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Library History

Founded in 1927

The public library in Edison Township began in 1927, when a group of citizens established a small library in rented quarters.  It was a store at the corner of Woodbridge Avenue and Thomasine Street, and the date was January 29, 1927.  Under state law, this was called an association library, (“The Raritan Township Free Public Library Association”) but the goal was to have the township take on the responsibility for it.  In November 1928, the voters of Raritan Township approved that idea, and on January 1 1929, the Free Public Library of Raritan Township came into existence.

The library stayed in the storefront for only a few years, moving down Woodbridge Avenue to the corner of Myrtle Street in 1931, and then in 1938 to the Municipal Building on Woodbridge Avenue and Plainfield Avenue.

When Raritan Township changed its name to Edison Township in 1954, the library subsequently changed its legal name to “the Board of Trustees of the Free Public Library of the Township of Edison, New Jersey.”