My Town Monday: Anaheim Public Library

Anaheim's public library began in a room in a candy store in 1901, but a mere seven years later, moved into a new building financed by a grant from steel magnate/philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1908. His original investment was all of $10,000.00. The old building still stands and became the Anaheim Muzeo in 1987.

The "new" central library building (pictured below) was authorized by a vote of the residents of Anaheim in 1960 and opened in 1963. Located at the corner of Broadway and Harbor Boulevard, the building comprised fifty thousand square feet designed to hold 200,000 volumes when it opened. With typical Cold War thinking, part of the basement was set aside as a bomb shelter. Now the basement houses multipurpose reading rooms, storage and a staff room.

Over the years, as Anaheim grew, so did the library system which now consists of the Central Library and five branches: Euclid, Haskett, Sunkist, Canyon Hills and East Anaheim.

The Central Library recently underwent extensive remodeling. The Children's Room was expanded, as was the Young Adult section, and encompasses most of the ground floor, along with the Computer Lab and video section. I love this mural outside the entrance to the Children's Room where I used to work.


All of the adult materials were moved upstairs, and the library's Anaheim Heritage Reading Room was moved to the Muzeo.

On the third Saturday of the month, my readers group meets in one of the cozy study rooms on the second floor to discuss the books we've read. Despite the wealth of data at my fingertips over the internet and my preference for reading e-books, I still visit the local library regularly and check out and read books. I've been a library lover since I was a small child, and I doubt that will ever stop.

Do you still use your local library? If not, why not?

Linda

My Town Monday is the brilliant brain child of writer/blogger Travis Erwin. Thanks, Travis! Go to his blog to read his latest post and find links to the other participants.