Boston Public Library 
700 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116
617-536-5400

Situated in a gorgeous Italian Renaissance style building, with a courtyard, sculptures, murals and paintings, the Boston Public Library was established in 1848 as the first publicly supported municipal library in the United States. The idea of letting the public borrow books and materials began here, and was quite a revolutionary concept at the time; today the library has twenty seven branches, a collection of over six million books, and serves over two million people in the Boston area.