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Pico Branch Library Becomes Second Most Visited in Santa Monica System

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Convention and Visitors Bureau Santa Monica

By Niki Cervantes
Staff Writer

January 28, 2016 -- The Pico Branch Library, the first addition to the Santa Monica Public Library system in more than half a century, is now the second-most visited, officials said Tuesday in an update.

Since opening in April of 2014, the branch at Virginia Park has received 247,215 visitors, said Cecilia Tovar, who was manager when the library at 2201 Pico Boulevard first opened and is now librarian for public services for the City public library system.

Some 2,000 library cards have been issued at the branch as well, Tovar told the Santa Monica City Council in an update at its Tuesday meeting.

Tovar told the Council that the large number of visitors to the 8,690-square-foot building was exciting for the staff, and proof that it provided a crucial service to a neighborhood that is one of the city’s poorest and most diverse.

“This branch was really needed in the neighborhood,” Tovar told the Council. “To see this high-rate (of usage) is extremely happy for us.”

City Manager Rick Cole called the Pico branch a “jewel in the crown” of the City’s popular public library system.

Santa Monica’s library system includes the 125-year-old Main Library at 601 Santa Monica and, aside from its newest addition, three other branches – Fairview, at 2101 Ocean Park Boulevard; Ocean Park, at 2601 Main Street; and Montana, at 1704 Montana Avenue.

Ocean Park first opened in 1917-1918, according to a City history, followed by Fairview in 1931 and Montana in 1952.

Only the City’s Main Public Library downtown logs more visitors, she said. Statistics show visitors there in 2014-2015 totaled more than 784,000 and about 1.2 million systemwide.

Tovar said the Pico branch now offers 550 programs meant to appeal to all ages as part of the City Council’s goal of focusing on “life-long” learning. All of the branch’s staff is bilingual, she said, an important feature in a neighborhood that is heavily Hispanic.

Construction of the Pico branch started in 2012, although it had been discussed on and off for decades.

A City history of the Pico branch said the 1983 Pico Neighborhood Community Plan cited the need for a branch in the struggling community, and that the topic came up again when Virginia Avenue Park was being planned. It was mostly dormant for several years, until the notion surfaced again in 2008, when officials discussed rebuilding the Edison Language Academy and considered operating a branch in cooperation with Santa Monica- Malibu public schools.

The Santa Monica City Council voted in 2009 to begin construction of a new branch library in Virginia Avenue Park, and was followed by years of discussion with the community about the site, its design and programming.The Pico branch consists mainly of a 7,872-square- foot center with children, teen, adult and popular collections; a children's area; reading areas; an array of public computers and study rooms. A separate annex of 818 square feet offers a community room for story times and other programs.

It was bankrolled with redevelopment funding – and just in time. Less than a month later, California Governor Jerry Brown began dissolving Redevelopment Agencies across the state to help close a $9.2 billion state budget deficit.


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