Portsmouth Free Public Library

Miss Lily in the children’s room is so kind. As soon as we went into the children’s room she said hi how are you nice to see you again. Not only is she kind she goes above and beyond to find what you are looking for. There was a book we were looking for that was on the new list and wasn’t out on shelves yet. She had offered to put us on a list so we could check it out in the future. When we were leaving she actually found the book on the shelf with the newer books and ran up the stairs to catch us in time. She is definitely fit for the children’s room. It’s nice to see someone so kind and enjoying their job in a time there is a lot of uncertainty in the world. Thank you Miss Lily! :) 📚🐛🖍️

Fantastic, We live in Newport and we met it through a specific event they did for children and we loved it, it has large spaces, different activities for them to play, assemble and they manage monthly calendars with activities for the children, they do not have a section in Spanish But, they have diversity books and the few they have are excellent. In the adult area by the main entrance on the right hand side they have quite a few FREE puzzles. We liked it a lot! Thank you for having these spaces for children, they really are very helpful!

It breaks my heart to have to write a negative review for a public library — a resource which is such a beautiful and integral part of any community. Unfortunately, there was a strange and what I have to conclude, a racist, incident that took place on June 23rd, sometime between 12pm - 2pm at Portsmouth Library that my husband and I keep revisiting. My husband, a person of color, took a phone call in the parking lot of the library. He was not speaking English on the call. He was strolling around an empty section of the side lot while on the call. A library employee, a white woman, told him he wasn't allowed to be there as it wasn't "public space" and that he could sit at a particular spot away from the library. The library is, in fact, public property. I could have understood if the empl

I'm a big proponent of public libraries. There's truly something for everyone here. Books on every topic (of course) but also movies/ videos, music cds, audio books, internet access, fishing pole lending, and on and on. If you haven't been to a public library lately, check one out! Update 7/12/2022: still a great community resource. Updated 2/13/2023: I'm happy to say that the library hours are back to their pre-pandemic hours (or at least similar) and there's more events happening again.

For a small town of which Portsmouth is this library has everything you would find in a library of you had to go to a bigger town. They offer computers for the patrons to use. They offer reading programs for the younger reader in your family. At times they may have a guest speakers come in and talk to you about different topics ranging from how to do things on the internet to a program on tracing your ancestors.