something always seems to be going on, even in the winter months. They certainly fill their calendar with cool events. With many Rhode Island libraries the emphasis is on the building and history. The Middletown Library is the opposite, the emphasis is on what you find inside the prosaic building. It is a library that has certainly grown up from it’s humble origins.