LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library in Tallahassee, Florida

The LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library is the public library system run by Leon County government for Tallahassee and the rest of the county.

The county's Office of Library Services lists Pamela Monroe as director, with its address at 200 West Park Avenue and the phone number 850-606-2665. The library's history timeline records that Monroe was appointed director in 2021. The library home page lists the Leon County Main Library, six branches and the Miccosukee Pick-up Locker as its locations.

The name honors Governor LeRoy Collins. The library's page on Collins says he was born in Tallahassee on March 10, 1909, graduated from Leon High School in 1927 and became Florida's 33rd governor, the first elected to consecutive terms; its reading list labels his administration 1955 to 1961. The history timeline records that the library was renamed for him on September 17, 1993, with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno present for the dedication. With funding from the Florida Humanities Council, the library produced a traveling exhibit on his life that it offers free of charge to public libraries and museums.

The library lists seven staffed locations, all with Tallahassee mailing addresses, and every branch keeps the same weekly schedule.

The branch schedule posted on the library site is Tuesday and Thursday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday and Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with every branch closed on Sunday and Monday. Only the Main Library opens on Sundays and Mondays.

The pick-up locker at the Miccosukee Community Center holds books, DVDs, audiobooks, music CDs and Launchpads placed on hold with MICCOSUKEE chosen as the pickup location. Holds that are not picked up within seven days expire, and the library courier delivers to the locker and empties its book drop every Wednesday. The history timeline records that bookmobile service to rural stops ended in 2013 because of the expansion of the branch library system.

Parking at the Main Library is downtown parking. The library says the main entrance, with accessible parking, ramp and elevator, is reached from the library lot at Call Street and Duval Street, that street parking is free on weekends and on weekdays after 6 p.m., and that the Park Avenue entrance remains closed during renovations.

Leon County residents, property owners, students and teachers can get a free card, and people who live outside the county can buy a non-resident card for a nominal fee.

The card registration page lets applicants sign up in person at any location or online. The Adult 16+ card is for people 16 or older who are Leon County residents, property owners, students or teachers, or who work for an eligible agency. A Youth card is for applicants 15 or younger, with a parent or guardian helping, who live in Leon County or live out of county but attend school in Leon County. Replacement cards also carry a nominal fee, and expired accounts are renewed by calling 850-606-2665. The page points to Policy No. 19-7, Eligibility for Library Cards, for the full rules.

The same page lists what a Leon County card covers: books, DVDs, music CDs, instruments and seasonal seeds, plus eBooks, audiobooks, magazines, newspapers and films, Brainfuse and Mango Languages, in-library printing, meeting room reservations and public computers.

Tallahassee got its public library in 1956, two years after the Friends of the Library formed in a city with no free public library service.

The library's history timeline records that the Friends of the Library was formed in 1954 by the American Association of University Women, when Tallahassee was the only state capital in the United States not offering free public library service. The library was established by legislative action in May 1955, and the first Leon County free public library opened on March 21, 1956, in 5,000 square feet of The Columns, an antebellum house then located at Park and Adams, with close to 5,000 volumes on its shelves. A bookmobile donated by the Junior League of Tallahassee followed the same month.

The library then moved twice in two decades. In 1962 it went to the old Elks Club building at 127 North Monroe Street, more than doubling its space to 12,000 square feet, and in May 1978 it moved to a 44,000-square-foot space in the lower level of the Northwood Mall. Jefferson County joined in October 1970 and Wakulla County in October 1971, forming the Leon, Jefferson, and Wakulla County Public Library System; Wakulla left in 1975 and Jefferson established its own library in 1980.

A permanent home came in 1991. Citizen volunteers established Project B.U.I.L.D. in 1986, ground was broken on March 4, 1989, for an $8.5 million main library with 88,000 feet of space, and the building opened on January 20, 1991, next door to The Columns, which had been moved in 1971 to 100 North Duval Street. The renovation page calls it the county's first permanent library building. In December 2000 the library was the scene of the televised recount of Miami-Dade ballots in the presidential election, a count halted by order of the United States Supreme Court.

The first branch in the library's timeline opened in the Bond community in September 1975, and the last new branch building opened in 2012.

According to the history timeline, the Bond branch was renamed in 1997 for the former president of Florida A&M University and moved into its own 10,000-square-foot building on South Adams Street in 2001. The Lake Jackson branch began in August 1991 in a storefront in the Huntington Oaks Shopping Center, and a storefront Northeast branch opened in the Northampton Shopping Center in 1994 before its 14,000-square-foot building on Thomasville Road held its grand opening in June 2000.

The rest followed in the 2000s and 2010s. The Fort Braden branch opened on February 25, 2004, in a 5,600-square-foot building on Blountstown Highway that incorporated 2,200 square feet of a house. Woodville opened on October 1, 2011, in a 2,000-square-foot addition to the Woodville Community Center, and that November the Parkway branch moved to a new 12,000-square-foot building on Pedrick Road and became the Eastside Branch. In 2012 Lake Jackson moved to a new 12,000-square-foot space in the same shopping center, adjoining a new community center for northwestern Leon County.

Several branch names honor county figures. The timeline lists a 2004 dedication of the Northeast Branch to former County Commissioner Bruce Host and a second dedication in his honor on November 22, 2023, and records that on October 26, 2016, the Fort Braden branch was renamed for retiring commissioner Jane Sauls. The Perry and Northeast branches received expansions of 3,000 and 5,000 square feet in 2010, and the Eastside Branch earned Silver LEED certification in January 2017.

Leon County cardholders can borrow tools, kayaks and instruments from the Library of Things, train on an excavator simulator and pick up free seeds.

The county's renovation page says the renovated second floor of the Main Library is now open, transforming more than 30,000 square feet into flexible spaces, with 15 multi-use meeting rooms and gathering spaces, a Career Corner with a CAT Excavator simulator, a soundproof recording studio, a Learning Commons for adult education and English as a Second Language tutoring, and an Ancestry Alcove for family history research. The history timeline records that the renovations began in the summer of 2024. The library counts more than 14 million visitors to the Main Library since it opened.

The Simulator Lab on the second floor at 200 West Park Avenue is booked only after an orientation at the Leon County Main Library. Users must be 16 or older and show a library card and photo ID, reservations and cancellations need 24 hours' notice, and each user may book up to two hours per day in one-hour increments, with no more than four reservations at a time.

The Library of Things, launched in 2022 under the Essential Libraries Initiative, lends GoPro cameras, kayaks, pickleball sets, birdwatching kits with binoculars, metal detectors, ladders, pressure washers, drills and keyboards. Borrowers must be 18 or older, reserve three days ahead, pick up and return items at the Main Library and keep them for two weeks without renewal; two items may be out at once, and late items cost $5 a day. The Seed Library, launched in February 2015 with UF/IFAS Leon County Extension, hands out free seasonal seed packets, with a spring kickoff at the Main Library.

The Main Library in downtown Tallahassee has also served after storms: the timeline lists it as a comfort station from September 3 to 5, 2016, after Hurricane Hermine, on September 12, 2017, after Hurricane Irma, and from October 12 to 14, 2018, for more than 6,000 people after Hurricane Michael.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading Leon County's library locations and hours page, card registration rules, Office of Library Services listing, library history timeline and the renovation, Library of Things, Simulator Lab, Seed Library and pick-up locker pages.