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Shopping Guide News Wednesday, January 28, 2026
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Embracing Andrew Carnegie’s Legacy:
FCPL receives monetary gift By WENDY MELTON Staff Writer
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Approximately 1,280 Carnegie libraries serve communities across the country. Andrew Carnegie was a steel magnate and philanthropist who built a legacy of learning that remains in place today. His commitment to reading and education resulted in libraries being constructed and maintained across the United States, giving children and adults access to valuable educational resources. Over the past few months, the Fulton County Public Library has been undergoing major changes. Andrea Roe, the library director, hopes construction will be complete by early spring. “The two branches, Fulton and Aubbee, are pretty much completed. The Rochester branch is still under construction,” Roe said. “Right now, our makerspace is hidden away in a tiny room, so we’re expanding it and giving it its own space. The makerspace is basically a place where people can make things. Debbie’s Dandies, our craft program, will take place in that room. All of Erica’s makerspace materials will be housed there. She does painting and art classes, and we’re going to try to add more STEM programming.
RENOVATION UNDERWAY — Rochester Branch Circulation Clerk Gavin Mollencupp is pictured sorting magazines behind this temporary display. Renovation is underway, and to the right can be seen the recently completed fiction section. Photos by Kelsey Foreman, Fulton County Public Library.
All of that will take place in the makerspace,” she said. “Our current teen room is turning into a preteen room, and we’re building a new teen room that will be larger. We flipped the locations of fiction and nonfiction, and we now have a local history space in the nonfiction area. We still have microfilm and the Tombaugh books,” Roe said. While the look of the library will be significantly different, it will continue to maintain a positive atmosphere geared toward learning and providing the community with the resources it needs. In January 2026, the Carnegie Corporation of New York began awarding $10,000 grants to all Carnegie libraries that are still operational, including those in Rochester, Akron and Kewanna. While only 750 of the original 1,681 libraries remain in their original buildings, all are eligible to receive the Carnegie Librar-
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ies 250 gift. The special gift is being awarded in recognition of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Roe said in a recent press release, “We are honored to receive this gift, which gives us an opportunity to remember and acknowledge our Carnegie roots. Even though we are no longer in our original Carnegie building, we will always be a Carnegie library.” The gift may be used as needed and will allow each library to further its mission and provide additional benefits and resources to the community. The new library, built in 1984, includes modern features needed for today’s world while still holding true to An-
drew Carnegie’s beliefs and commitment to education. According to Dame Louise Richardson, president of Carnegie and former head of the University of Oxford, “Our founder, Andrew Carnegie, who championed the free public library movement of the late 19th century, described libraries as ‘cradles of democracy’ that strengthen the democratic idea, the equality of the citizen, and the loyalty of man.”
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