The Brampton Library is a system of public libraries in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. In the 2003 Ontario Public Library Week (October 20 to 26), the library was rebranded with a new logo, and a change in name from the Brampton Public Library to the simpler and more direct Brampton Library had taken place. The library currently has eight branches, with a collection of more than 562,000 books, magazines, large print materials, audio books, and DVDs. It has a staff of 160 full-time and part-time employees. Brampton Library services a population of just under 600,000 people spanning over more than 200 distinct ethnicities. Todd Kyle is the Chief Executive Officer of the Brampton Library, a position that replaces that of Executive Director. History As early as 1858, a library was founded in the Mechanic's Institute, serving 50 people in what was then classified as Brampton. These 360 volumes, plus a federal grant of $160, were the starting blocks for the first actual public library in Brampton, founded in 1887 in the Golding Building on Queen Street. As printing presses were still relatively expensive to operate, and thus book prices high, the village-owned facility had full written contracts with patrons to check out books. Only the librarian and the library board were allowed to take books off the closely watched shelves. In 1907, the library successfully received a grant from US steel magnate Andrew Carnegie to build a new library. Carnegie was a self-made millionaire with "very little formal education", and a well known drive to bring "learning to the masses". Records show donations to 1700 libraries, and the hundreds of facilities across the continent still bearing his name are living proof. Despite being a supporter of culture in general, Carnegie was opposed to the multipurpose facility the village intended to build, as it exceeded his default start-up donation of $10,000. After a meeting with the Brampton Board of Trade's R.J. Copeland, and a promise from Brampton itself to up its funding from $1000 to $1250 a year, Carnegie provided another $12,500 for the town's long-time showpiece facility. In 1946, the Brampton library took on a relatively novel concept for the era, in letting residents under the age of 16 sign out books from the collection. During the 1960s and 1970s, the system expanded to fit the needs of a growing population. The expansion included the Northwood Park Branch (Flowertown and McLaughlin),