Editing Pembroke, New Hampshire (section)

== Pembroke Town Library ==
The first lending library in Pembroke was not a tax-supported public library in the modern sense. It was a [[Subscription library|proprietary library]] of the type seen throughout New England in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Incorporated on December 7, 1798, as the Proprietors of the Pembroke Library, this organization purchased its books through "assessments" or taxes levied each year on its shareholders, who were the only people permitted to borrow its books.

The Pembroke Town Library, the town's first tax-supported public library, was born when the New Hampshire legislature passed some of the nation's most progressive library laws in the 1890s. An innovative law of 1891 required the state to assist towns that voted to establish a tax-supported, free public library. To get the local library established, the state gave such towns $100 worth of books and professional guidance in librarianship. In 1895, the legislature passed a law, the first of its kind in the nation, ''requiring'' each town to appropriate funds to establish a public library and to appoint a board of library trustees unless the electorate voted each year specifically not to do so.

The law of 1895 spurred the founding of the Pembroke Town Library in 1896. New town libraries of the period were often housed in any available room, and Pembroke's library was no exception. After a series of locations, the library planning for a proper library building resumed in June 1997. The building was dedicated on June 14, 2003.

''Summary of library locations:''
{| class="wikitable"
|1896–1923
|(27 years)
|Knox Tailor Shop, Baker's Block, 11 Glass Street
|-
|1923–1937
|(14 years)
|Another storefront in Baker's Block, 15 Glass Street
|-
|1837–1981
|(44 years)
|136 Main Street
|-
|1981–2003
|(22 years)
|Marston House, 261 Pembroke Street
|-
|2003
|
|New Pembroke Town Library Building
|}[[Image:China Mills, Suncook, NH.jpg|thumb|left|China Mills in 1909]]