Tompkins County Library

Tompkins County Public Library

101 E Green St, Ithaca, NY 14850

(607) 272-4557

http://tcpl.org/

Tompkins County Public Library’s main building is a delightful one-story building in the heart of downtown Ithaca. It is just a short walk away from the famed Ithaca Commons filled with interesting little shops to explore when you’re tired of research or if you have people uninterested in genealogy tagging along. There’s also a parking garage located directly behind the building for easy access. I was delighted to discover that the garage is open and parking is free on the weekends!

This building is fairly new and has a light airy feel to it with plenty of open stacks for browsing. I remember visiting the same spot as a child, but the building on the site was much older and then was the local Woolworth’s Five and Dime. The local history section is small, but easily accessible and contains works on the local area, primarily Ithaca and Tompkins county, but expanding into other counties as well.

Check for holiday closings before you go, but their general hours are as follows:

• Mon – Thurs: 10 AM - 8:15 PM
• Fri: 10 AM - 6 PM
• Sat: 10 AM - 5 PM
• Closed Sundays

Photocopying is available for 10 cents per page as is printing from their computers or microfilm readers. You do need a card to print from the computers, which costs $1.00 with 60 cents worth of copies preloaded on it.

Their microfilm collection has many local newspapers that you can look through that are not otherwise readily available for search. Although you can make paper copies of pages, I was pleased to be able to use a newer scanner/reader that once I found the page I was interested in, I could make a pdf file and save it directly onto my thumb drive. This saves a lot of printing and carrying around of paper- especially helpful if you are traveling. I also like the ease of digital copies to be able to send them to others or just to easily store and manipulate on my own computer.