Cleveland

Libraries and Museums

The Cleveland Public Library is the second largest municipal library in the

United States. It was the first library in the country to allow users to take the books off the shelves themselves (without asking a librarian for help). In 1997, the main branch of the Cleveland Public Library opened the Louis Stokes Wing, a 48,865-square-meter (526,000-square-foot) building.

The 29-branch Cuyahoga County Public Library has the seventh-highest circulation rate in the United States. The Cleveland Area Metropolitan Library System (CAMLS) is a consortium of 77 public, academic, hospital, corporate, and school libraries.

Downtown Cleveland features the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum; the Great Lakes Science Center and Cleveland Clinic Omnimax Theatre; the William G. Mather Museum, a 188-meter (618-foot) ore freighter; and the USS Cod, a World War II submarine.

University Circle is a 500-acre area on Cleveland's east side, six kilometers (four miles) east of Public Square. A Loop Bus provides transportation between the points of interest in University Circle, including Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Children's Museum, Cleveland Health Museum, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland Institute of Music, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance Hall (home of the Cleveland Orchestra), the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Dittrick Museum of Medical History, the Temple Museum, Western Reserve Historical Society, and Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum.

The Cleveland Museum of Art holds one of the world's finest collections, consisting of more than 30,000 works produced over 5,000 years of world history. Founded in 1916, the collection is housed in a beaux-arts building designed by the Cleveland architectural firm of Hubbell and Benes and is situated on a 15-acre public park designed by the renowned Olmsted Brothers firm. Highlights of the museum's collection include Van Gogh's Poplars at Saint-Remy, Picasso's La Vie and Harlequin with Violin, Michaelangelo's The Crucifixion of St. Anthony and Degas' The Dancers. The Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art is housed in a former Sears & Roebuck store adjacent to the Cleveland Play House.

South of Cleveland in Canton, Ohio, is the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where memorabilia of professional football and its players is displayed. Between Cleveland and Akron, Hale Farm and Village depicts nineteenth-century rural life in Northeast Ohio.