The Public Library: Documenting an Endangered Species

Over the last eighteen years, photographer Robert Dawson has crisscrossed the United States documenting hundreds of public libraries, large and small, old and new, urban and rural, in poor communities and in wealthy ones.

From the majestic reading room at the New York Public Library to Allensworth, California's one-room Tulare County Free Library built by former slaves. His collection of images documents our vibrant, essential, yet threatened library system as it undergoes profound changes in its identity and purpose, yet remains at the very heart of American civic life.