California to Build a Revolutionary Library

Cultural institutions join forces to offer unprecedented programming, collaboration

By Kathy Ishizuka -- School Library Journal, 2/1/2004

Community leaders in Lafayette, CA, plan to build a revolutionary new library that fosters collaboration with local schools and 12 Bay Area educational institutions. Library planners are hailing the $22 million Lafayette Library and Learning Center as the first of its kind and expect it to serve as a national model.

Set for construction in May 2005, the 25,000-square-foot Lafayette Library will replace the current 6,700-square-foot facility and include 90,000 volumes, doubling its existing collection. It will also house 36 computer workstations, a homework center, a children's story room, a teen room, and a K–12 discovery center.

A 1,700-square-foot community room and arts and sciences laboratory will accommodate programming of the Glenn Seaborg Learning Consortium, a new cooperative venture between the library and what Lafayette City Manager Steven Falk calls a "dream team" of 12 Bay Area institutions that include the Oakland Museum of California, the Chabot Space & Science Center, the California Shakespeare Theater, and the University of California Institute of Governmental Studies. The partnership will offer kids an unprecedented wealth of programs, exhibits, K–12 curricula, films, and lectures through one central location: the public library.

Named after Nobel Prize–winning scientist Glenn Seaborg, the partnership "will bring the benefits of California's best and most prestigious urban institutions into the suburban library," Falk says. Roger Falcone, a physics professor at the University of California at Berkeley who helped launch the consortium, says schoolchildren will be the primary beneficiaries of the project. The Lawrence Hall of Science, for example, will offer a range of K–12 hands-on activities, such as a gardening project for kindergartners. The California Shakespeare Theater will draw on its well-established K–12 programming and bring actors and other theater professionals to the library for dramatic readings and costume exhibits, while the Chabot Center will present a timely classroom project, Mars City Alpha, which challenges teams of fifth to eighth graders to design a settlement on Mars.

Falcone says the new consortium will work closely with county librarians, but he also hopes to "connect as strongly with the school librarians" to make sure that students have access to up-to-date books.

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