Ramsey County History – Summer 2020: “The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library Celebrate Seventy-Five Years: Honoring Perrie Jones, the Librarian at the Center of It All”

The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library Celebrate Seventy-Five Years: Honoring Perrie Jones, the Librarian at the Center of It All
Author: Mark Taylor

As The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library celebrate seventy-five years advocating, fundraising, and producing programming for the Saint Paul Public Library system, writer Mark Taylor tells the story of the quiet but determined and forward-thinking librarian named Perrie Jones whose work in the first half of the twentieth century continues to influence and benefit Saint Paul’s libraries today. Jones’s career started in her hometown of Wabasha, where she opened the town’s first public library before pursuing training and work at the New York Public Library and volunteering with the YMCA in France during World War I. Upon returning to the US, Jones set up library services in hospitals for soldiers recovering from war wounds and then expanded services to all patients. She also spent several years supervising the state’s institutional libraries and ensuring that books and other reading materials got into the hands of prison inmates and residents at facilities for the blind, deaf, and sick. She later took the reins as city librarian in Saint Paul. Always full of ideas, Jones established several branch libraries, made improvements to attract readers of all ages and backgrounds, established The Friends organization, and before her death, created the Perrie Jones Library Fund, which supports The Friends and the library system to this day. It’s a wonder she ever had time to sit down and enjoy a good book!

PDF of M. Taylor article