About Us

WELCOMING: Promoting an environment where all are treated with respect and a sense of belonging can be achieved.

DISCOVERY: Offering opportunities to connect, explore new ideas, and expand on all types of literacy. 

COMMUNITY FOCUS: Engaging the community and responding to needs through enhanced relationships, partnerships, and accessible resources. 

AN OPEN MIND: Maintaining balance in collections, programs, and ideas that respects different viewpoints and allows room for debate and exploration. 

PUPROSE-DRIVEN APPROACH: Utilizing data and research in evidence-based decision-making that aligns resources, needs, and support. 

FLEXIBLE & FORWARD-THINKING: Creating positive interactions by quickly adjusting to expressed needs while anticipating ongoing opportunities to remain future-ready. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusivity will continue to be a priority and focus for the Board, library staff, and strategic planning. View DEI Initiatives

Mary Riley Styles Public Library strives to provide outstanding customer service to all library users. View Customer Service Guidelines

These are on-going and living acknowledgements as we seek to understand the history of the City of Falls Church and the impact on displaced and enslaved peoples. As we learn from our past we hope to improve the future and continue to engage with the community encouraging dialogue and learning across cultures.

We acknowledge that the land that the library resides on and where we work, learn, and gather as a community was originally inhabited by the Piscataway tribal nation.

We acknowledge that this land also was where enslaved people worked and lived as part of the Trammell Tract which is modern day City of Falls Church. We must recognize and acknowledge that the United States as we know it was built at the expense of enslaved Black people and indigenous populations – and that they suffered the horrors and dehumanization of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow laws.

We remember those who came before us and recognize the truthful history of our community.  With gratitude we acknowledge the work of early activists, EB Henderson and Rev. W. E. Costner, who moved (challenged) the library to put into practice the espoused values.  We seek to promote understanding and recognition of that history.

The library started in 1899 as a collection of 650 books maintained by the Village Preservation and Improvement Society (VPIS) in a structure behind the home of George W. Hawxhurst at the northeast corner of North Washington and East Columbia Streets. 14 years later (in 1913), the collection was transferred from VPIS to the Falls Church Civic League (know later as the Falls Church Women's Club) and continued to operate out of different locations throughout Falls Church until the late 1950s.

The Town of Falls Church first officially began supporting the library in 1928 and assumed full responsibility for the library in 1940. After becoming an independent City in 1948, the City of Falls Church established a formal library board in 1954 and ultimately funded construction of a new library building on land donated by the children of Mary Riley Styles, the longtime chairwoman of the Woman’s Club who passed away in 1946.

The new building opened in 1958 and has since been renovated and expanded three times: 1969, 1993, and most recently 2021. Previously known as the Falls Church Public Library, it was re-named the Mary Riley Styles Public Library in 1977.

Today, the library continues to serve City of Falls Church’s roughly 15,000 residents, as well as library users throughout the Metro DC area.

_{Photo Credit: David Keith Photography}

Mary Riley Styles Public Library was one of only 6 public libraries in Virginia – and one of only 258 public libraries nationally – to receive a star ranking in the 2022 Library Journal Index of Public Library Service. Learn more...