PlanJam!From your screen to the scene

Now located in the Civic Center on Larkin Street, San Francisco’s main public library system has been officially running since 1879, just 30 years after the Gold Rush brought a new wave of readers from the east. Since then the library’s headquarters has moved several times. When the 1989 earthquake ruined its building, the library moved to its current location in the civic center, a building that the city spent almost 140 million dollars and seven years completing.

The library hosts a variety of events and classes open to the community, enjoyable to both children and adults. Children and their caregivers can attend a one-hour storytime held in the children’s branch of the library, usually from 11-12 in the morning (just in time to get home for lunch and naptime!), where they can read, sing, and play together. Grandparents are even officially invited. The younger storytime, called Laptime, runs from 10:30-11:30, offers children (infants to 3-year-olds) and their caregivers songs, stores, and fingerplays. Older children (over 12) can participate in classes such as Beyond Journal Writing, a nine-week class that give them the opportunity to develop and shard their writing in a nurturing and open atmosphere, led by a Writers Corps teacher.

Parents with children old enough to independently experience the library can settle their kids in the children’s wing, and take adult writing classes, learning such concepts as how writing in their journal can make a difference in their health and happiness. Families together can enjoy performances of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”, and learning sessions on subjects like Jazz and American Pop cosponsored by the Art, Music, and Recreation Center, listening to music of an open-horn Victoria, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, among others.

Forget reading. The building itself is something worth seeing. The beautiful and uncomplicated architecture, the steps leading to the front doors flanked by palm trees, the arched wooden window frames letting in plenty of sunshine. The atmosphere alone sheds a new light on reading. Plus the facility’s impressive amenities. Within the seven-floor library, readers will find room for over one thousand laptops, over three hundred computer terminals, private rooms, and the children’s wing. Children will also love visiting the large atrium and the photo collection on the sixth floor exhibiting San Francisco’s history from 1850 to the present. Children will love returning to both the atrium and the photos.

Not to mention the good old fashioned pastime of sitting and reading with family. Children can attain their own library cards, teaching them the value of choice (Corduroy or Where the Wild Things Are?), organization, and accountability. The library system, one of the city’s oldest institutions, is a pastime that can occur repeatedly, rain or shine, is always a great pastime.