The Pataskala Public Library was founded in August, 1937, and was located in the old Pataskala Town Hall building at 430 S. Main Street. The first librarian, Ada Clark, oversaw a collection of several hundred books and periodicals. The original collection of books and periodicals was donated by members of the community, and included 400 books donated by the Newark Public Library. The following year, the library was legally organized as a school district library. By 1939, the collection had increased to 2,300 items, and the library had 792 borrowers.
The library dedicated the building at its present location at 101 S. Vine Street in 1969. In 1987, the library celebrated its 50th anniversary, and dedicated a new addition, effectively doubling the size of the library building. Beginning in November of 2010, the library went through an extensive six-month renovation while operating out of a temporary location at 360 E. Broad Street. The library reopened on May 16, 2011.
In March of 2018, the library joined the Central Library Consortium (CLC), forging partnerships with 16 other Central Ohio library systems - including the Columbus Metropolitan Library. Joining the CLC gave library patrons access to nearly 5 million items through shared card and item usage with fellow consortium member libraries. In 2019, the library topped 300,000 circulations for the first time.
A major building project broke ground in June of 2023 and was completed the following summer. During construction, the library temporarily operated at the West Licking County Family YMCA at 350 W. Broad Street. The newly expanded and renovated library opened to the public on July 29th, 2024. This expansion added a community room, study rooms, quiet reading room, makerspace, story time room, drive-up window, and more, nearly doubling the size of the original structure.
From a small beginning, the library has grown into a full service library with 475,000 physical and digital items, board games, passes to local attractions, free WiFi, public internet computers, print and fax services, a diverse catalog of online research databases, a full array of programming for all ages, and much more!
