The Edenvale Branch Library, which opened on November 3, 2007, is the most recent addition to the San Jose Public Library System. Funded by a $212 million library bond measure approved by San Jose voters in November 2000, Edenvale is one of San Jose’s larger branches at 22,222 square feet at a cost of $9.7 million. A unique feature of the library is a glass and steel plant canopy overhanging the Marketplace Area near the library entrance. In creating the pubic art installation, the artist brought images of the natural world inside including four California native plants-- redbud, purple needle grass, California buckwheat and black walnut. Community members remark that the building’s exterior, which evokes the angles and planes of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, provides an interesting contrast to the building’s wonderful open interior display of circles and curves.

To collect information on the community’s needs, the Edenvale Branch Library’s architectural group facilitated three public meetings over a six month period. The outcome of these gatherings helped identify key services and areas for the library. Today, the new Edenvale Branch Library’s amenities and areas include: an Internet café; a community living room with a fireplace; a technology center; group and study areas; a community meeting room with space for 100 people; 50 public computers; a homework center for students in grades K-12; a glass enclosed Teen Area; and a clearly defined Family Place that encourages parents, caregivers, and children to share reading experiences. The technologically advanced building can also support special library services such as beginning and intermediate computer skills classes, movie screenings in the Teen Area after school and on weekends, and other multimedia programs including gaming.

The San Jose Public Library Foundation chose “Branching Out: From Dream to Reality” for its fundraising campaign which provides funding for furnishings and equipment for each new branch library. More than $75,000 has been raised for Edenvale to date with donations coming from corporate entities and from the community-at-large.

Edenvale Branch Library serves an area that had no convenient library nearby. The community has enthusiastically embraced the new library—5,000 visitors attended the opening day festivities and by the day’s end, 8,000 items had been checked out. San Jose Public Library Director Jane Light says, “Edenvale Branch Library is the tenth project that we’ve completed under the Branch Library Development Program and we are fortunate in being able to immediately take what has been learned from all previous projects and apply that knowledge to the next project. By the time we are finished in 2011, the entire branch system will have been replaced with new and modern facilities (including three pre-bond renovations) that are in all ways equipped to suit the lifestyle needs of today’s library customers.”

The new Marina Branch of the Monterey County Free Libraries (MCFL) opened on September 29, 2007. The new library cost $8 million and was funded by library bonds approved by the voters of the City of Marina in November 2002 by a 79.6% vote. To assist the City of Marina in purchasing the $560,000 library site, the Marina Larger Library Committee raised over $450,000 in donations from the community

The new building includes an 11,000 square foot library, a 2,000 square foot community room, a 1,500 square foot lobby and the 7,5000 square foot Administrative Offices of the Monterey County Free Libraries. Funds from the sale of the old Monterey County Free Libraries Administrative Offices in Salinas helped the city pay for the construction of the new offices. MCFL provides staff and materials for the new library that the City of Marina owns. The Marina Branch is built on land purchased from the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District, which owns the surrounding 27 acre Locke Paddon Community Park.

Crowds waiting to get a glimpse of their brand new Marina Branch Library  on opening day. [Photo courtesy R. Cauntay]

Special features in the new library include a community room with seating capacity for 86 persons, an outdoor patio, a Teen Room with café furniture, a Homework Center with 16 computers with a selection of black-and-white or color laser printers, three study rooms, a large Children’s Room with story time area, 22 public Internet access computers, three self-checkout stations, a self-service holds pick-up area, a public WiFi Network, and a children’s playground.

The new facility makes many library services and programs possible. The new homework center computers have enabled the library to partner with the City of Marina and the Monterey/Pacific Grove Adult School and offer seniors two computer classes per week. The Community Room has allowed the library to offer special library programming such as a Holiday Music Program featuring 21 musicians; an opportunity for MCFL to partner with other community organizations to host programs for the public such as an area-wide literacy conference, and a dance/live music/storytelling performance.

The new Marina Branch is green inside and out. Natural light, automated lighting controls, and clerestory windows save energy, and trees shade the landscaped parking lot which has environmentally sustainable features such as storm water retention and bioswales that remove silt and pollutants from surface runoff water. The area around the building is landscaped with drought-tolerant materials which transition to the native grasses and plants in Locke Paddon Community Park.

Marina Branch Library Manager Kurt Elliso says the new Library and MCFL Administrative Offices “have become a subject of civic pride in the Marina community. For our library staff, the new facility makes it fun to come to work and hard to leave, especially when one can see the sun set behind the cypress trees through the library’s spacious windows.”

Jayanti Addleman, County Librarian, says “On opening day when the ribbon was cut and we saw the waves of crowds rushing toward the entrance to the library rather than towards the stall that was handing out free hot dogs and hamburgers, I knew that I was in the right profession. There is nothing as gratifying as seeing a project, which has so much community support and which fills a need in the community, move to completion so smoothly.”

San Francisco Public Library Opens Glen Park Branch Library

Cutting the ribbon for the new Glen Branch Library from left to right: Sharon Dezurick, former Branch Manager; Brian Bannon, Chief of Branches; Mayor Gavin Newsom; unidentified young library enthusiast; Donna Bero, Executive Director, Friends of the San Francisco Public Library; Luis Herrera, City Librarian; Supervisor Bevan Dufty; Steve Coulter, Library Commissioner; Jose Cisneros, City Treasurer; and Ed Lee, City Administrator.
[Photo courtesy San Francisco Public Library]