Newport’s library always checks out

The public library isn’t what it used to be.

Today, when information ranging from the collected works of

William Shakespeare to the latest photos of Mars are available on any

computer hooked up to the Internet, simply providing a vast holding

of books isn’t enough. Newport Beach residents can count themselves

lucky, then, that their central library is so much more.

From its get-go 10 years ago, the library on Avocado Avenue was

designed to do more than stack books row upon row. The

forward-looking designers, armed with $2 million raised by the

community and another $7 million provided by the city, probably could

not have imagined just how ubiquitous technology would become, but

they could not have done much better in preparing the library for our

technology-filled present. The library, for instance, offers Internet

access to its databases (no more walking to the library to see if

they have that book you want) and sends e-mail notifications to

people that their books are due back. You can even apply for a

library card online.

The library also serves wider community needs. It is the site of

the popular Distinguished Speakers Series, for which it provides a

wonderfully intimate, though still extravagant enough, venue. Its

Friends Meeting Room hosts teens one day and book authors the next.

It offers programs for the youngest in the community to the youngest

at heart.

Of course, as cutting edge as a library can be, its central

purpose -- at least for the foreseeable future -- will be as a place

to get books. And the central library is a wealth of reading

material. There are about 70 books by Ernest Hemingway. There are a

few dozen by a poet named Ezra Jack Keats. There are 95 books about

Abraham Lincoln. There are about 40 dealing with the Roman Empire.

More than 20 focus on Hollywood movies. There are in the neighborhood

of 500 by William Shakespeare.

The central library, in other words, is going strong as it

celebrates its 10th anniversary.

Next on the horizon for the city’s library system is the Donna and

John Crean Mariners Branch Library. It will, on a smaller scale,

rival and often surpass what the central library offers. Its

scheduled opening is July 2005. Think thousands will show up as they

did for the central library’s grand kickoff?