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	Photo: Deborah Sherman

    From the comfortable leather chairs in the upstairs corner of the new Alameda Free Library, you can see down Oak Street to the corner of Oak and Santa Clara. There stands the old Carnegie building, which once housed the main library. It’s not hard to appreciate the nostalgia of the old building, built in 1903, and serving as Alameda’s main library for nearly 100 years. The Carnegie building has the ornate moldings and cylindrical columns fashionable at the turn of the century. But with only 11,500 square feet and built for a city with a population of 20,000, it eventually proved inadequate and outdated to serve as Alameda’s main library.
    As many as three decades ago, a movement began to build a new state-of-the-art library in Alameda. It began as a murmur in 1974, when a group of concerned citizens formed the Friends of the Library. Molly Skeen, president of the Friends of the Library, says the mission of the organization is “to help the library to be the best that it can be.” The group’s semi-annual used book sale helps fund things like the summer reading program for kids. The Friends also paid for much of the art at the new library, including most of the cost of the limestone medallions on the outside.
    “They have always been very generous,” says Jane Chisaki, library director. “Half of every book they’ve sold has been going to a new building fund for 30 years,” she says with gratitude. Chisaki describes a meeting in which she asked the Friends for $12,000 for a new microfilm reader. “They said, ‘Wouldn’t two be better?’ ” Chisaki recalls. “They approved $25,000 that same night.”
    The movement to build a new library grew into a rumble by 1998, when the Alameda Free Library Foundation was formed by a group of community leaders who began the Campaign for a Great Library. In that year, the main library was forced to relocate, because of seismic and space concerns at the Carnegie building, into an interim space in the West Wing of the Central Building of the Historic Alameda High School. The foundation has quickly become an integral part of the library equation. “Their mission,” says Chisaki, “is to raise larger amounts of money on an ongoing basis.” Their goal is to raise $1.35 million for an endowed fund to help pay for art for the new building as well as ongoing library programs. Chisaki hopes the foundation will also be able to help fund improvements to the branch libraries on Bay Farm Island and the West End.
    In 2000, the movement became a unified chant, as Alamedans overwhelmingly approved Measure O, a $10.6 million bond to help build the new Main Library and improve the branch libraries. Finally in 2002, the chant became a roar that Alameda should build a modern library for all to enjoy. In that year, the state of California approved a $15.5 million grant as part of the Public Library Construction and Renovation Bond Act.
    During the next two and half years, many decisions and details were hammered out. A citizen/staff Library Building Team was formed to oversee the planning and construction of the project. A public site selection process began, with numerous public meetings. Ultimately the city-owned site across from the Alameda Police Department—the former site of the Linoaks Motel—was selected. The library, in conjunction with the city, conducted extensive needs assessments through workshops, forums, focus groups, interviews, community meetings and surveys. Three priorities became apparent for the new library: One, there should be expanded, newer and better collections. Two, meeting rooms and group study areas should be available to the public. And three, there was a clear need for more computers.
    A search for a building consultant found a 15-year city employee, Robert Haun, right in the city’s own backyard with experience in project management, including the renovation of the Air Museum. A Portland firm, Thomas Hacker Architects, was hired to design the building because of the firm’s extensive experience with library projects and its sensitivity to environmental issues. Haun immediately felt the gravity of his role. “When [former] Assistant City Manager Paul Benoit hired me for the project,” Haun recalls, “he said, ‘Remember, the hopes, dreams and desires of a whole community rest on your shoulders.’ ”
    Haun immediately had a number of challenges to tackle. First was the budget. The single bid, which came in from S.J. Amoroso Construction Co. Inc. of Redwood Shores, was for $20.2 million, well over his budget of $15.6 million for hard construction. After consulting with the city council, Haun, along with representatives from the various interested parties, spent two weeks of 16-hour days “value engineering” the project. They created a list of items that could be cut or modified to shave up to $5 million from the plan. The city council agreed to add about half that amount to the project in order to retain the high quality of the building.
    While Thomas Hacker revised the drawings and Amoroso Construction priced the changes, the state needed to sign off on revisions to Alameda’s grant proposal. On the morning of March 1, 2005, as Alameda residents, local dignitaries and state officials gathered at the corner of Oak and Lincoln streets for the official groundbreaking ceremony, Susan Hildreth, the state librarian, delivered the approval letter to Haun. “That was the final piece of the puzzle,” he says.
    At the groundbreaking ceremony, Susan Hardie, then the local library director, said that the event “truly represents the realization of a 30-year dream.” Hardie dedicated the event to the Alameda Free Library Foundation, Friends of the Alameda Free Library and “to their longtime members who have worked tirelessly for many years to secure a new main library for our city.”
