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San Diego’s quest for a cutting-edge public library system is moribund. Mini-palaces have been built in some neighborhoods, but the city's library budget is too small to stock them adequately with, of all things, books. The existing 1950s-era Central Library is a disgrace, overcrowded with citizen-customers and again, books. Many branch libraries, particularly in older neighborhoods, match the dilapidated and overcrowded condition of their Central parent.
Realizing that the apparent overwhelming public appetite for services includes libraries, but doesn’t extend to paying for them, elected policymakers find upgrading and modernization of the city's library system politically unattractive. Yet only the very shortsighted fail to see the critical need for libraries in a vital 21st-century American city.
True, some critics argue that massive libraries are unnecessary in this cyber age. Veteran City Librarian Bill Sannwald responded to that argument not long ago. He pointed out that many materials simply aren’t available on the Net; most people, particularly older ones, aren’t computer literate; many people can’t afford computers and computer services; and plenty of people, computer users or not, just prefer to deal with the printed page rather than squinting at a monitor.
While I'd be the last to argue that the spreading use of PCs among the general public won’t make library use different from what it was a few years ago, it is apparent that the need for libraries, Downtown and in the neighborhoods, won’t go away. As meeting places, intellectual resources and entertainment centers, libraries should have an important role in the social structure of a vigorous community.
San Diego’s predominant library issue right now, however, is whether to build a new one Downtown and, if so, what its nature and financing will be. So far, preliminary plans are offered for an architectural masterpiece rivaling new libraries in Chicago and San Francisco, to name two grandiose recent examples. But I wonder if we really need a Taj Mahal or a library. Such a structure might win architectural kudos worldwide, but it would be expensive and force us to rely mostly on public financing.
Several years ago, Downtown landowner, developer and entrepreneur Bud Fisher made a suggestion that has been banging around in my head ever since. Why not incorporate a new Central Library in a structure to be built by and shared with the private sector? What Fisher had in mind was a high-rise office structure, with the lower floors, less desirable for offices, designed and constructed to house a new Central Library large enough to be adequate well into the 21st century.
Fisher had in mind the block on which the present library stands. In this scenario, the new Central Library would not be a prominent monument along the Chicago and San Francisco lines. It would just be another office tower. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it would be ugly. It does mean it could be large enough to house the library, with private capital helping to pay for the project. Who knows? Perhaps it could be entirely privately financed, with the library becoming the major tenant after it’s built.
The former San Diego city attorney, John Witt now serves as special counsel with the law firm of Lounsbery Ferguson Altona & Peak.
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