The Corinth Free Library is chartered to serve the Town of Corinth, which has a population of 5,935. We receive the majority of our funding from the Town of Corinth, the Village of Corinth, and through a proposition on the budget of the Corinth Central School District. A small amount of funds is received from Saratoga County. We house a collection of approximately 20,000 volumes. Our library is located on the banks of the Hudson River in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. In the years since then, many changes have taken place. In 1974 the new children's room was added and named in memory of Mabel Pitkin Shorey, who was a founding member of the library association and who served as librarian for 35 years. In 1989 the Corinth Rotary Club funded an addition which serves as a reference and reading room. This room was dedicated to all Corinth veterans of foreign wars and conflicts, thus extending the memorial aspect beyond the World Wars. Most recently, the library has put on a new roof and undergone renovations to provide greater access to handicapped individuals, including a lift to provide access to the children's room in the basement. The Corinth Free Library is a Free Association Library that was established in 1926 by a committee of local citizens. For many years the library was confined to a single room. By the 1940s, the small quarters were inadequate to meet the needs of the community. In 1945, the citizens of Corinth raised funds to build a library as a war memorial. This would serve the dual purpose of expanding the library and also would honor area veterans of the recent war. In 1951 on Memorial Day the new library was dedicated. In his dedication speech, Maxwell Parmenter spoke of the grandeur of a column, tomb, or memorial arch which could have been built, but argued that "a wiser choice has been made for us in the shape of something useful with the thought of paying tribute to the living and dead." A plaque on the front of the building reminds us of this added purpose "to honor all from Corinth who served their country in the World Wars and as a lasting memorial to those who made the supreme sacrifice."
