The beautiful two-story stone building that now houses the Gladwyne Free Library was erected in 1921, and was owned by the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. Known as Gladwyne Community Hall, the building has seen many uses over the years. It has been a post office, a community health center, a polling place (until 1960), a site for various club meetings, and a gymnasium. It hosted community suppers and Saturday night dances and is still the meeting place for the Gladwyne Civic Association.
Collections have grown rapidly, and now include books, books-on-tape, periodicals, videos, DVDs and electronic resource. Local fund raising continues to play a significant role in our collections and the maintenance of the building.Gladwyne Free Library houses the Pennsylvania Room Collection, which is located in a separate room on the second floor. Maud Bell also started this collection by gathering together books, magazine articles, clippings and photographs of local and state history. Over the years, titles important to the study of local and state history, architecture, biography, travel, industry, etc. have been added through donation or purchase, resulting in a present collection of over 1700 volumes. Some of the most well used resources in the collection are the nine Pennsylvania Railroad Atlases that chronicle land ownership from Overbrook to Paoli from 1886 to 1926.
