Kansas City Public Library offers many services for a variety of needs:

Dial-A-Story

Call (816) 701-3456 and share a 3-5 minute story read by librarians, professionals, neighbors and friends. Stories are suitable for children ages 3 to 103! Dial-a-Story is free and the stories change weekly.

High-Speed WiFi Wireless Access

Experience free high-speed WiFi wireless Internet access at all locations of the Kansas City Public Library.

How to Connect:

1. Set up your wireless card according to the manufacturer's instructions
2. Turn on your laptop, PDA, Palm Pilot, etc.
3. Point your wireless card to "library"
4. Open your web browser and start surfing!

Kansas City Library Consortium (KCLC)

KCLC is a regional library consortium created in 1991 to provide easy access to information, share resources and improve customer service in an economical fashion. Starting with the Kansas City Public Library and seven local college and university libraries, KCLC secured grant funding to help with start-up costs and keep “entrance fees” low. Since that time, KCLC has grown to 29 members and is currently expanding regionally. Members include seven schools along with public, academic and special libraries. Their current combined bibliographic database contains over 2.5 million items, plus online access to indices, journals and a wide variety of other resources via the Internet.

Library Cards

Library cards are available free-of-charge to any resident of Missouri or Kansas.

Meeting Room Rental

Kansas City Public Library has various facilities and meeting rooms available for public use at the Central Library in Downtown Kansas City and at nine branch libraries located throughout the metropolitan area.

Missouri Valley Special Collections

The Missouri Valley Room on the 5th floor of the Central Library is your center for research in local history and genealogy. Whether it’s a street car line or a Civil War battle, we can help. Photographs, postcards, maps, city directories and an unequalled collection of books dating back to the founding of “The Town of Kansas” are available. Librarians are available to help you with your research. Telephone reference is available at 816.701.3427 and email at lhistory@kclibrary.org. Although we cannot do extensive research, we do offer research assistance and answers to questions that require short, factual responses.

Some of the resources of Missouri Valley Special Collections are available online. We also offer print and digital reporductions from our large photograph collection.

Copy Requests

The Library offers a photocopying service.

Interlibrary Loan

Outreach Services:

Books to Go

All preschools and child care homes within the Kansas City Public Library district are eligible for free monthly deliveries of age-appropriate, multicultural library materials. The program is geared to children birth through five years of age. No charges! No fines! Call Carrie McDonald at (816) 701-3580 to enroll or e-mail carriemcdonald@kclibrary.org.

Home Bound Books

Home Bound Books is a service for library customers who aren't able to visit the library because of health-related issues. Librarians or volunteers make home visits to deliver library materials, or books can be mailed free of charge to patrons. This service is restricted to citizens of the Kansas City Public Library district. Call Gayla Honeycutt at 816-701-3490 or e-mail gaylahoneycutt@kclibrary.org.

Senior Services

Outreach services to senior residential and recreational sites include large-print and audio collections as well as Bi-Folkal program kits.

Collections for All

Outreach provides special collections to residential homes, pediatric clinics, correctional facilities, after-school tutoring sites, summer youth programs and more! Call Carrie McDonald at (816) 701-3580 to ask about special deposit collections for your agency!

Reference Services:

Ask A Librarian

Ask A Librarian is a free service of Kansas City Public Library. You may contact the Library by telephone at 816-701-3433, email, or chat to ask questions that require short, factual answers. We also welcome your comments about the Library and its services. For assistance with in-depth questions and research, we invite you to visit the Library in person.

Ask A Librarian Chat Reference

Ask a librarian Chat is a live, online reference service for questions that require short, factual answers and can be found in online resources. The service also answers questions about the Library and about the Library’s collections and databases. You will receive answers from the staff of the Central Reference Department. During the chat session staff may send web pages to you that will appear on your computer screen, or provide citations to resources. AskNow! is available Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm.

Email Reference

We answer email reference questions, too. We'll answer email questions that require short, factual answers. Send an email reference question at any time.

Government Documents

 A selective federal government depository since 1881, the Library carries core documents such as the Federal Register, U.S. Code, Code of Federal Regulations, Statutes at Large and U.S. Reports. We also select historical census publications, congressional documents and climatological data. The Library is also a partial depository for Missouri state documents. The collection itself is not large, but we do have some items such as the Official State Manual, Session Laws and the Revised Statutes that go back to the late 1800’s. Staff can help customers access many other federal and state publications and data from numerous government web sites.

Reference Department

Come visit the Central Library with a question! Our Reference Department is on the 3rd floor of the Central Library. Along with an extensive reference collection of books, reference manuals, and databases, Librarians at our Reference Desk are always happy to answer your questions.

Telephone Reference

Over the telephone we will answer questions that require short, readily available, factual information and does not require extensive searching or lengthy reading. Telephone Reference is available: Monday - Wednesday 9am - 9pm; Thursday 9am - 6pm; Friday 9am - 5pm; Saturday 10am - 5pm; and Sunday 1pm - 5pm at 816-701-3433.