Libraries in Polk County
Three public libraries serve Polk County — Livingston, Onalaska and Corrigan — and each is run by its own city, with its own card, its own hours and its own rules. There is no county library system, so a card from one is not automatically a card at the next. Two archives sit alongside them: the county museum's local-history collection, and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe's own.
Polk County does not run a library. Livingston, Onalaska and Corrigan each run their own, and each sets its own card fee and borrowing limits. Livingston's is the largest and is the only one here confirmed to take part in TexShare and interlibrary loan; if you want that from Onalaska or Corrigan, ask them.
Livingston
The county's largest library, and the only one here with a published policy manual behind it.
Livingston Municipal Library
The county's largest library, and the only one here with a published policy manual behind it. Its catalogue runs under the name Murphy Memorial, which is the library's older name and still the address of its online catalogue.
Anyone living in Polk County, age 10 or over. Under 18 must register with a parent or guardian. Private schools, daycares and nursing homes can apply for an institutional card.
Free inside the Livingston city limits. Polk County residents outside the city limits pay a $5.00 annual membership fee.
Proof of your current address — driver license, ID card, voter registration, a recent letter or bill — in your own name, plus the name of a contact person who does not live with you.
A temporary card is issued for stays of three months or more with proof of a Livingston address. Not for a hotel room, and not for less than three months.
Three items the day you register; 30 once the card arrives in the mail. Within that: 5 new fiction, 5 graphic novels, 5 Texas collection, 5 bilingual, 10 Spanish-language, 2 magazines, 3 audiobooks, 3 DVDs.
A one-week grace period, then 25 cents a day for books, DVDs and magazines and $2.00 a day for audiobooks and music CDs, capped at replacement cost or $20, whichever is greater. Exterior book drops are open 24 hours.
Through the Texas Group Catalog. $3.00 postage per item, four requests at a time, and $1.00 more per request if you live outside the city. Nothing under six months old and no bestsellers. Temporary cardholders cannot request.
Free with a card, through the Piney Woods Digital Consortium on OverDrive. Borrow on a phone, tablet, computer or eReader; nothing goes overdue.
Borrow directly from other participating Texas libraries. You must be in good standing, with no overdue history or fines. It works the other way too — a TexShare card from another library can be used to apply here.
A free one-hour, one-to-one session on computers or research — keyboard and mouse, setting up email, Microsoft Office, job searching, the TexShare databases, downloading eBooks. Book at least a day ahead. Tuesdays 10–11 AM, Wednesdays 3–4 PM, Thursdays 10–11 AM and 3–4 PM.
Public computers with internet and word processing. Cardholders get two hours a day; visitors get one hour a day after showing ID. Extensions at staff discretion for testing, applications or coursework. Flash drives are fine.
One meeting room and two conference rooms, available during public hours. Anything booked has to be free of charge and open to the public. Non-profit community groups may reserve the meeting room up to a year ahead; the conference rooms are walk-in, booked at the desk 15 minutes ahead, normally for two people or more.
Onalaska
Run by the City of Onalaska, on the loop side of town. The city's website would not answer us, so ring first.
Onalaska Public Library
Onalaska's library sits between City Hall and the Police Department, on the loop side of town, and has been open since 2002.
Hours and fees below are the ones published about this library, not ones PolkTX could read off the city's own page — the City of Onalaska's website refuses automated requests from here. Ring before you drive over.
Free for residents of the City of Onalaska and of the Onalaska school district; $3 for anyone out of district. Not confirmed here — ask when you go in.
Corrigan
The City of Corrigan's library, on South Mathews Street.
Mickey Reily Public Library
Corrigan's library, on South Mathews Street. Its own site spells the name Reily; the City of Corrigan's page spells it Riley. Same library, same phone number.
Books and books on CD go out for 14 days. DVDs go out for two days, and no more than two per household at a time.
Black and white copies 15 cents, color 50 cents. The library also scans and emails documents.
No food or drink.
Local history and genealogy
Not a lending library. The county's local-history archive, free to researchers — and closed for a remodel right now.
Polk County Memorial Museum
Not somewhere you borrow a novel — somewhere you go to find out who lived on a piece of land in 1870. The museum's archive is the county's local-history collection, and it is open to researchers for free.
The museum's own front page says it is CLOSED during a remodel, with no reopening date announced. The hours above are the ones it will return to. The county registered the work with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation in July 2025 as a $200,000 renovation: new parking including two accessible spaces, and interior remodelling for two new accessible restrooms. Filed to start that August. TDLR has recorded no completion inspection, so the work is not signed off. The county has not published a reopening date and neither does PolkTX. Check its page or Facebook before making the trip.
