The Cleveland Public Library is a public library system in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1869, it had a circulation of 3.5 million items in 2020. It operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 27 branches throughout the city, a mobile library, a Public Administration Library in City Hall, and the Ohio Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled. The library replaced the State Library of Ohio as the location for the Ohio Center for the Book in 2003.

In 1811, the idea behind the Cleveland Public Library came "out of small beginnings" when sixteen of Cleveland's sixty-four residents subscribed to its first library, established to distribute the rare printed book. The members read books such as the history of Rome, Lives of the English Poets, Goldsmith's Greece, and Don Quixote.

In 1867, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Dayton Boards of Education petitioned the Ohio General Assembly for authority to levy a tax for the maintenance of free public libraries, permitting boards of education with populations over 20,000 to levy a tax of one-tenth of a mill for each dollar evaluation of their taxable property. Cleveland Superintendent Anson Smyth, who has been called the "father of the Cleveland Public Library," supported this law in his Superintendent position, helping in the laws' development.

The new law provided for a Cleveland library that was part of the school system, controlled by the Cleveland Board of Education throughout the first decade of the library's existence, except for the years 1871–1873.

The Cleveland Public Library opened on February 17, 1869, on the third floor of the Northup and Harrington Block on West Superior Avenue, The library room was adjacent to the Cleveland Board of Education, and opened with approximately 5,800 books.

Luther Melville Oviatt was the first librarian at Cleveland Public Library from 1869 to 1875. During his first year, patrons borrowed 65,000 books. Forwarding thinking in his views, Oviatt wanted to provide books that would interest both children and adults, the mechanic, businessman, and scholar. He had open shelves because, "without a catalog, the only way potential borrowers could ascertain what books were available was to look at them." Oviatt resigned in June, 1875, the victim of governing boards or their subsidiaries, who micromanaged daily operations of the library.

Librarian William Howard Brett opened the library's first stand-alone children's room on February 22, 1898. Effie Louise Power was appointed Cleveland's first children's librarian.

In 1916, the Cleveland architectural firm of Walker and Weeks won a competition to design a new library building. Construction of their classical Renaissance design, delayed by the First World War, began in 1923 under Linda Anne Eastman. Eastman (1867–1963) was the first woman to head a major U.S. city library system and a pioneer in the modern library system. She opened bookshelves to patrons, replacing the New York Public Library system in which a librarian fetched the books.