Oberlin Public Library

This library exists in part because of Ohio’s most famous con-​artist, Cassie Chadwick. For decades Oberlin Public Library was housed in the Carnegie building on the Oberlin College campus. Andrew Carnegie gave this building to Oberlin College, in part because the college and the town bank were swindled by Cassie Chadwick, the most infamous con-​artist in Ohio history. The collge agreed to provide a public library space in the building.
OPL has always benefitted from and contributed to sometimes tenuous town-​gown relations, including direct catalog connections with the huge Oberlin College Library, which is the largest purely undergraduate libray in the country. At times I felt OPL was treated as a backwater of the College library system, and perhaps that’s changed now that the library has moved to its own building in a renovated former supermarket downtown next to city hall. I do think it’s a shame that the gracious old Carnegie Building on the corner of Lorain and Professor no longer serves as a library for town and gown.

When asked what my favorite place is — it’s pretty easy for me — Oberlin Public Library. Public Library is where dreams happen. It was OPL –where I discovered my deep love for movies and music,
Oberlin Public Library’s foreign film selection is unparalleled and you can check out 5 movies at a time (I think that’s the right number) along with 20 CDs. I would pile them on, every slow night, grabbing the latest Sex and the Cities, the newest documentaries, and the cheesy film I swore I would never see.
It was at OPL where I gained the nickname Red and would take my red-​CD player in tow, to pick out CD and movie selections. Laura and Nate — and all the other OPL crew have breathed life into a place, that allows those hard pushed on cash to be able to watch classics such as Cool Hand Luke and the Last Picture Show. OPL allows the too cool college students, to borrow Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson, without having to take a long hard look in the mirror — and say «what the hell was I thinking!» Libraries like OPL, allow you never to regret your choices — because you can always just bring them back — no charge. It really is one of my favorite places on Earth.