

Website Search
Read articles from magazines and journals, learn a new language, or locate a newspaper article. These resources can't be found with a search engine but are available for free with your library card.
Throughout June, join us as we celebrate Pride Month with programs, books, podcasts, and more.
Celebrate Lexington, Kentucky’s 250th anniversary all year long. Join us for programs, galleries, podcasts, and more highlighting our city’s history, heritage, and legacy.

Fayette County, Kentucky, has changed enormously since it was created in 1792. This collection contains government documents for the city of Lexington, for Fayette County, and for the merged Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, as well as funeral notices, club directories, scrapbooks, image collections and a history of Lexington Public Library.
Find out what's happening at our locations. Browse upcoming events and discover our dedicated learning spaces. Reserve a meeting room. Explore our galleries and special collections.
Download eBooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more – free with your library card.
The Undesign the Redline project unearths the deep and systemic history of structural racism and inequality in the United States. This interactive exhibit explores policies like Redlining, their implications for today, and what we can do to undesign them.
The exhibit was created by social impact design studio designing the WE and has been invited to dozens of cities across the country. A local advisory group has helped to produce local history and stories about Redlining in Lexington.

Lexington's school system dates back to the city charter of 1831, and it first school opened in 1834.


Fayette County churches contain some of the earliest records and information preserved about central Kentucky history. The digital archive contents include church ledgers, minutes, directories, and informational brochures.


Fayette County's buildings contain a great deal of history about the region and its inhabitants.


Dunbar High School opened in 1923 at 545 North Upper Street as the only all-black high school in Lexington’s city school system.

The Council of Defense books contain records for Fayette County’s Army soldiers, Navy sailors, Marines, and Army nurses in World War I, and include information regarding the person’s residence, birth place and date, specific units and en

Illustrated Lexington Kentucky contains photographs, demographics, commerce and financial information about Lexington up to 1919.


The Kentucky Progress Commission was formed in 1928 in order to draw tourism and business to Kentucky. It was formed by the Kentucky Legislature, and was a 12 person board.

The Kentucky Rally Songs pamphlet contains 42 songs compiled and printed by the state chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, to be used at the many gatherings and rallies that they organized in the late 19th and ea

The Knowles Postcard Collection contains images of notable Kentucky locations, such as Ashland, Keeneland, and Mammoth Cave, as well as county courthouses, farms, schools, and many others.

In 1917, the Woman’s Club of Central Kentucky hosted a series of speakers giving historical sketches on people and places of local interest.

Tina Belle Green Winters Simpler Young (1880-1930), was born in Elmville, Kentucky. Known as Tiny, she was believed to be a sex worker in the 1920s and 30s, and sent $5.00 a week home to support her sister.



The Fayette County Images contains photographs of Lexington and Fayette County Kentucky.