Cover Story
Library (continued from previous page)
Palo Alto’s first public library
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hilanthropist Andrew Carnegie helped fund the first permanent library in Palo Alto, which was built in 1904 on Hamilton Avenue and Bryant Street, where City Hall now stands. Town trustee and later mayor John F. Parkinson had approached Carnegie for the funding during a trip to the East Coast and eventually was awarded a $10,000 grant, about half of what was needed, according to the monograph “Palo Alto and its Libraries — A Long-Time Love Affair� by Tom Wyman. But it was enough to get started. Residents crowded the street as the cornerstone was laid in 1903, with Stanford University president David Starr Jordan giving the keynote address. The new 5,000-volume Andrew Carnegie Library opened in 1904, a modified Florentine Renaissance structure with a red-tile roof and heavy-beam construction. Two years later, the sturdy edifice withstood the 1906 earthquake, but lowered property values from widespread damage reduced library funds. The earthquake brought other
problems to the library. “From our mattresses out on the front lawn, we could see the glare of the fire (in San Francisco) in the sky, and there was trouble at night in the Public Library with some hoodlum refugees from San Francisco,� first City Librarian Anne Hadden wrote. The city wanted to expand the library to add a newspaper room, children’s room and more shelf space in 1910 and again asked Carnegie for funding, but he refused. Subsequent library bonds for the expansion were narrowly defeated in 1912 and 1913, Wyman noted. But strong public support in 1921 resulted in passage of a $40,000 library bond, with a library annex built in 1922 by architects Arthur Clark and his son, Birge Clark. Library circulation topped 100,000 in 1925, Wyman noted. The library came to have additional uses in times of crises. It became a defense information center during World War II, and its basement was declared an emergency station in the event of a disaster, according to Wyman. By 1957 some in the city thought
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Palo Alto Historical Association
Andrew Carnegie Library on Hamilton Avenue preceded current branch downtown
The first permanent Palo Alto City Library opened on Hamilton Avenue in 1904, where City Hall now stands. it was time to shut the old library Library branch temporarily moved down. The city’s branch-library to a commercial storefront at 420 system was well under way: May- Ramona St. After four years and field (on California Avenue), Col- numerous delays, the new Downlege Terrace and Children’s librar- town Branch Library opened on ies had been constructed, and two March 8, 1971, at its present locamore libraries, Main and Mitchell tion at Bryant Street and Forest Park, were in the pipeline. Avenue. Residents protested loudly to The new library housed a senior the downtown library’s proposed center (now Avenidas, located at demolition. Some urged keeping the old police and fire station on the old building as a cultural and Bryant Street) and two large pubrecreation center for seniors; busi- lic meeting rooms, according to ness associations wanted to make Wyman. Decorative wrought-iron room for downtown parking, Wy- grille work — all that remained man said. from the Carnegie Library — was The Carnegie Library was de- incorporated in the new library’s molished in 1967 to make way front and back patio gates. N — Sue Dremann for City Hall and the underground parking structure. The Downtown
entertainment as a top reason to visit the library. Educational purposes — such as a place to do homework or take a class — also ranked high, with 28 percent of people using libraries for that reason. The Milpitas Public Library, a 60,000-square-foot facility, opened in January 2009 with private reading rooms, group-study rooms, a computer-training center, a conference room with a large flat-screen television, and a 200-person-capacity multipurpose room/theater with a stage, where book sales and live concerts are held. At a fraction of that size, Palo Alto’s renovated Downtown Library was nonetheless proposed in a 2009 city report as a place that should combine the characteristics of “(a) a traditional library with large physical collection, (b) modern bookstore and (c) neighborhood coffee shop.� When it re-opens in a week, the branch will have its own groupstudy room with an electronic Smart Board system; the ability to broadcast meetings from the 1,150square-foot community room; fiber-optic Internet connection for 12 public computers and eight laptops; and improved library-wide Wi-Fi access, so anyone with a laptop, tablet or other mobile device can drop in and easily surf the Web.
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ven as libraries have started morphing into technologyoutfitted gathering spots, some