On January 7, 1909 public reading room was opened in Elevandi Street 7. There were 400 books in Estonian. From 1942 to 2003 the library was located at several addresses. Since May 31, 2003 Pärnu Central Library is housed in modern specially designed library building in Akadeemia Street 3 and size of collection is about 300 000 books in several languages and about 200 items of periodicals.