The Washington Village Branch Library is a publicly funded and managed library that serves more than 30,000 residents in the city of South Boston, a densely populated neighborhood of Boston south and east of the Fort Point Channel and abutting Dorchester Bay, Massachusetts. It is an affiliate branch of the Boston Public Library (BPL). BPL was established in 1948 and first opened to the public in 1854 at Mason Street, where it started with only a 16,000-volume collection. Today, it has expanded to fully cater to its patrons, and the Washington Village Branch Library is only one of the 26 branches. The Branch was initially established in January 1901 in the John A. Andrew School on Dorchester Street and was initially known as the Andrew Square Reading Room, or "Station Y." It changed its name to the Washington Village Branch in 1942 and was relocated at 290 Old Colony Avenue in the Old Colony Housing Project. It has overcome so many changes, from the fire in 1972 to becoming a bookmobile for a while and then finally reopening in 1983. The branch contributes to the overall collection and services of the library system, which includes more than 8.2 million books and serial volumes, more than 50,000 E-Books, more than 38,000 audio files, and more than 68,000 video files. The library system circulates more than 3.7 million items, has more than 200,000 registered borrowers, and receives more than 3.7 million visitors annually across its 26 locations.