BORROWERS HELPED Montrose Library celebrate its centenary yesterday by joining staff and councillors to tuck into the birthday cake baked especially for the occasion.

A selection of photographs has gone on display depicting the library as it was along with copies of the original library plan, and a Montrose Library bookmark produced to mark the occasion will be on sale at the library soon.

A series of events, talks and author visits will be held—the first of which will be an evening talk by popular author Jonathan Falla on November 16.

The anniversary will also see the main hall on the upper floor of the library restored to its former size and refurbished as a meeting room and exhibition space.

The A-listed building is one of the town’s architectural gems and was built with a gift of £7500 from Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist.

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline in 1835. The son of a weaver, he went with his family to the US in 1848 and settled in Pennsylvania.

At the age of 65, he sold his steel company for $480 million and devoted the rest of his life to his philanthropic activities and writing.

Carnegie stated publicly that the rich had a moral obligation to give away their fortunes and he set about disposing of his through personal gifts and the establishment of various trusts.

One of his life-long interests was the establishment of free public libraries to make available to everyone a means of self-education.

Carnegie subsequently spent over $56 million to build 2509 libraries throughout the English-speaking world.

Montrose Library was designed by J. Lindsay Grant, one of the many architects whose distinctive designs echoed others by borrowing from history.

The themes were often more akin to Highland castles and French chateaux, or a mixture of both, rather than traditional Scottish public buildings.

The library has adapted internally to meet changing requirements but many of its original features survive thanks partly to the determination of the Montrose Society who successfully campaigned for their retention when the building underwent extensive refurbishment in the late 1970s.

Built in distinctive Dumfries red sandstone, it echoes features of many Carnegie free libraries, with the fine ornamental stonework illustrating the old-fashioned masons’ skills that were still available throughout Scotland at the beginning of the 20th century.