National Library Week: Why a Library?

National Library Week is drawing to a close in the U.S. I began the week stating what many of you literate and curious readers already knew: Libraries offer a rich variety of information digitally, although most of them are physically closed, world ’round, for the current pandemic.

In the past ten years, I’ve written about several dozen libraries. Sometimes I’ve limited myself to descriptions and photos of current and former library buildings — from impressive to workaday — as I did most recently about this 1927 building in Wilmington, California.

Libraries, of course, aren’t simply structures, however elaborately imposing some are. Their worth abides in the information they make available, the services provided by dedicated librarians, and one more thing: They represent the pride of place communities have. Every town needs roads, water systems, a city hall, stores, a pharmacy, perhaps a lumber or grain mill. In addition, one of the first things to which citizens gave attention as their settlements grew to villages, towns, cities, was to establish a library.

That’s what happened in rural Beaumont, California in 1913, which I wrote about here.

The original Carnegie library building still stands. The library has expanded, and serves a burgeoning population in the town on the edge of the desert.

More to Discover

Looking through my files, I’ve found three libraries I’ve visited, about which I’ve never written. I’ll start close to home: Redondo Beach, California.

I did write about the 1928 Redondo Beach library, which is now a community center.

Redondo has a new library, its much larger footprint reflecting the growth of the city from a scruffy seaport to a thriving coastal city of 67,000.

Redondo’s is a “special library district,” not part of the Los Angeles Public or L.A. County library systems, a point of pride for many communities, willing to fund and maintain their own library. Redondo also maintains a branch serving the North Redondo area.

The first Redondo library was in a wooden shack on a wharf, part of the busy shipping port in 1895. In 1909, the library moved into the new city hall (which no longer stands). By 1928, the library occupied half the space in city hall, and that’s when the city built the old structure pictured above.

In 1995, 100 years after that first building on Wharf No. 1 was the library, the city opened its new Main Library.

Where Next? Inland

Gardena, California is, like Redondo Beach, one of more than 70 incorporated cities within the greater Los Angeles area. Originally a farming community — hence its name — it now has about 60,000 residents, and includes a mixture of extensive suburban streets, light industry, and some vestiges of its original downtown, where the 1939 post office building still serves.

Not far away on Gardena Blvd. is an extensive civic complex, built in a consistent low-slung style of the 1960s, with city offices, safety and emergency departments and — yes — a library.

The Mayme Dear Library, built in 1964. is one of 87 branches in the Los Angeles County Library system. Fittingly enough, Mayme Dear was a librarian.

Notable is the mural.

Public art can be uplifting, inspiring, tepid or … less. I like this one, designed by Livio Napolitani, depicting writing, printing and books throughout history.

Farther East: 800 Miles

With 580,000 residents, Albuquerque, New Mexico has had a public library since 1901, when the desert town had slightly more than 6,000 residents. Since then, the local system has expanded to include 18 branches serving the city and surrounding Bernalillo County.

The sprawling Main Library, built in 1975, is downtown, not far from the original 1901 building.

Three Amongst Tens of Thousands, Worldwide

A former lumber shipping port. A farm town. A desert way station along the Santa Fe Trail and the Southern Pacific Railroad. All grown up in different ways. Cultures, lifestyles, scenery, climate, all different. Income levels and occupations run the gamut. One thing in common: They have libraries. It costs them money and effort, especially when it’s time for that bond issue or tax levy. Everywhere, communities think libraries are worth it.

As you know.

All these libraries offer a variety of digital services, accessible now while their physical locations are closed, and thereafter, as well.

Is there some local library history your town’s proud of? Please leave a comment.

Logistics

Click on the links below to access the websites for the libraries mentioned in this post.

Beaumont Library District, 125 E Eighth Street, Beaumont, CA

Redondo Beach Main Library, 303 N. Pacific Coast Hwy., Redondo Beach, CA

Gardena Mayme Dear Library, 1731 W Gardena Blvd.; Gardena, CA

Albuquerque Main Library: 501 N. Copper Ave. NW; Albuquerque, NM

Licensable, high resolution versions of some photographs in this post, and select images from other Under Western Skies posts are available on Shutterstock.com. Click on the linked photos, or CLICK HERE to view the Underawesternsky photo portfolio.

© Brad Nixon 2020. My appreciation to librarians at these and dozens of other libraries I’ve visited.