Printing Price Change

Starting January 1st, the cost for printing and copying will increase by 5¢ due to the cost of upkeep and supplies.

Black & white will now be 20¢/page and color will be 40¢/page.

We appreciate your understanding.

NEW! Art Hive

Join the Newburyport Public Library Art Hive! The NPL Art Hive is held on the 2nd Wednesday of every month in the Program Room.

What is an Art Hive? Art Hives are community art spaces where participants bring in their own arts and crafts projects to meet, exchange ideas, and socialize with fellow artists in an inclusive and respectful environment. They are often held at an art studio, a local venue, or a public library.

All skill levels are welcome. Please bring in your own supplies and projects to work on. The Library will also provide coloring pages, color pencils, and origami. Suggested art hive projects include knitting and crocheting, collaging, small-scale watercolors and/or drawings.

Adults only. See our calendar for dates. Please call 978-465-4428 x2 with any questions. 

The Great Old Book Sale is almost here!

Book Sale Donations

Saturday, October 19: 9:30 am-4:30 pm

Monday, October 21: 9:30 am-7:30 pm

Tuesday, October 22: 9:30 am-2:30 pm

All donations must be brought in through the front door.

Hardcover, paperback and audio books only; no other media, textbooks or magazines will be accepted. Please, 8 box limit.

Friends of the Library Members’ Sale

Wednesday, October 23: 2 pm-8 pm
FOL Members Only. Membership can be purchased at the library.
Entry numbers are available in the lobby starting at 12:00 pm Wednesday.

General Sale

Thursday, October 24: 9:30 am-7:30 pm

Friday, October 25: 9:30 am-4:30 pm

Saturday, October 26: 9:30 am-2:30 pm

Volunteers are always welcome. A volunteer sign-up book can be found in the library lobby next to the Book Sale poster or you can sign up online using Signup Genius HERE.

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Newburyport Public Library. Proceeds will benefit the Newburyport Public Library collections and programs.

NEW! Classics Book Group (In-Person)

Join NPL’s newly formed Classics Book Group! This group meets in-person 3-4 PM the third Thursday of every month in the Director’s Room. Please call 978-465-4428 x2 if you have any questions or would like to have a librarian put the book on hold for you. Registration is highly requests as space is limited. Click HERE to register.

October 17 we will be discussing Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

“When young orphan Heathcliff is adopted by a wealthy gentleman, he quickly forms a close bond with his benefactor’s daughter, Cathy. But over the years, their childhood friendship morphs into a desperate, twisted, possessive love, as they wrestle with the violent and tyrannical rule of Cathy’s brother and the confines of social class that keep them apart. What follows is an ingenious and darkly captivating narrative of frustrated passion and tortured heartbreak reverberating through the generations, wrought with all the brutality, power, and wildness of the Yorkshire moors.

With striking force, Emily Brontë’s mesmerizing prose claws at the nature of human folly, defying the gender, religious, and social mores of its day. Wuthering Heights is a transcendent, mystifying masterpiece that examines the cruelty of love, and the ways in which the past, scratching at a windowpane with ghostly fingers, never lets us go.”

— Penguin Random House 

Council on Aging Outreach Services Drop-In Hours

Starting on Thursday, September 12 (12:30-1:30 PM), Outreach Specialist from the Council on Aging, Ann Freeman, will be available at the Newburyport Public Library twice a month to Newburyport residents.

Stop by to get connected to services and information, including information on housing, home care, food, transportation, finance, health, and family issues. Residents will be helped on a first-come first-served basis. See Reference staff for directions. Consultations and referrals are confidential and free to all. 

Please see the Events calendar for exact dates or call us at 978-465-4428.

Shelving and Teen Advisory Board Volunteer Applications are now being accepted.

Please review the Volunteer Program here. This link contains the policy, the application, and the description for the shelving and Teen Advisory Board positions. In order to apply, please complete the application and either drop off the physical copy with a librarian or scan and email the completed application to the info@newburyportpl.org.

If you would like a physical copy of the application, please contact a librarian by calling 978-465-4428 or emailing info@newburyportpl.org.

