New, high-tech Mariners library opens

NEWPORT BEACH ? On a stage Thursday morning at Mariners Park, Mayor Don Webb and sixth-grader Logan Friend held up an enormous pair of scissors ? approximately 5 feet long ? and cut a ribbon together before the cheering crowd.

It was the only clunky piece of equipment that day at the Donna and John Crean Mariners Branch Library, which held its official opening after five years in the making.

In 2001, the Newport Beach community began raising funds for a new building to replace the old Mariners library, which opened four decades ago. On Thursday, city, school and library officials dedicated the structure, which features state-of-the-art computers, iPod shuffles, laptop stations and even a kitchenette.

“It’s our 100th birthday, and this is a birthday present,” Mayor Don Webb told the crowd, referring to Newport Beach’s centennial.

During the ceremony, held before an audience of several hundred, Newport-Mesa school board President David Brooks, architect Barbara Silken and former state Secretary of Education Marian Bergeson were among those who offered comments. A large portion of the crowd consisted of students from neighboring Mariners Elementary School, who will use the library during the school week.

The library’s namesakes, Donna and John Crean, were not in attendance, but board of library trustees chairman Harry Hamilton paid tribute to them in his remarks. The Creans contributed half of the $1 million that the library founders needed to obtain a state grant.

“He is an unabashed conservative who believes in the motto, ‘Rich is better,’ ” Hamilton said of John Crean, founder of Fleetwood Enterprises. “He is also one of the most generous philanthropists there is.”

At one point, a group of Mariners students came on stage to present books to the librarians, celebrating the fact that the new structure will double as a school facility. In his speech, Brooks acknowledged the role that technology plays in education.

“Libraries are so much more than books in this day and age,” he said. “The resources in this library are the result of everyone who’s here right now working together.”

Today at 9 a.m., the library will officially open to the public, and branch librarian Mary Ellen Bowman said students would first visit it on Monday.dpt.21-library-2-CPhotoInfoH51Q5RP620060421iy1n77ncDON LEACH / DAILY PILOT(LA)Librarians Jane Felder, left, and Mary Ellen Bowman hold books presented to them by students of Mariners Elementary School.