Ayr Public Library, Ayr Ontario
N 43° 17.143 W 080° 26.983
17T E 544644 N 4792690
The Ayr Public Library was built in 1910 and funded by a Carnegie grant of $5200.00 USD. The building was designated a heritage building in 1994.
** Note: The North Dumfries Township declared the building surplus and will put it up for sale.
Waymark Code: WM9YM9
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 10/17/2010
Views: 6
The original Ayr library began in 1848 or 1849, but until this building was finished in 1910, it had no permanent home. Like many communities in North America, Ayr applied to the Carnegie foundation for a grant to assist in building the library. Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy New York philanthropist, had made available funds to communities to partially support the building of public libraries. these grants, however, had some strings attached. Carnegie had very definite ideas of what a public library building was to look like and to get a grant the building had to comply with his design standards. Hundreds of libraries of varying sizes were built with the same basic plan with centre staircase, neo-classical pillars on either side of the doorway, and a central atrium with three protruding wings. The Ayr library incorporates all of these design features, albeit on a very small scale. Unfortunately, Carnegie's design, although impressive, took little heed of the needs of a modern library with an expanding collection of books and periodicals. The Ayr library continued operation in this building until June 18th, 2004 when the new Ayr Branch Library opened across the street from its original location.
The referenced quote comes from The Township of North Dumfries walking tour of Ayr. It is also available online at (
visit link)
However the information on the website is dated as the library closed in 2004.