Archives Special Summer Walk-In Hours

Need some help getting started on researching your Newburyport home for If This House Could Talk? Or are you researching your family history in Newburyport?

Whatever your question is in relation to Newburyport history, we are happy to connect you with the resources that we have available. You can get started by seeing what we have available by visiting our Archival Center page and clicking on Genealogy Research, House History Research, Local History Research, or Collections.

In addition to our regular hours, the Newburyport Archival Center is offering special Drop-In House History Research Help on Wednesdays 2-4PM until July 24th.

There are also Special Summer Walk-In Hours from 9am to 12pm on the following Saturdays: July 6, July 13, July 20, July 27, August 3, and August 10.

Need help on a different date or time? Please view the Archival Center Hours here or contact us at 978-465-4428 or by emailing info@newburyportpl.org. While appointments are encouraged during certain times so that we can better assist you, you can always feel free to stop by the Archival Center (basement level) or Reference Desk (second floor) to check on availability.

Newburyport Public Library Board of Directors Meeting – now hybrid

As of 1:17 pm today, we are offering the upcoming Newburyport Public Library Board of Directors meeting in hybrid format. The meeting will also be open for in person attendees and will be held in the Program Room on the first floor of the library.

Please review the full Zoom invite information below:


Link to the Zoom Meeting
Full link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81449309599?pwd=Z0hKQ2FPTGJ2STBoYzRqLzVRZ2RDdz09

Meeting ID: 814 4930 9599
Passcode: 805616


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Meeting ID: 814 4930 9599
Passcode: 805616

Newburyport Literary Festival

Join the Newburyport Literary Festival as it celebrates its 19th year! Events will be hosted in various locations around Newburyport. To view the schedule of events, please click here.

The Newburyport Public Library will host the following events on Saturday, April 27th:

9:30 AM: Celebrations of the Season: A Conversation with Nina MacLaughlin

Nina MacLaughlin’s Winter Solstice: An Essay “takes your breath away with lyrical leaps across time and space.” MacLaughlin (Wake Siren: Ovid Resung; Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter and the companion to Winter Solstice, Summer Solstice) looks at the season through every lens, from hot chocolate to waiting until just the right moment to light a candle so a passing stranger might see it go on. In conversation with Josh Bodwell.

Presenter: Nina MacLaughlin
Moderator: Josh Bodwell

11:00 AM: Colonialism, Racism, and the Cosmos: A Conversation with Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s award-winning novel Digging Stars blends drama and satire in the story of a young graduate student who is poised to attain her dream of researching the cosmos but is plagued by anxiety attacks she calls “The Terrors” and forced to grapple with questions about the life and death of her late astronomer father. Tshuma will be in conversation with author Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (Drinking from Graveyard Wells).

Presenter: Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
Moderator: Yvette Lisa Ndlovu

1:00 PM: Enlightened Transsexual Comix with Sam Szabo and Nikole Beckwith

In Enlightened Transsexual Comix, artist and Newburyport native Sam Szabo has created a world where a “raw, uncut heroine roams the wasteland in defense of trans rights and trans wrongs.” This subversive collection of work is “a psychedelic stew of social satire and gonzo gender theory.” In conversation with director, screenwriter, and playwright Nikole Beckwith.

Presenter: Sam Szabo
Moderator: Nikole Beckwith

3:00 PM: Perfect Murders and Twisted Trails

Join two contemporary mystery writers at the top of their game as they discuss their newest novels with local crime writer Connie Hambley. In Blood Sisters, Vanessa Lillie introduces us to a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is summoned to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women—one of whom is her sister. In The Kind Worth Saving, Peter Swanson brings us a private eye who starts to follow a possibly adulterous husband, but little does he know that the twisted trail will lead back to the woman who hired him. How do the authors’ visions of the perfect murder inform each mystery they write?

Presenters: Vanessa Lillie and Peter Swanson
Moderator: Connie Hambley

To request any titles featured in the Newburyport Literary Festival, please call 978-465-4428.

Strategic Plan

The Library is currently working on our next strategic plan. Please click here for updates. As more information is released, we look forward to sharing the results with our community.