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PCPL News NEW LIBRARY BRANCH
This summer, library lovers will have something to look forward to besides high temperatures. PCPL anticipates completing construction on the Martha Cooper Branch Library at 1377 N. Catalina Ave.,
near Speedway and Columbus Blvd. Neighborhood activist Martha Cooper, for whom the library is being named, played a key role in making it all possible. Though no longer living, she would be pleased at the degree of community support for and lively interest in her namesake library branch.
The 2.6 million dollar building, funded by a combination of city and county bond money and a Community Development Block Grant, will hold some 20,000 new items, including books, magazines, and nonprint materials. The collection will place a strong emphasis
on literature for children and young adults, while not neglecting the needs of adult readers. Like other branches, the Martha Cooper branch will provide homework help, story times, and computer classes for library patrons of all ages. Library planners hope to acquire up to 20 computers for the branch. Some ten full time staffers, including
librarians, circulation clerks, and pages, are expected to serve this branch. For more information, contact PCPL Deputy Director Pat Corella at 791-4391. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TUCSON-PIMA PUBLIC LIBRARY With a population of slightly over 7,000 in 1880, the desert outpost that would become Tucson found itself lacking an
important component of intellectual life: a public library open to all its citizens. Energetic public leaders, among them Mr. J.S. Mansfield, began plans for the first library, which opened in 1883 and was housed in the upper story of the new City Hall, then located where the old Pima County Courthouse now stands on Church Street. The collection
at that time was modest, but a generous grant of $25,000 from Andrew Carnegie in 1900 sparked the vigorous growth that continues to this day. This is the first in a series of articles tracing the history and development of the Tucson-Pima Public Library, a system that
has been the envy of larger cities and which enjoys the continued support of a city with a population approaching one million. In 1901, the new Main Building of the fledgling library was dedicated at 200 South Sixth Avenue, now the Children’s Museum, facing the vast
field then called Military Plaza, now Armory Park. The Arizona Citizen of July 30, 1901, reported that the Carnegie Free Library opened to great acclaim that Monday morning, but “owing to an unfortunate mistake, the electricity was not connected up and there was no light.” The library closed early that day.
The next two decades saw vigorous expansion, and the collection threatened to outgrow the original building. Two new wings were added in 1938; they housed the Children’s Wing and library offices. Disaster struck in 1941, when a fire destroyed the dome over the central portion of the Main Library.
Financial help came in 1945 when a contract was signed with Pima County to provide services countywide, and in 1946 the Ajo Branch was opened. Originally housed in a building leased from the Phelps Dodge Corporation in the town’s central Plaza, it was moved in 1996 to a larger location and renamed the
Salazar-Ajo Branch Library. It was most recently renovated in 1999-2000. By 1961, the Main Library collection was more than 200,000 volumes and
building additions accommodated new work offices, a Fine Arts Room and a new Children’s Room. In June of that year, the Himmel Park Branch Library opened on the northeast corner of the park at First and Treat Street. The Lawrence Clark Powell funding campaign in 1991 brought new signage, new furniture and additions to the Children’s
Collection.Himmel or Main?? Following the opening of the Ajo Branch in 1946, other services followed in fairly rapid succession. The first of two bookmobiles began making rounds at shopping centers in 1963; by 1977 as more branch buildings were opened; only one book
trailer remained at 8th Ave and 29th street in South Tucson. The bookmobiles were funded with a one-year federal demonstration grant. Services continued when a permanent 3,200 square foot building was dedicated in 1986 as the Sam Lena South Tucson Library. An arson fire in the summer of 1994 closed the branch for two months, but a 2001 expansion
to the facility brought even more services to the area. Tucson’s first major branch, the Wilmot Branch Library, opened in September 1965. Built entirely from the city’s operating budget of $406,730, it capped a two-year community debate over its location, size and the
scope of its projected services. The Wilmot branch was expanded in 1982 to 19,000 square feet. The Woods Branch began life in 1968 as the First Avenue Branch Library and was later renamed to honor G. Freeman Woods, City Councilman and Library Board member. Located at
3455 N. First Avenue, the Woods Branch was expanded and renovated in 1997-98, thanks to a bond approved in the 1994 election. The same bond funds made possible the renovation and expansion of the Valencia Branch, which opened in 1969. The El Rio Branch opened in 1972
to serve the El Rio Neighborhood Center at 1290 West Speedway Blvd., with relocation and slight expansion in 1997. Demand for services reached Green Valley in 1974 and what began as a voluntary operation in 1963 grew, by 2001, to an impressive 15,000+ square foot branch, renamed the Conrad Joyner-Green Valley Library. All this was accomplished
with the aid of private foundation funds, the Green Valley Friends and the Pima County Library District. Branch libraries continued to open almost annually: El Pueblo in 1975, the Marana Library and the Columbus Branch in 1977, the Mission Branch in 1978 and the
Nanini Branch in 1979. The Pima County Jail received library services in 1979 and the Iris Dewhirst Catalina Branch opened in Catalina in 1989. A bookmobile served Arivaca until a more permanent structure, the Caviglia-Arivaca Branch Library opened in 1996. County
bond funds created both the James Kirk-Bear Canyon Branch and the Katie Dusenberry-River Center Branch in 1991; both libraries are located in shopping centers. The far east side was served, starting in 1999, by the George Miller-Golf Links Branch, which shares quarters with a police substation.
The Town of Oro Valley broke ground for its new library branch in 2001, and 2003 saw the installation of self-check systems at many branches. The same year a redesign of the Main Library Plaza and the renaming of the flagship branch for Joel D. Valdez took place.
During these years of vigorous growth other innovative services were added to the system, including talking books, services for the homebound, books by mail, children’s story hours, Infoline, and computer and Internet access.
This is an astonishing story for a small town in the desert, where literacy and learning have been supported through three centuries, from 1883 to 2004, and where those same values and commitments continue today. |
