Tours
The J. Erik Jonsson Central Library has a wealth of treasures to explore! Our self guided walking tour will take you through some of the highlights. Start on the first floor and work your way up, or the 8th floor and work your way down. If you have questions, ask one of our friendly staff members at each floor's reference desk. They're happy to tell you more about the library or point you in the right direction.
For group tour information, inquire at askalibrarian@dallascityhall.com.
Central Library Overview
Welcome to the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, the hub of the Dallas Public Library system. Dallas Public Library consists of 30 locations throughout the city of Dallas. The J. Erik Jonsson Central Library was named for a previous mayor of the city of Dallas, who helped raise the funds to build the library. It was built in the modernist architecture style, inspired by City Hall, which is across the street from the library. The library opened in 1982 as a research library. Upon opening, the Central Library was the only major library in the world to have its an entire catalog digitally accessible.
The library, at 646,000 square feet, is one of the largest public library buildings in the country by size. It consists of eight floors that are open to the public and host a variety of in-depth collections on every subject. Collections don't just mean books, though Dallas Public Library holds one of the largest circulating public library collections. DPL's collections consist of everything from artwork and historically significant artifacts, to LPs and laptops. Collections are organized by floor, so on one floor you'll find the history collection and on another, you'll find the small business collection. No matter the subject, on each floor, you'll find a variety of treasures to explore. We've got no better treasure than our incredible library staff though. Staff are trained subject matter experts and can go in-depth with you to meet all your research needs, whether it's exploring your genealogy or learning to play an instrument.
In addition to vast collections, the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library is home to two other city departments, the Office of Vital Statistics and the Small Business Center. The office of Vital Statistics is located on the first floor and welcomes customers who need birth and death records for the City of Dallas. The Small Business Center is located on the 5th floor. The Small Business Center provides dedicated resources designed to assist small emerging businesses in Dallas.
For this library tour, we've highlighted a variety of treasures on every floor. Each is discoverable by QR code, where you can listen to or read about some of our most exciting gems. You can start on the first floor and work your way up, or go all the way up to the eighth floor and make your way down, the choice is yours. If you're in need of assistance, talk to one of our staff members at the reference desk. They're happy to guide you.
First Floor
The First Floor of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library has a general collection with newer titles for adults in fiction and nonfiction. You can also find travel guides, magazines, large print, and audio books. The first floor is also home to the HELP Desk, the library’s homeless engagement desk. Dallas Public Library is a safe, welcoming place for all, including our unhoused neighbors. The library’s Homeless Engagement and Leadership Program (H.E.L.P.) provides one-on-one assistance, referrals to service providers, peer support, and social inclusion.
Travel Collection
Whether you’re a world traveler or an armchair explorer, the First Floor has all the travel guides you’ll need to get there. Whether you’ve got a destination in mind or want to explore all your options, the guide you need is right here.
Community Exchange Mural
Libraries are built with community in mind and this mural, created by Eyecon Studios in 2015, inspires visitors to engage in community dialog, embrace diversity and exchange ideas.
Bertoia Screen
Textured Screen by Harry Bertoia was commissioned for the new Dallas Public Library in 1955. Bertoia was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor and modern furniture designer. He lived from 1915-1978. Textured Screen’s instillation was controversial at the time and the art was temporarily removed, but it is now celebrated for its artistic value.
Second Floor
The second floor houses the Youth Discovery Center, which creates a mix of learning and play for the library’s youngest patrons. This floor is filled with 125,000 books plus audiobooks, CDs, DVDs, magazines, toys, chalkboards, crafts, and computers. Don’t expect to be shushed on this floor, as puppet shows, crafts, and STEM activities are highly encouraged!
World Languages and Braille
To promote reading for everyone, the Youth Discovery Center houses Braille, large print, and audiobook collections. The floor also contains a unique collection of world language books that encompass over 39 languages including many bilingual titles.
