Using Your Library

Residents of Johnson County and surrounding counties are eligible for a free library card. Gain access to resources including books, DVDs, craft kits, and more.

Online Library Card Application
Any application completed online is for a limited use card, allowing limited digital use privileges plus check out of three physical items within the library. We will mail your card along with an address verification card. Once you have returned the address verification card and shown a photo ID (for those age 18 and over), you will be upgraded to a full privilege card.

JCPL offers a traditional collection of books and audiobooks of a variety of genres for all ages. These can be searched and reserved from anywhere using our Online Catalog or may be searched from within the library, both with or without staff assistance.

Additionally, your valid JCPL card provides access to 24/7 Digital Content through a variety of providers.

The library also provides public computers and WiFi on-site free of charge to all visitors, with or without a valid JCPL card.

Visit the library for print and fax service or send print jobs from any device and pick up your prints at the library using our ePRINT portal. Just follow the simple directions found there.

Fees are charged by the page as follows:

• Black and white $.10
• Color $.25
• Fax $1.00

We accept checks and cash for any amount and credit/debit cards for amounts over $1.00 at pick-up.

The bookmobile is our handicap accessible mobile branch, which provides access to all the items within our library at your location. Browse the bookmobile’s collection or reserve books and have them delivered. Call us for more information, to have a staff member help you reserve items, or to schedule a bookmobile visit.

2023 Bookmobile Schedule

Need an item that isn’t in our collection? Interlibrary loan services are free and available to patrons living in Johnson County who hold a valid JCPL full privilege card in good standing. Amount of time to receive items and length of loan vary depending on the policy of the lending library. Be ready to provide title and author of the items you need and two working phone numbers or a working phone number and an email address.

The library has meeting areas to accommodate nonprofit groups during library business hours. Space can be configured for any purpose using rolling, modular, rectangular tables, and lightweight chairs. Technology available in each area includes flat screen TV and HDMI cable for projection plus access to WiFi. DVD players and a fanny pack mic are also available upon request. Use your own laptop to connect or reserve one or more of ours.

Call the library at 606-789-4355 for more information or to reserve a room.

The Johnson County Public Library has always believed that an understanding of the past is an integral part of planning for the future. Crucial to an understanding of the past is a well-rounded local and regional history and genealogy collection.

On-site, the Patricia Patton Kentucky Room houses the print and microfilm local history and genealogy collection. Building this reference collection has been a joint venture between JCPL and The Johnson County Historical and Genealogical Society, who have contributed, and continue to contribute, materials such as books, their own periodicals, family charts, maps, photographs, and many one of a kind items. Because so many of the items contained within this collection are irreplaceable, this collection remains for reference only, meaning that no items may be borrowed. However, more and more items are becoming available for use outside the library as items are scanned and made available online.

Local newspapers, such as Big Sandy News and The Paintsville Herald, are some of those resources that are available online through Advantage Archives and also in the microfilm collection. Other items available on microfilm include census records (state and federal) starting in 1810, land deeds, marriage certificates, birth/death records, court orders, tax records beginning in 1793, records from North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. To access the microfilm collection, both classic and new technology in microfilm readers are provided.

In print, JCPL owns census records of any county that borders Johnson County as well as some more far-reaching. The records start in the early 1800s and extend to the 1930 census of Johnson County. Find an abundance of family histories compiled by local researchers, some of which are short family histories and others that extend to several volumes, as well as local church and cemetery records.

The Library’s Civil War materials are unequaled in the area. These include a complete set of War of the Rebellion and complimentary history of the same war on microfilm, The Civil War Diary of Captain Edward O. Guerrant C.S.A. 1861-1865 in its entirety, Southern Historical Society Papers, and local historian and author John David Preston’s Civil War publications.

Other items of note include:

• Photographs and physical items of interest from John C. C. Mayo
• The Treatises on Mayo Memorial United Methodist Church by Robert M. Conley
• Ed Hazelett Collection
• Val McKenzie Collection
• Items from local historian Janet Horne
• Eastern Kentucky Papers: The Founding of Harman Station by William Elsey Connelley,
• An original copy of History of Kentucky, edited by Judge Charles Kerr with handwritten corrections by William Elsey Connelley

Periodicals in hard copy include:

• Local yearbooks, including The Chat-ter-a-wha (1925, 1926, 1928) of John C.C. Mayo College and Mountain Memorette (1930, 1932, 1938)
• Highland Echo
• The Bankmule
• East Kentuckian
• Kentucky Ancestry Quarterly
• Kentucky Explorer
• Sparks Quarterly
• The Wells Family Association Newsletter

You can search for any of these items, and many more, using our online catalog.

Click below to access genealogy resources available online 24/7 from any location. Visit the Library to access Ancestry Library Edition and Heritage Quest.

History and Genealogy Resources