Arlington Reading Room

A room
for
reading
The very first library in the Arlington section of Cranston was founded back in 1895 and held about 500 books. Since then five other libraries have sprang up around the Cranston area and although the Arlington one remains the smallest it still manages to survive.
Although technically a library they call it a reading room since it is so small and quaint. It holds about 4,000 volumes but the actually amount varies quite a bit. Reading room is actually a good name because it is just one room, and not even a very large one room at that. Everything is smushed together out of necessity and a person has to navigate carefully around the books and other people.
The small library is actually just a room sort of connected to the Senior Center but really is a separate entity and is officially part of the Cranston Library System and can borrow material from all the other libraries. The nice librarian told me that the reading room is mostly used by local seniors and kids but gets a lot of traffic.
Probably the smallest and least impressive visually of all the libraries I’ve seen. However that doesn’t mean it is any less important or valuable that any of the other far larger or aesthetically appealing buildings. This library is a very important part of the community and I’m sure the local seniors and kids that can’t easily get tot he other libraries consider this small room very special.