The Minneapolis Public Library, North Branch building is a library

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

 in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

. It was designed in 1893 by architect Frederick Corser

Frederick Corser

Frederick Gardner Corser was an American architect of homes and public buildings in the U.S. states of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, especially in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area....

. When it was opened, it was claimed to be the nation's first branch library to have open shelves so patrons could browse for books on their own, without asking librarians to retrieve them. The library set a precedent for future library development in the Minneapolis Public Library

Minneapolis Public Library

The Minneapolis Public Library and Information Center was a library system serving the residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. It was founded as the publicly traded Minneapolis Athenæum in 1860 and became a free public library in 1885 founded by T. B. Walker...

 system.

The building has a slender tower, a stepped front gable, and an arched entrance shaped like a basket handle, roughly fitting into the Chateauesque

Châteauesque

Châteauesque is one of several terms, including Francis I style, and, in Canada, the Château Style, that refer to a revival architectural style based on the French Renaissance architecture of the monumental French country homes built in the Loire Valley from the late fifteenth century to the...

 style. It includes terra cotta

Terra cotta

Terracotta, Terra cotta or Terra-cotta is a clay-based unglazed ceramic, although the term can also be applied to glazed ceramics where the fired body is porous and red in color...

 ornamentation and sculptured stonework. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1977, and is the Twin Cities

Twin cities

Twin cities are a special case of two cities or urban centres which are founded in close geographic proximity and then grow into each other over time...

' oldest surviving public library building.

The current North Side Library is in a 1971 building on Lowry Avenue.