Siddie Joe Johnson Collection
The Siddie Joe Johnson Collection, named after the renown children's librarian and author, contains rare and unique items for the study and appreciation of children’s literature. Highlights include an original Beatrix Potter, early editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and early editions of Mother Goose. Ms. Johnson served the children of Dallas Public Library for 23 years. The Siddie Joe Johnson collection is made available to patrons by appointment only.
Discovery Wall
The Discovery Wall is a free virtual program experience for students in the DFW area. Sponsored by Atmos Energy, the Discovery Wall provides virtual, interactive field trips to zoos, museums, and more all over the world.
Fairy Tale Collection
The Youth Discovery Center is home to one of the largest fairy tale collections available for checkout. This collection contains over 3000 items covering original classics, retellings, and tales from around the world. Inspired by the fairy tale collection, Dallas Public Library’s Fairy Tale Closet gives away prom dresses so that teens can have their own magical experience without the accompanying price tag.
Third Floor
The third floor is home to the Literature, Language, and Religion collections. In addition to the impressive fiction section, this floor houses the Story Center Creative Space, Board Game Room, and office of the Dallas Poet Laureate. There is also a large collection of Spanish language books, as well as texts in other hundreds of other languages, along with the GED testing center, where students can take their GED test for free.
Sci-Fi and Fiction
The third floor is for the books. The fiction and science fiction collections are the largest in one room, west of the Mississippi River. In fact, if the shelves sat end to end, they’d span a mile. The collections contain a wide variety of titles, from the latest best sellers to absolute classic authors. Scifi includes classics like Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein and Frank Herbert.
Board Game Room
The 3rd floor also offers board games for all ages and skill levels. Whether you’re in the mood to play a classic, like Candyland or Battleship, want to play a more technical game, like Catan or Wingspan, or if you're looking for roleplaying, like dungeons and dragons or Warhammer, the space was designed with you in mind.
Dallas Poet Laureate
Dr. Mag Gabbert is the City of Dallas' second poet laureate and she offices on the third floor of the Central Library. Dr. Gabbert is a humanities professor for SMU, with a Ph.D. in English and a focus in creative writing. She is an award-winning writer and her works are widely published in nationally and internationally recognized magazines and journals.
As the Dallas Poet Laureate, Mag represents the City of Dallas as an ambassador of the literary arts by presenting her original poems at schools and community events. She is a liaison, advocate, and leader who will inspire the diverse residents of Dallas County to read, write, perform, and appreciate poetry.
Story Center
The Story Center is one of Dallas Public Library's three Creative Spaces. The Story Center allows you to tell your story, real or imagined, through multiple mediums. Utilize audio and video resources to take photographs, record audio, and edit creative work. Whether you’re recording a podcast, documenting your family’s history or editing a video via Adobe Creative Cloud, the Story Center has what you need to bring your story to life.
Fourth Floor
The Fine Arts Division, located on the fourth floor of the Central Library, serves both research and informational needs in the performing and visual arts, and includes books, magazines, DVDs, CDs and vinyl. Along with the expansive book collection, the Dallas Theater Archives and Dallas Symphony Orchestra Archives are both stored here. The 4th floor also includes a Fiber Arts Workroom, three exhibit spaces, a performance space, music rehearsal rooms and a dance studio. Though they aren’t stops on the tour, as you walk around, look out for paintings by Picasso, Man Ray, Henry Moore and Chagall.
Exhibit Spaces
The Fine Arts Division is fortunate to have multiple exhibition spaces to support a wide range of artists at every stage in their career. The Lillian Bradshaw Gallery, Shirley Phillipson Pollock Performance Space and the Square One Gallery display works by artists from all over DFW and Texas. These spaces allow artists the opportunity to showcase their works at no cost, giving them much needed exposure
Vinyl Collection
With over 16,000 titles, the 4th floor holds the largest collection of vinyl in a public library in the US. The collection includes a wide range of genres from jazz to rock, hip-hop to classical.
