Ishioka city Central Library, Public library in Ishioka, Japan.

Ishioka city Central Library is a three-storey reinforced-concrete building with a site area of 1,134 m², a building area of 658 m² and a total floor area of 1,521 m². Beside it stands the single-storey prefabricated Children's Library Hon no Mori, opened in 2017, with a floor area of 262 m² and a broad carpeted storytelling room.

The library began on 9 September 1889 as the Ishioka Shojakukan, a private library set up by Tezuka Shotaro, second headmaster of Ishioka Elementary School, in a corner of his office; it was Ibaraki Prefecture's first library, 14 years before the prefectural library. Renamed Ishioka Library, it passed to town control in 1923, moved between temporary quarters after the war, and in 1980 received its own building for the city's 25th anniversary. It took its present name in 2005 when Ishioka merged with Yashiro.

The library's name traces to the Ishioka Shojakukan, founded in 1889 by Tezuka Shotaro, the second headmaster of Ishioka Elementary School, in a corner of his office. The name "Shojakukan" was chosen after the 1872 Tokyo institution of that name. In 2019 the library marked its 130th anniversary with a lecture by Ishioka-born novelist Dekune Tatsuro.

The library is about a 12-minute walk (roughly 1 km) from Ishioka Station on the JR Joban Line, or about 4 minutes (roughly 400 m) from the Kokubuncho bus stop on Kanto Railway buses. It opens at 9:00 and closes at 19:00, but at 17:00 on weekends and holidays; the children's library closes at 17:00 every day. It is closed on Mondays (and the following day when Monday is a holiday), the day after holidays, the year-end and New Year period, and the last Thursday of each month except April, August, September and December.

The library holds a collection of regional documents that tell the story of Ishioka's development through photographs and written records spanning decades. These archives offer visitors a rare window into how the city has changed and grown from the perspective of its own residents.