Files on early Polk County families; county marriage records from 1846 to 1893; black history research aids; newspaper obituaries and death notices; Commissioners Court minutes from 1846 to 1870; records of the county's historical markers; church histories; cemetery surveys; and records of citizens of the Republic of Texas in Polk County.
Hundreds of photographs, letters, diaries and personal records from the county's pioneering families.
The Tribe's own archive
Kept by the Tribe's Historical Preservation Office. Not a lending library, and not a county or city body.
Alabama-Coushatta Tribal Archives
The Tribe's own record of itself, published by its Historical Preservation Office — photograph galleries going back to the 1910s, video, a dictionary, files, maps, and a tribal portal archive. The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas is a sovereign nation, and this is the Tribe's own work about its own history, not a county collection.
The phone number is the Tribe's main line, not a desk at the archive. The hours are the ones the archive publishes for its Welcome Center and Museum; the Tribe is the authority on both.
Photograph galleries of the reservation and its people from the 1910s onward, many identified by name and some marked not labelled; video; a dictionary; downloadable files; historical maps; and a tribal visual history.
The Welcome Center and Museum on Colabe Road, Wednesday to Saturday 10 to 2 and Sunday 12 to 4.
Every city and community, and whether it has one
Three of the county's five cities run a library, and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe keeps an archive of its own. The rest are listed too, so a blank space does not read as something we did not check.
Beyond your own library
A Livingston card reaches a long way past Livingston. These are the programs it plugs into.
What PolkTX can and cannot do here
PolkTX does not run any of these libraries, hold anyone's card, or have any say in a fine or a fee. We cannot renew an item, place a reserve, or tell you whether a book is on the shelf — the catalogue and the phone numbers above do all three. Each library is its own city's, and each is the authority on its own rules.
Hours changed, or a library we missed? Tell us and we'll fix it.
Sources · 6
LIVINGSTON IS FULLY SOURCED. Its address, phone, email, hours, card eligibility, the $5 out-of-city fee, the checkout limits, the overdue rates, the interlibrary loan terms, the computer time limits, the meeting-room rules and the Book-A-Librarian schedule were all read off the library's own pages on 2026-09-08, and the address, phone and hours were confirmed a second time against the City of Livingston's facility page. One discrepancy: the library's own site gives [email protected] and the city's facility page still gives [email protected]. The library's own page is used here. CORRIGAN IS SOURCED TWICE: the address and phone from the City of Corrigan's library page and the hours, checkout periods and copy prices from the library's own site, both on 2026-09-08. The name is genuinely spelled two ways — Reily on the library's site and in its domain, Riley on the city's page. ONALASKA IS NOT CONFIRMED. The City of Onalaska's website returns a bot challenge to every automated request from here, as it did when this site's law-enforcement page was built, so nothing on that card was read from the city itself. The address, phone, hours, card fees and the 2002 opening are what is published about the library elsewhere, and the card is marked accordingly — ring 936-646-2665 before you drive over. THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED: its own front page, dated June 2026, says the museum is closed during a remodel and gives no reopening date; the hours shown are the ones it published for normal operation. THE ALABAMA-COUSHATTA TRIBAL ARCHIVES WAS ADDED ON 2026-09-09 AND WAS PREVIOUSLY MARKED NOT CONFIRMED HERE. It was found from the Tribe's own website and read on its own site the same day: the archive is published by the Tribe's Historical Preservation Office, and its address and opening hours are the ones that site gives for its Welcome Center and Museum. The phone number shown is the Tribe's main line, not a desk at the archive. The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas is a sovereign nation; nothing here is said on the Tribe's behalf, and the Tribe's own site governs. NOT VERIFIED: whether Onalaska or Corrigan take part in TexShare or interlibrary loan — only Livingston's participation is documented — which of Onalaska or Corrigan participate in TexShare or interlibrary loan. A caution for anyone checking this work: several searches for these libraries return Livingston, Montana; Livingston, New Jersey; Polk County, Florida; and a Polk County Historical Society in Cedartown, Georgia. None of those are this county.
- Livingston Municipal Libraryread 9/8/26
- City of Livingston facility pageread 9/8/26
- City of Corrigan library pageread 9/8/26
- Mickey Reily Public Libraryread 9/8/26
- Polk County Memorial Museumread 9/8/26
- Alabama-Coushatta Tribal Archivesread 9/9/26