ROOTS: Riverside commences construction of a new library that will further promote Riverside’s creative and family-oriented community.
By Elizabeth Bailey, Staff Writer
A library is often the center of a community, as Riverside’s main library has served for over fifty years. Located on Mission Inn Avenue, and neighboring the theater, the Mission Inn, the Riverside Metropolitan Museum and the First Congregational Church, it is the focal point in downtown Riverside. This area of downtown attracts many people of the community. Considering the generations of Riverside families that have passed through the library’s doors gives the structure a sense of wistful nostalgia. The library itself immediately gives off a homey, welcoming feel reminiscent of a charming childhood memory. The sense of belonging not only comes from the stories within the books but also from the community it draws in and continues to support.
The community is now giving back, supporting the relocation and re-establishment of Riverside’s Main Library. The communal philosophy upon which it is built, as well as its purpose for maintaining and spreading knowledge, can never be replaced, only modernized and re-invented. The project has been planned and discussed for years, becoming the newest addition to the Riverside Renaissance efforts. It has been decided that the overall cost of the project should not exceed $37,000,000.
Based on the efforts put into this update alone, the passion for the project is undeniable. The current main library first opened in the 1960s and was state of the art at the time, but the needs of the library changed in the past few decades. According to Erin Christmas, the newly appointed Director of the Riverside Public Library, “The current space has a large behind the scenes areas for processing materials, storing bound journals, etc. that are no longer needed in a library as books are preprocessed and most journals are found in online databases.” Libraries are now focusing on a more technological base, serving as digital centers for customers to explore and create new technologies, a place for groups to meet and discuss projects or topics of interest, and where parents can bring their children to experience programs that encourage early literacy development. To meet all these needs, Riverside needs a new main library. Christmas explained that “for over 13 years, the city along with other local leaders have been working to rehabilitate the current or build a new main library,” and “in February 2016, City Council determined that the new main library would be located at 3911 University Avenue.” The new building will provide the city with a modern 21st-century library that will help extend Downtown Riverside to the other side of Market Street. Furthermore, the Cheech Marin Center of Art Industry and Culture will be taking over the current main library space. “This Museum is a first of its kind and will be a destination point for visitors from around the world,” Christmas said.
Community leaders and residents alike look forward to the grand opening of the library in 2020, the step it is taking speaks for all libraries, arguing that their future is bright, and, as Christmas says, although “they are not the traditional library your grandparents may think about,” they are thriving beyond anything seen before.