San Francisco Public Library
Encyclopedia
The San Francisco Public Library is a public library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

 system serving the city of San Francisco. Its main library is located in San Francisco's Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street at Grove. The first public library of San Francisco officially opened in 1879, just 30 years after the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...

. Since then, it has moved several times. The first three branches were opened from 1888 to 1889, in the Mission
Mission District, San Francisco, California
The Mission District, also commonly called "The Mission", is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, USA, originally known as "the Mission lands" meaning the lands belonging to the sixth Alta California mission, Mission San Francisco de Asis...

, in North Beach
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...

, and in Potrero Hill
Potrero Hill, San Francisco, California
Potrero Hill is a hilly neighborhood in San Francisco, California.-Location:Potrero Hill is located on the eastern side of the city, east of the Mission District and south of SOMA and the newly designated district . It is roughly bordered by 16th Street to the north, Potrero Avenue and U.S...

.

History

In 1877 a residents' meeting was called by Andrew Smith Hallidie
Andrew Smith Hallidie
Andrew Smith Hallidie was the promoter of the Clay Street Hill Railroad in San Francisco, USA. This was the world's first practical cable car system, and Hallidie is often therefore regarded as the inventor of the cable car and father of the present day San Francisco cable car system, although...

 who advocated the creation of a public library for San Francisco. A board of trustees for the Library was created in 1878 through the Rogers Act, signed by Governor of California
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...

 William Irwin, which also created a property tax
Property tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...

 to fund the Library project. The San Francisco Public Library opened in 1879 on Bush Street at Kearny Street and hired Albert Hart as the first librarian
Librarian
A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...

. In 1888 the Library moved to the Larkin Street wing of City Hall
San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco City Hall, re-opened in 1915, in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is the fifth largest in the world...

 in Civic Center
Civic Center, San Francisco, California
The Civic Center in San Francisco, California, is an area of a few blocks north of the intersection of Market Street and Van Ness Avenue that contains many of the city's largest government and cultural institutions. It has two large plazas and a number of buildings in classical architectural style...

. In 1889 the Library became a Federal depository
Federal depository library
The Federal Depository Library Program is a United States program created to make U.S. federal government publications available to the public at no cost. As of June 2008, there are 1,252 depository libraries in the United States and its territories. A "government publication" is defined in the U.S...

 by nomination of Senator George Hearst
George Hearst
George Hearst was a wealthy American businessman and United States Senator, and the father of newspaperman William Randolph Hearst.-Early life and education:...

.

In 1906, architect Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...

 presented his plans for a new Civic Center for San Francisco, including a new library building. These plans were put on hold after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...

, which destroyed about 40,000 volumes, nearly 25% of its holdings. The library moved to temporary quarters while a new building was designed and built. In 1917, the new main library building, designed by George W. Kelham
George W. Kelham
George William Kelham was an American architect most active in the San Francisco area.Born in Manchester, Massachusetts, Kelham was educated at Harvard and graduated from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1896...

, opened in the Civic Center. Ten major murals by California Tonalist Gottardo Piazzoni
Gottardo Piazzoni
Gottardo Fidele Piazzoni was a Swiss-born American landscape painter, muralist and sculptor of Italian heritage, a key member of the school of Northern California artists in the early 1900s....

 were installed in 1931-1932; four more were completed in 1945, but left uninstalled until the 1970s.

New Main Library

In 1986, a task force was set up to complete the design of Civic Center, including the use of Marshall Square, next to the main library at the time, for a new main library. Construction on the current Main Library began on March 15, 1993, at a cost of .
The building was completed in 1995 and opened a year later on April 18, 1996. The old main library, which was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, was rebuilt as the new Asian Art Museum
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is a museum in San Francisco, California, United States. It has one of the most comprehensive collections of Asian art in the world....

.

At over 376000 ft2 and with six floors above ground and one below, the new library is more than twice as big as the building it replaced. The new library features over 300 computer terminals, room for 1100 laptops, and a new wing for children. The city spent nearly $140 million on the new library. Library visitations doubled in its first year open, from 1.1 million to 2.1 million, and the number of library card holders nearly tripled.

Nonetheless, the Main Library has its critics (see also: Guerrilla librarian
Guerrilla librarian
A guerrilla librarian is a person who may or may not be a professional librarian, but has otherwise taken up the stewardship of books or other material. This stewardship is usually outside the acceptance of authority figures, hence the guerrilla or underground nature of the action taken...

). In October 1996 author Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker is a contemporary American writer of fiction and non-fiction. As a novelist, he often focuses on minute inspection of his characters' and narrators' stream of consciousness, and has written about such provocative topics as voyeurism and planned assassination...

 wrote a scathing article in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

about the weeding of books from the library as it moved to the new building. He was also critical about the elimination of the card catalog when the computerized catalog was introduced. Due to this negative publicity, the library released an official response to Nicholson's New Yorker article, criticizing his claims. However, Nicholas A. Basbanes devoted the entirety of chapter 9 in his magnificent Patience and Fortitude to the controversy, overwhelmingly substantiating Baker's charges. There has also been criticism in the local press that the airy and spacious atrium dramatically reduced the amount of floor space available for shelving the library's collection.

The library was prominently used in the 1998 film City of Angels.

Branches

As of 2007, the San Francisco Public Library has 27 branches. The newest branch to open in over 40 years is the Mission Bay Branch Library, which opened to the public in July 2006.

Those listed in italics are currently closed for renovation as part of the Branch Library Improvement Program. The dates listed indicate the year of opening.
  • Anza Branch (1932)
  • Bayview Branch (1927)
  • Bernal Heights Branch (1920)
  • Chinatown Branch (1888-9 as North Beach Branch, renamed 1921)
  • Eureka Valley Branch (1902 as McCreery Branch, rebuilt 1962 as Eureka Valley Branch)
  • Excelsior Branch (1925) -- reopened 7/9/05
  • Glen Park Branch (1927) -- new facility opened 10/13/07
  • Golden Gate Valley Branch (1918)
  • Ingleside Branch (1925)

  • Marina Branch (1954) -- reopened 8/4/07
  • Merced Branch (1958)
  • Mission Branch (1888-9) -- reopened 5/5/1999
  • Mission Bay Branch (2006)
  • Noe Valley Branch (1916) -- reopened 3/8/08
  • North Beach Branch (1958)
  • Ocean View Branch (1902) -- new facility opened 6/7/00
  • Ortega Branch (1956)
  • Park Branch (1895)
  • Parkside Branch (1936)

  • Portola Branch (1928) -- new facility opened 2/21/09
  • Potrero Branch (1888-9)
  • Presidio Branch (1898)
  • Richmond Branch (1892) -- reopened 5/16/09
  • Sunset Branch (1918) -- reopened 3/31/07
  • Visitacion Valley Branch (1934)
  • West Portal Branch (1936) -- reopened 2/10/07
  • Western Addition Branch (1966)


External links

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