Major projects highlight 2026 ‘Love Your Library’ Month

When Millvale Community Library breaks ground this week on two shed-style buildings for about 1,000 tools to lend to patrons, including sanders, drills and pressure washers, it will be merely one of many projects that libraries across the region are carrying out to meet the changing needs of their communities.

Clairton Public Library just reopened in a new building with a large meeting room to host educational programming. The Etna Center for Community, a new library and community center, opens in October and aims to tailor its services to what the community says it wants — with an eye toward educational programs or social services. 

Community members have been able to support these new projects and more through Love Your Library, an annual monthlong fundraiser that began in September 2016. All donations up to $500 are matched, thanks to support from the Jack Buncher Foundation and the Nisource Charitable Foundation of Columbia Gas. Last year, the fund drive collected $2.4 million benefitting 46 library systems, according to the Allegheny County Library Association (ACLA) and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, a 40.2 increase from 2024. 

The drive complements what libraries contribute to the communities they serve. In Millvale, a metric that library staff track closely is the cost savings for members who use the Tool Lending Library instead of buying their own. Already this year, the library has saved them $320,489, according to Executive Director Melissa Mason.

Rising costs, social isolation and the loss of “third places”— places outside of homes and workplaces where people meet and gather — are all big topics of public conversation these days, and libraries are taking on each of these issues. Millvale and the Penn Hills Library both feature a no-cost “community fridge” and food pantry stocked by restaurants, markets, community organizations and residents. Libraries across the county fill their calendars with free programs on everything from yoga to digitizing photographs. 

Regionally, libraries are also hosting social workers to directly provide community services. The Library Social Work Fellowship, formed in 2022, is a partnership of the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, ACLA and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. It places Pitt social work students as interns in at least 17 libraries in Allegheny County, said Amy Anderson, the library association’s chief executive officer. 

“That has been a very popular program and a very needed program in our libraries,” Anderson said. There is no social stigma around visiting a library, she added, because “no one knows why you’re going in there.”

Meanwhile, throughout the county, more libraries are adopting the “Library of Things” concept and lending everything from sewing machines and tables to tents and fishing poles — a trend that has taken hold in the past five years, said Anderson. People are also visiting libraries to meet others, get help with job searches and attend workshops.

“They are coming for a sense of belonging,” Anderson said.

Mason said that assessing community needs is a common practice at libraries. Right now, Millvale staff are gathering input through a survey available inside the library. One challenge people in Millvale face is food insecurity, Mason said. In Millvale, 41 percent of children live below the poverty line, according to U.S. census data. 

As a participant in the Library Social Work Fellowship, the Millvale library hosts community support specialist Ashley Markle, a Pitt student working toward a master’s degree. A flyer in the library advertises that Markle can help with housing, employment, family services, healthcare, education, food, clothing and more. “I think more and more people are starting to realize that the library is somewhere you can go to find resources and have people you can trust—people that you know are going to treat you with dignity and respect,” Markle said. 

The Tool Lending Library, currently housed in the library’s basement, is being moved into the new sheds to increase capacity and make the tools more accessible while protecting them, too. A very low ceiling and lack of space in the basement prevent patrons from browsing the tools, and the nearby Girty’s Run Creek poses a significant flooding risk to the basement. To complete this project, as well as design plans for an upcoming expansion into a former tea shop that was next door, the Millvale library received a $227,000 grant from the Allegheny County Regional Asset District (RAD). 

People looking for items other than tools can browse the Library of Things on the county-wide catalog and libraries' individual websites. For example, six libraries have a pickleball set, and three have at least one ukulele, including Northland Public Library, which has 11 in its collection. 

“You have a system in place,” said Mason. “Why not use it for as much as you can?”

Anderson said the rising costs of goods and services make the Library of Things an even more important resource.

“This is just the world we live in right now, so a lot of these opportunities to borrow instead of buy are going to be very important to families,” she said.

In Clairton and Etna, local leaders are looking at their new libraries as a way to bring people together and meet a wide variety of community needs. 

Clairton Library reopens at its new location

With a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house September 25, Clairton Public Library celebrated a move five years in the making, across the street to 609 Miller Ave. 

The old building at 616 Miller Ave. was “in very bad condition” and had no air-conditioning, said the library’s director, Emma Anderson. Its shortcomings prevented the library from taking on more community programming.

The new location is situated on the ground floor of the Clairton Inn Apartments, completed in 2022. To make the move, the library received about $1.5 million in funding, including $500,000 from RAD, $564,000 in federal funding, $200,000 from the Pennsylvania Department of Education and $195,263 from Allegheny County, according to Anderson. The project was originally estimated to cost $1.1 million, Anderson said, adding that the final cost will exceed that to some extent.

“In an age where information is everywhere but is not always trustworthy, the library stands as a beacon of truth, guided by the principles of access, equity and curiosity,” the Rev. Deborah Marshall, president of the Clairton Public Library’s board, said at the ceremony. 

One of the library’s new features is a large meeting room for community classes and programming in partnership with other organizations. "This library is going to be a community hub,” said Marshall. “It’s going to be a safe space again.” 

“Today is about opening a library, but it’s also about something larger,” James Reid, deputy chief of staff for county Executive Sarah Innamorato, said at the ribbon cutting: “Investing in place, expanding what’s available to people who live here, and creating more reasons for people to gather, learn and imagine what comes next.”

Etna to open new library after 40 years without one

The Etna Center for Community, a new library and community gathering space, will open at 341 Butler St. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Oct. 17

It will be operated by the Etna Community Organization, which has spent 10 years developing the facility, spending $7 million on building acquisition, design and engineering, said the organization’s executive director, Megan Tuñón. It is a 150-year-old building that will retain its historic shell but is new on the inside, she said.

The organization received federal, state and foundation funding for the project. In 2024, it received $3 million in federal funding, Congressman Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel, announced in a news release.

It has been about 40 years since Etna last had its own library. Wilson Street School housed a library that community members were allowed to use when classes were not in session, but the school closed following a flood, said Tuñón.

While the library plans to feature food-related programming and social worker hours, along with lending books, more specific plans will emerge based on the results of surveys still being conducted, Tuñón said.

“We’ve always envisioned this place as sort of a hub — the center of civic activity in Etna,” she said. “We don’t have any kind of third space for people to gather right now.”

The Etna Center for Community recently hired two full-time staff and will be hiring four part-timers, Tuñón said. It plans to operate a Library of Things, and community input will determine whether it offers a general or more curated, niche collection like Millvale’s Tool-Lending Library.