The Waterford Public Library was chartered by the New York State Board of Regents as a School District Library on February 28, 1895 (revised January, 1994) to provide service to people living in the Waterford/Halfmoon School District.

The Waterford Public Library's general mission is to assemble, preserve and administer both print and non-print materials that will meet the educational, informational, cultural and recreational interests and needs of the people within its chartered service area.

Within that general objective, we give primary importance to serving the above-mentioned needs of out-of-school adults. Gateway-to-Learning service to pre-school children and reference/curriculum support service to students K-12 also fall within our objective.

In furtherance of the above stated mission, the Waterford Public Library cooperates in interlibrary resource-sharing programs of the Southern Adirondack Library System and New York State.