On your right, look for the modern glass-front entrance with big white lettering that reads “BIENES MUSEUM OF THE MODERN BOOK,” paired with warm, curved wooden walls just inside.
This place is basically proof that Fort Lauderdale doesn’t just do beaches… it does BOOKS, too. The Bienes Museum of the Modern Book is the rare book department of the Broward County Library, and it opened to the public on December 5, 1996. Picture that moment: a city better known for sun and sand quietly cutting a ribbon for a museum dedicated to paper, ink, and the oddly thrilling smell of old pages. You know the one.
It started in large part thanks to philanthropists Diane and Michael Bienes, who put up a $1 million donation to get things rolling… which is roughly about $2 million in today’s dollars. Not a bad way to say, “Yes, culture matters.” The launch also leaned on support from the Broward Public Library Foundation, plus funding from the Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Arts Council. And the Bienes didn’t just write a check-they also donated books and artifacts from their own collection, which is the kind of generosity that makes librarians do a quiet little victory lap.
Step mentally inside for a second. The museum sits in an 8,300-square-foot space designed by architect Donald Singer, and it’s got this elegant, curved wood ceiling hovering above slatted wood walls, mixed with glass, granite, and ceramic tile. It’s part library sanctuary, part design statement-a place that makes you want to lower your voice even if nobody asked you to. There’s also a 25-seat conference room and a 60-seat ceremonial room for talks and programs, because books don’t just sit there… they bring people together.
Now for the fun part: the collections. We’re talking more than 15,000 items-rare books, manuscripts, artifacts, reference materials-the whole paper-trail universe. Some highlights get wonderfully specific. There’s the Jean Fitzgerald WPA Federal Writers’ Project material, tying Fort Lauderdale to the New Deal era of the 1930s and early 1940s, when government programs put writers and cultural workers to work documenting American life. Then there’s Floridiana-archives and papers linked to Florida authors like Charles Willeford, Michael Shaara, Connie May Fowler, and Olivia Goldsmith.
And if you think “rare books” sounds too serious, don’t worry. The children’s collections have real personality: over 2,000 alphabet items in the Nyr Indictor Collection, spanning languages from Arabic to Yiddish, plus alphabet-themed toys, puzzles, flash cards, and even wrapping paper. There are Big Little Books-those tiny 4-and-a-half-inch tall classics from 1932 onward-featuring characters like Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, and Mickey Mouse. Add roughly 2,400 vintage comic books from the 1950s to 1980s, and suddenly “library” feels a lot more like “time machine.”
Ready for Bryan Building? Just walk west for 4 minutes.