Fiber Arts Workroom
Our Fiber Arts Workroom is dedicated to all-things fabric and thread: sewing, knitting, embroidery, weaving and more. Create usable and sustainable wear. Our space offers equipment to help people of all skill levels bring their ideas into finished projects. Learn how to sew, quilt, embroider, and create sustainable fashions by taking advantage of this space.
Frank Lloyd Wright Music Stand
Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the greatest American architects of the twentieth century, as well as an avid music enthusiast, designed and built the visionary, yet impractical, music stand before us. Only six other music stands are known to exist in the world, and the Dallas Public Library was lucky enough to have acquired such a rare musical treasure.
The impetus for his design stemmed from his belief that music and architecture belong together. Wright then designed a one-piece music stand with four music racks and surmounted it with an elegant light canopy. Though considered an architectural masterpiece, the actual usage of the stand was problematic. Apparently, musicians found it impossible to use. There wasn’t space to turn pages and the lights didn’t shine on the music.
Fifth Floor
On the 5th floor, you will find materials related to business, science, technology, health, sports, cookbooks, pets, car repair manuals, and more. This floor also has dedicated sections focusing on small business entrepreneurship, grant writing, nonprofits, and the oil/gas industry, as well as being home to the City of Dallas' Small Business Center. Along with the collections, you will also find a pollinator garden on the balcony and displays honoring periods of recognition and history.
Nancy and Jake L. Hamon Oil and Gas Resource Center
Thanks to an endowment from Mrs. Nancy Harmon in memory of Jake L. Hamon in 1998, the Nancy and Jake L. Hamon Oil and Gas Resource Center features materials and resources pertaining to the oil, gas, and alternative energy businesses.
Pollinator Garden Balcony
Planted and maintained by the Dallas Public Library and community volunteers, the 5th floor’s pollinator garden features 28 planters filled with native North Texas pollinator plants. With the increased urbanization of North Texas, having native plants available for insects and wildlife is more important than ever before.
Viking Ship Drakkar
One of the more unusual items on this floor, the large model of a Drakkar Viking ship was donated by Texas Instruments in memory J. Erik Jonsson, who was a co-founder and early president of the company.
Sixth Floor
The 6th floor was recently remodeled and opened to the public in November of 2021. The City Life Education & Work Skills unit features a wide array of services including the library’s job search center and adult learning department. In addition to materials in the social sciences it provides patent and trademark resources in collaboration with the US Patent and Trademark Office, grants and non-profit information in cooperation with CANDID, provides digital access to Federal Depository materials and hosts the DPL seed library. The sixth floor also has most of the library ’s classrooms and study rooms and hosts events of all sizes.
Seed Library
The Dallas Public Seed Library is a collection of open pollinated and heirloom seeds available free to members of the public. The library facilitates sharing of donated seeds between local gardeners and teaches classes on seed sharing cooperates with local partners to share gardening and plant classes and other resources.
Visionaries of Dallas
Visionaries of Dallas is a digital exhibit celebrating the people who helped shape the fabric of downtown Dallas. The exhibit is curated by the Dallas History and Archives division staff.
Leaning Tower of Dallas Mural
This art installation represents the demolition of the building called Southland Corporation Office Tower, by the company Lloyd D. Nabors Demolition Company on February 16, 2020. During the demolition, the initial explosion was not successful in bringing down the tower, leaving a leaning building in place similar to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This caught the attention of citizens who congregated around the building to take photos and nicknamed it The Leaning Tower of Dallas. On March the 3rd of 2020, the demolition of the building was completed by a wrecking ball.
For the art piece, Robenz built four panels 5ft x 8ft, each one was painted out in the open directly in front of the Leaning Tower of Dallas.
Robenz is a self-taught immigrant artist who lives in South Dallas. Marquez grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico. The artist ventures to the sites of tragedies and crises around the world to honor the victims and protest the injustices through his art.
