LA’s Everett Perry changed reading 100 years ago
Cato Hernández scours archives to understand how our region became the way it is today. Published February 15, 2026 5:00 AM
Finding the book you want is easier than it was 100 years ago.
Today, millions of Angelenos use the Central Library downtown (which turns 100 this year) and over 70 branch locations to access the Los Angeles Public Library’s collection of over 8 million books.
But this juggernaut wasn’t created overnight. What started with just 750 books in 1872 was transformed in part because of city librarian Everett Perry, a visionary who wanted books to be easy to access. Here’s a look at how his influence can still be felt today.
A library in disarray
Perry got the job as top librarian in L.A. after working at the New York Public Library, which opened a main building during his tenure. He was accustomed to growth.
But when he arrived in 1911, the Los Angeles Public Library was struggling. With no permanent location, it had moved several times into different rented spaces, the most recent being in the Hamburger’s Department Store, where patrons had to ride an elevator to check out books in between women’s clothes and furniture. Perry aired his grievances in a 1912 library report.
“The modern library aims to be a vital force in a community,” he wrote. “It can not perform this function, if its usefulness is limited by an inaccessible location.”
This is an early look into his ethos as librarian. Perry was part of a progressive crop of librarians, whose ideas were shifting about how books should be stored and used by the public.
His goal was to create a library system focused on great service and that rivaled the very best on the East Coast. With others, he pushed for a central library to be built, funded by a $2 million bond measure. Voters passed that in the 1920s, which led to the creation of the impressive Art Deco building that still stands downtown.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: A librarian’s big impact
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