Otto Bruyns Library

About us

The Otto Bruyns library has been serving the Northfield community for almost 100 years. We take pride in being an integral part of Northfield by providing our our residents and visitors with the accessibility to knowledge. Our regular hours of operation are:


Monday 10am - 8pm

Tuesday 10am - 8pm

Wednesday 10am - 8pm

Thursday 10am - 8pm

Friday 10am - 5pm

Saturday 10am - 5 pm

Sunday CLOSED

History of the Otto Bruyns Librabry

We are a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the Northfield communities by providing them access to our library and network of local, state and federal services.

The library was founded in 1926 with 100 books that were placed in the office of the Mayor, Eugene Swilkey. Miss Lizzie Price was the first librarian. Miss Price continued to be the librarian until 1947, when she retired at age 82. There is a painting commissioned in 1939, "The of Home Miss Lizzie Price," that still hangs in the front of the library.

The library moved several times over the years. In 1983, the City of Northfield passed a Resolution to change the name of the library to the Otto Bruyns Public Library of Northfield. This was done due to Bruyns long and faithful  service to the city and the library.

The groundbreaking for the library's current home was March 26, 1988, and Otto Bruyns was able to attend. Unfortunately Bruyns passed away before its completion.
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Who was Otto Bruyns?

Otto Bruyns was born in 1904 in South Africa. He grew up poor and started working at 10 years old. In 1946, Bruyns became the mayor of Northfield. At that time, there was no library in Northfield. Bruyns did not like that his children had to take the 4 mile trek to the closest library in Pleasantville. So using the ancient art of making paper from plants, Bruyns not only provided the children books to read, but he started the biggest paper company in the are before moving it to Scranton.  A television show loosely based on his paper company was popular in the UK and the USA.