Oakland Public Library Undergoes Extensive Long-awaited Renovations With Nod To Borough History

In recent months, Oakland residents have gone to the borough library to learn about brake mechanics, how to change a tire, and how to jump start a car.

They’ve gone there to play chess, to have coffee and to color, and even to get married.

Libraries are no longer just for checking out books, studying and spending quiet reading time.

They have become multi-purpose community centers.

To accommodate the changing role, the Oakland Public Library is near its completion of renovations of the original – and long unused -- part of the structure that will result in a facility that is one-third larger, said director Peter Havel.

“It’s absolutely a community center, that’s how the role of the library everywhere is changing,” he said. “We’re becoming more than just a place to go get books. It’s still place where you can come and get books and it’s still a place where you can work quietly, but we offer more than that – spaces where you can come and take advantage of technology you might not have access to otherwise, spaces to take or give a class, where you can have a concert, a play, a performance, a place where you can rehearse for something, where you can [take steps to] start a non-profit.”

“Really, the sky’s the limit,” he said. “As long as you’re a resident of Oakland, you’re free to use the space in almost any way you see fit.”

It’s been, in many ways, a resurrection of a bit of Oakland history.

The original library building, which is two stories high, once was the borough hall. It became home to the library in 1962, when it was moved from the borough firehouse.

The renovations have been a long time coming – since plans for it began in 1998. Disputes involving the contractor at the time over the quality and pace of the work ended in him being found to be in default, and the project was halted.

“A lot of people thought it would never get done,” Havel said. “It’s finally being completed.”

The renovation includes a restoration of a 1938 mural painted by Russian artist Giorgi Manuilov that shows Dutch settlers buying some 5,000 acres of land in Oakland from Native Americans. 

In the foreground is a stage, as well as space that sometimes doubles as an art gallery, featuring works by local residents. An exhibit several months ago, for instance, featured art by Oakland senior citizens.

The theater area has bookshelves on wheels so that they can be moved if extra space is needed for seating during performances.

As for saying your “I do’s” in a library, Havel said the decision to offer the so-called Beam Room for nuptials came from a desire to continue tradition. It is the room where, in the original municipal building, couples got married, so restoration plans sought to preserve the space – complete with a fireplace – for the special event, Havel explained.

"It's absolutely a community center, that's how the role of the library everywhere is changing."  -- Peter Havel, library director

“When we were going through the plans, they – being the council, and the library board of trustees – didn’t want to change this room, which is why it still has the original wooden built-ins, and the fireplace. The idea was to keep this as close as possible to what it’s been,” Havel said.

Other features of the restored building include a media room that holds DVD’s and music, computers, a printer and photocopier; quiet reading and study rooms; a teen room; a large conference room; and an outdoor patio area, among other things. That’s in addition to a whole host of other services the library offers, such as adult and youth book clubs, computer classes that show how to format a document, and save and print it, navigating programs such as Hoopla, a digital media server with more than 200,000 movies, music, and e-books, and Lynda.com, is a leading online learning platform that helps anyone learn business, software, technology and creative skills to achieve personal and professional goals. 

The American Library Association reports that 70 percent of voters nationwide who responded to a survey said they had visited a public library in the last year, and an additional 52 percent said they had visited the library online. Some 44 percent see libraries as a community hub where residents can gather and socialize; that’s up from 35 percent who thought that way in 2008.

A Pew Research Center poll said that Americans between the ages of 18-40 are using libraries more than any other age group.

Some fun facts, courtesy of the ALA: There are more public libraries than Starbucks in the U.S.—a total of 17,566 including branches. Nearly 100 percent of public libraries provide Wi-Fi and have no-fee access to computers. In 2013, there were 1.5 billion in-person visits to public libraries across the U.S., the equivalent of more than 4 million visits each day. That’s 2,854 per minute.

“Libraries are important now more than ever,” said a recent article on the news outlet Vice, “and supporting a library is as easy as using it and familiarizing yourself with the resources that your library offers.”

And so, the restored, expanded Oakland Public Library blends new features to accommodate the changing role of the library, while paying homage to special part of Oakland’s history.