Seventh Floor
The Dallas History & Archives Division of the Dallas Public Library is one of the largest collections of its kind in the nation. Our holdings span many aspects of the diverse history of not only Dallas and the surrounding area, but the entire state of Texas and the Southwest region. Dallas Public Library archivists collect, preserve, and provide access to a wide range of collection items in text, graphic, audio, and video formats. Notable holdings include the John F. Kennedy Collection, photographs by Marion Butts, and collections from Margo Jones, Anita Martinez, Juanita Craft, and the Dallas Mexican American Historical League.
Fine Books
The Virginia Lazenby O'Hara Fine Books Collection has over 2,750 volumes focusing on three areas: the History of Printing and the Book, the History of Ideas, and Fine Printing - the Art of the Book. Notable holdings include a Sumerian clay cuneiform tablet, a papyrus fragment from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, the First Folio of William Shakespeare, and a Salvador Dali hand illustrated edition of Alice in Wonderland.
Shakespeare’s Folio
One of the treasures of the 7th floor of the J. Erik Johnson Central Library is the first printing of William Shakespeare's complete works, known as the First Folio. The First Folio is considered to be one of the most influential books ever published and continues to resonate with modern audiences centuries after its publication. Out of approximately 750 copies printed, 235 are known to remain in collections around the world. William Shakespeare's First Folio was a gift of the Dallas Shakespeare Club, and is one of the treasures of the Virginia Lazenby O'Hara Fine Books Collection here at the Dallas Public Library.
Declaration of Independence
The first published copies of the Declaration of Independence were the Dunlop broadsides, one of which you see on display on the 7th floor of the J. Erik Johnson Central Library. An estimated 200 broadsides were printed by John Dunlop on the night of July 4, 1776. They were widely distributed and read to the public, announcing the news of independence from Great Britain. One of only about 26 surviving copies, this Dunlop broadside is sometimes referred to as the “Lost Copy” since it was re-discovered in 1968 during the closing of Leary’s Book Store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where it had languished in storage for more than 100 years. The City of Dallas acquired it in 1982, and thanks to the generosity of the Friends of the Dallas Public Library, this pivotal document is on permanent display on the 7th floor of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library.
Digital Interactive Gallery
The Digital Interactive Gallery is an interactive touch screen experience exploring the special collections of Dallas History & Archives and the Virginia Lazenby O'Hara Fine Books Collection. From here you can listen to oral histories as well as view photographs, maps, and a timeline history of the Dallas Public Library.
Eighth Floor
The Genealogy & History floor is home to one of the top ten genealogy collections in the United States. Additionally, the 8th floor houses the Heritage Lab, a place to preserve family treasures, and the McDermott Navajo Blanket collection featuring the largest collection of Navajo blankets on display in the world. It also home to the library’s history book collection.
Top 10 Genealogy library in U.S.
Hailed as one of the top genealogy collections in the country and one of the best genealogy collections for browsing, the Dallas Public Library is a nationally recognized destination for genealogy researchers. The genealogy collection features books, manuscript collections and unique research materials covering all 50 states and many countries.
Heritage Lab
The top floor of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library houses the Heritage Lab, a state-of-the-art maker’s space that allows you to digitize and preserve your family treasures for free. Access to the full Adobe Suite is available to create new ways to share your family memories.
Navajo Blankets
On display on the 8th floor of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library through the generous support of the McDermott Foundation is a collection of rare Navajo blankets. The McDermott Collection of Navajo Blankets at the Dallas Public Library is one of the largest collections of Navajo weaving blankets on display in the world.
Maps
Dallas Public Library houses one of the area's most comprehensive, public collections of topographic and city maps and atlases. Highlights of the collection include an extensive collection of internationally-focused cultural and topographical maps and folding maps for U.S. cities, recreation and fishing areas as well as street, world and historic atlases.