Brodart Co. is a familiar name and is a source of pride for the many residents who live and work where company facilities are located. Brodart Co. employs over 900 people, from its home office on Arch Street in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to its sister plant in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and these branches proudly serve libraries from Papua, New Guinea to Atlanta, Georgia. In addition, manufacturing facilities as well as administrative offices are located in McElhattan, Pennsylvania.

Brodart Co. is composed of several divisions which fall into one of four operating groups: manufacturing, which involves manufacturing library supplies, equipment, furniture; distribution, which wholesales library books and services; and Corporate, which deals with internal and financial affairs.

The Supply Division began in 1939 when a young Columbia University student named Arthur Brody invented the plastic book jacket cover. Mr. Brody did a lot of architectural photography as a student, and one day washed the emulsion off some film and folded it around his books for added protection. When the covers' popularity grew among his fellow students, the plastic book jacket cover was officially born. Today the covers are used to protect the original paper jackets of library books, giving them a longer shelf life and increasing their circulation. This innovation, in turn, gave birth to Brodart Co., and this product is presently produced in our Supply Division.

Today the Supply Division offers thousands of products including plastic magazine binders, book binding tape, printed materials and much more. Many of these products are manufactured in the McElhattan, Pennsylvania Facility.

Brodart Co. continued to flourish, and in 1954 began manufacturing a complete line of library furniture. The Furniture Division, as it's now known, moved from Newark, NJ to Montgomery, PA in late 1959. In 1988 a portion of the Furniture Division moved to McElhattan, PA and continues to expand. Expert workmanship has allowed Brodart Co. to expand and diversify this product line, and today Brodart Co.'s library furniture is sold to schools, universities, and libraries worldwide.

From its beginning in the 1950’s the Book Distribution Division, also located in Williamsport, has grown into one of the largest book distributors in the United States. The company offers libraries and schools books from over 6,000 publishers and stocks in its warehouse 100,000 titles and 1,250,000 books. Many of these books are shipped to libraries completely shelf-ready, fully cataloged and processed with borrowers' cards, spine labels and bar codes already in place. These additional services, pioneered exclusively by Brodart Co., greatly reduce a librarian's workload.

Another Books Division service, McNaughton Book Leasing, solves the problem many librarians face of long waiting lists for popular best-sellers. The books are temporarily "rented" to the library when the demand for the title is at its peak. As the need for the books lessens, the library simply returns them and replaces them with other current best-sellers.

Brodart Co. has always supplied the latest technology to meet the changing needs of the library market. To adapt to these needs, the Automation Division was formed in 1975 to manage the innovative process of storing information about a library's books on computer. Hundreds of libraries are now replacing their card catalog cabinets with P.C. and mainframe systems. These systems combine a personal computer or a CRT with a compact disc or data base. This software and/or library's catalog information can be compiled in Williamsport via the expertise of our professional library staff.

These products, and many more, have given Brodart Co. an exclusive reputation. Brodart Co. is the only company in its industry to be a "Total Library Company." Give us a building, and Brodart Co. will install a library - complete with furniture, books, supplies, and customized software.

An impressive 63 years has passed since Brodart Co. was first founded. This accomplishment is due in large part to the Employees of Brodart Co. never being satisfied to rest on previous laurels, and never accepting a mediocre solution to a customer's needs. Since its beginning in 1939, Brodart Co. and its employees have been constantly striving to provide the best possible service to its customers, and these same people will proudly guide Brodart Co. through the 21st century.