    The building process went “phenomenally well,” says Haun, who negotiated savings at every opportunity. “One million dollars in savings has already been returned to the city,” he says, pointing out that an addition $670,000 from Measure O has been returned to help improve the branch libraries. Haun sometimes negotiated with the construction company and sometimes with the subcontractors. “I’m a good negotiator,” he says proudly. For example, Haun says the slotted wood ceilings on the first floor originally were estimated to cost $122,000, but he negotiated the price down to $105,000.
    Another big reason the project went so smoothly, Haun says, is that he didn’t have to go through “layers of approvals” for any changes. The city council allowed him $50,000 in changes without approval, and he reported directly to the city manager. “If I needed an approval, I could just walk across the street to the third floor and get it.” The real cost of the changes, Haun explains, “is not the actual cost of the change, but the cost of delays. If it takes a week to get an approval,” Haun says, noting Amoroso Construction charged $2,400 per day for delays, “that can really add up fast.”
    In the end, Haun was able to keep costs under control while delivering a quality library to Alameda. The building is also the first of its kind in Alameda. “It’s the first green building in Alameda,” says Haun. In fact, the building is LEED (an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. The certification requires that at least 75 percent of the debris from the site be recycled. “We achieved 84 percent,” Haun says. Additionally, 20 percent of the building needed to be built using recycled materials. In order to do that, Haun says, “You really have to dig.”
    The new building is fully insulated—with recycled shredded denim jeans, no less—and built to economically maintain a comfortable temperature inside. According to Haun, it is one of only a few buildings in the United States to employ this technique. The building is equipped with countless energy-efficient and conservation-oriented features. Carbon dioxide sensors are activated when a person enters one of the rooms, letting the central computer know. “A computer figures out when it can most efficiently turn off and on the heat,” Haun says. Additionally, the lights are computer controlled, and a drip irrigation system is employed for the garden near the cafe. A bike storage room and a shower are available to library employees on-site to encourage them to be environmental and health conscious by riding their bikes to work.
    On the eve of the library’s grand opening Nov. 2, 2006, Chisaki and one of her employees spent some time enjoying the views from the second floor. “We sat in every leather chair,” Chisaki says, “and just enjoyed the views.” The extended windows cantilever over the sidewalk below offering a feeling of openness and space. “I think Alamedans will enjoy the feeling of space,” she says. In total, the new library offers 45,800 square feet—almost four times the space of the original Carnegie building, visible just over Chisaki’s shoulder. The additional space can accommodate not only a 50 percent larger collection of books, but it also allows for three times the audio/visual collection and five times as many public computers—75 in all.
    The new library allows seating for 590 people, while the former site offered only 70. The 13 Internet computers at the interim site were in use nearly 100 percent of the time, giving rise to the need for implementing a reservations system and usage time restrictions. It was estimated that more than 50,000 people were getting their Internet access at the library. The current ratio of one computer for every 992 patrons compares favorably with Oakland (one for every 2,200 patrons) and Alameda County (one for every 2,570 patrons). The Berkeley Public Library system, serving a city with a larger population than Alameda’s, offers only 40 computers for public access.
    Apart from the impressive statistics, the library is alive with possibilities. “I’m excited about all the types of programs we can offer, and the number of programs we can offer.” They all take hard work, however, to implement. “Ideas are great,” she cautions, “but they need implementation.”
    The cafe on the first floor is a good example. Friends of the Library will operate the cafe, with some help from the public. “If you come to the library and the cafe is not open, there will be a sign saying, ‘You can volunteer’, ” Chisaki says.
    What really makes this library unique, however, is its emphasis on being not just a warehouse of books, but more of a community center. The design of the building lends itself to that goal, from the living-room style reading area—complete with a fireplace—to the Teen Room with an Internet bar. The children’s area is equipped with soft furniture that kids can climb on and has an adjacent story time room. Chisaki wants the library to become a frequent meeting place for Alamedans. “Meet me at the library,” she says by way of an example. “Moms can say, ‘Let’s meet at the cafe.’ The kids can have juice before story time.”
While the library has moved only a short distance from the Carnegie building, for Alamedans, the new library is light years from the old.
    Chisaki invites Alamedans to come enjoy all that the library has to offer. “I want the public to feel like this is their library,” she says, “because it is their library.”

 

Use Your Library

• The Main Library (1550 Oak St., 510-747-7777) is open 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday and Wednesday and 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

• The cafe is open (subject to volunteer staffing) 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Anyone interested in volunteering can complete an application available at the cafe.

• Four group study rooms are available on a first-come, first-served basis by checking in at the reference desk upstairs, and the rooms may be reserved for two-hour periods. A larger community meeting room is available by application, with priority given to nonprofit groups and Alameda nonprofits receiving the highest priority.

• For more information about the Main Library, visit the library’s Web site, www.ci.alameda.ca.us/library/.