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New Libraries

Members of the Costa Mesa community may not realize how outdated our services have become until they view what new libraries in other cities have to offer. Here is continually growing list of new libraries in surrounding cities:

Los Gatos Library, CA – City owned and operated

This 30,000 square foot library opened to the public on February 11th, 2012 and is another representation of the power a new library can have in a community. This two-story building was designed by Noll & Tam and cost $18.4 million dollars with over $2 million being donated by the Friends of the Library group in Los Gatos. Additional coverage of the event was can be found here.

Tustin Library — City owned and county operated:

This 32,400 sq/ft library opened in 2009 and is currently the largest library in within the OCPL system. It was designed by Field Paoli and is a magnificent representation of what a central library in Costa Mesa could be.

Katie Wheeler Library:

This library opened on February 23, 2008 and has 11,250 sq/ft of public space. The building was designed by Thirtieth Street Architects to replicate the home of the granddaughter of James Irvine and is the third OCPL branch in the city of Irvine. With the addition of the Katie Wheeler branch, Irvine has over 40,000 sq/ft of library space for a city of over 200,000 people

Why a new central library is needed

The Need

Library service in Costa Mesa is provided by three branch libraries of the Orange County Public Library (OCPL): the Donald Dungan Branch (usually called the Costa Mesa Branch) Library at 1855 Park Avenue; the Mesa Verde Branch Library at 2969 Mesa Verde Drive East; and a third branch, the Costa Mesa Technology Branch Library at 3033 South Bristol, Suite Q. Our libraries currently face facility challenges that need to be addressed.

Facilities are inadequate.

Costa Mesa’s two general collection libraries (Mesa Verde and Donald Dungan) lack the space required to provide the quality of library services in demand by Costa Mesa residents. There is insufficient space for appropriately sized collections, and inadequate seating to accommodate patrons. There is very limited space to accommodate the libraries’ very active children’s programs, and insufficient areas for community meetings.

The designs of both libraries limit their usefulness in a number of ways. And both libraries are out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Library Services Needs and Delivery Study for the City of Costa Mesa dated August 18, 2000, (produced by Arroyo Associates, Inc., and hereafter called “The Arroyo Report”) confirmed that our city needed larger and more modern library facilities, including more up-to-date holdings and enhanced electronic access. Statistics showed that Costa Mesa ranks very low in library size, books, attendance and circulation when compared with a set of benchmark cities throughout the state. This holds true as well when Costa Mesa’s libraries are compared with the average for cities in the Orange County Public Library system.

When collections are small, attendance is correspondingly small. There is no room for more books, non-print materials, computer stations or library programs. We are compromised by our current building conditions. Experience has shown, however, that “When you build it, they will come.”

The Arroyo Report named 11 libraries in the state as “benchmark” cities because of similar demographics. The 1998 statistics the report used showed the average square footage of their main libraries to be 41,000 square feet. Since that time 5 of the 11 cities have expanded their main libraries or built new ones, and the average is now 55,206 square feet. Cities across the state have found that larger facilities are necessary to provide the services now considered necessary in public libraries. With no “main” library, Costa Mesa’s three small libraries total only 16,400 square feet.

To adequately meet the needs of Costa Mesa, we need to drastically increase our library space. Costa Mesa has only 0.145 square feet of library space per capita – one of the lowest rates of any similar sized city in California. With no increase in library space, and with expected population growth, it is projected that by 2025 we will have only 0.128 square feet per capita of library space.