La Follette Public Library

About Us:

Our library services can help you find the books and information that you are seeking. Please feel free to ask the librarian for help if you cannot find something or are not sure where to look.

The library has six public computer access stations with high speed internet access.

History:

In the beginning the ladies of the LaFollette Book Club began an effort for a public library. Early in 1941 TVA was asked to donate land for a library, without success. The first library was located in the office of E. E. Hill on the second floor of Peoples Bank. Citizens were asked to donate books. Members of the Book Club operated the library for a limited number of hours. The second location for the library was a small room in City Hall on First Street. When the city needed the room, the library had to move. The library was then housed at the LaFollette Press for a short time. Guy Easterly and Lansden Hill were instrumental in promoting the idea of a library for the town. 

The Book Club then persuaded the city to provide space in the new LaFollette Municipal Building on South Tennessee Avenue which was constructed in 1951. It is from this location that the LaFollette Public Library serves its patrons today. From this one room in the LaFollette Municipal Building, the library now occupies three. Presently the original part of library houses the adult collection, reference, current periodicals, videos, audios, and DVD’s. The children’s collection is housed in a separate room. The third room, which originally housed the genealogy collection now located at the Campbell County Historical Society museum, is used mainly for storage.

LaFollette Public Library is now, due to increased patron use and the advent of the technology age, severely overcrowded. The future hope for LaFollette Public Library is to be able to build a modern, technologically user friendly library to serve the growing population of the city of LaFollette. Plans to reach this goal are currently under discussion by the Friends of the Library and interested citizens.