Berkshire Athenaeum
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The Berkshire Athenaeum is a public library (1872) based on a previously private athenaeum, and now located at 1 Wendell Avenue, Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the Berkshires, USA.
The original Berkshire Athenaeum building was built in 1876, as a gift of railway magnate and native son Thomas Allen. Like many New England libraries, the Athenaeum started as a private organization. In 1903, it assumed the responsibility for the newly created Berkshire Museum, and was both a public library and museum until the museum spun off in 1932. The current library building is located in the center of Pittsfield, two doors away from the original Athenaeum building it replaced in 1975.
The Athenaeum is now Pittsfield's public library and contains a collection of more than 150,000 items. The library's special collections on local history, genealogy, local author Herman Melville, and other Berkshire authors are some of the best in the northeast.
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