special collections

Do you have boxes of old photographs? Home movies on VHS? Mixed tapes on cassette? Have you ever wanted to convert them to an easily stored and sharable digital format? How does "for FREE" sound?

The countdown to our City’s bicentennial has begun! How will you celebrate Jacksonville’s 200-year anniversary? The Library’s doing what it does best: sharing and collecting stories! We hope you’ll join us for "Jacksonville Origins: A Talk with Emily Lisska" on Saturday, June 11 at 1 p.m. And leave your mark on Jacksonville's history: Add your story, your family history, and your vision for the future of this Bold City to the Library's permanent collection!

Joseph E. Lee is a prominent figure in Jacksonville history. He holds the distinction of having been the City's first Black lawyer as well as having left a legacy of commitment to public service and community. Jacksonville Public Library was recently able to digitize an extensive collection of Joseph E. Lee's professional and personal correspondence, dating from 1877 – 1882. These papers help paint a clearer picture of the man and his accomplishments.

What do you like people to know about you another 80 years from now?

How have you shaped – or been shaped by – this Bold City?

To celebrate the City's upcoming Bicentennial, the Jacksonville Public Library will be doing what it does best: Collecting stories, preserving history, and sharing what it finds with the community. But we need your help!

There are lots of options for storing and preserving family memories captured in the digital age. But what about all those family photos and videos captured before digital cameras and smart phones? Schedule your appointment in the Library’s Digitization Station and let us help you pass down your preserve and pass down your family history for generations to come.

What we do and where we do it can change from time to time. Library service doesn't always happen at the library and it certainly doesn't always occur inside the four walls of a building. Our job is about meeting, you, our customer, where you are. Sometimes, we have to take that show on the road! In the past, one of our more "novel" approaches to library service was our bookmobiles.

Recently, there has been some discussion about and renewed interested in Jacksonville’s first female architect, Henrietta Dozier aka “Harry.” This Women’s History Month, the Library dug into its Special Collections and a few old Florida Times-Union articles as well. Just what was there about this woman’s story that’s so compelling that we come back to it, decade after decade? Was it her determination to succeed in a field dominated by men? Was it her approach to life or the boundaries she pushed? What more can we learn from her?