FREMONT – Unless a last-ditch effort is made to maintain the doors open, the county-run Irvington Library is about to shut at the tip of the month.
Library advocates have collected nearly 1,000 signatures to stop the closure, arguing that the branch provides essential services to South Fremont residents. But the county remains to be pursuing a plan to shut the power on July 31 and move certain services, akin to book pickup and the 3D printer space, to the central city library. Book lockers for dropping off books and a mobile bookmobile, a mobile library cart, will proceed to supply some library services near the Irvington branch, officials said.
“All the elementary schools and people who live in the neighborhood have to drive to Fremont to use the library,” said Anitha Shankar, a neighborhood resident who initiated the petition. “They should build more facilities and offer more free events for the kids instead of taking them away.”
Deb Sica, Alameda County's deputy librarian, said in an email that the county “has determined that the building, a temporary structure owned by the City of Fremont, has reached a point where it can no longer provide a sustainable space for library services.”
The city “intends to evaluate future recreational programs at the site,” she said. The library opened in 1971 and has “rarely been open more than one day a week” since 1997, Sica said. After the coronavirus pandemic, it reopened as a “limited makerspace with a small tool lending library and a reduced book collection,” she said.
“Popularity was not a deciding factor. The main reason for the closure is that the building can no longer sustain library operations,” Sica said.
Shankar argues that the branch is popular. Her two children have waited in line for greater than two hours lately simply to get free tickets to library events akin to a bubble show and a bird show. She said a mobile library and book lockers usually are not enough to fulfill her needs or those of her petitioners.
“At least in downtown Fremont, the facilities need to be expanded as the number of people, children, increases,” Shankar said. “We want the children to make friends at the library, meet new people and see our neighbors there.”
The constructing at 41825 Greenpark Drive was staffed by three regular employees who might be relocated to other facilities to assist with future library services in South Fremont. Other services formerly available in Irvington, akin to the tool collection, makerspace and 3D printer, might be moved to other libraries. The county may also expand the available makerspace within the principal library and create the Archimedes Makerspace, Sica said.
Two automated self-service book lockers may also soon be available in South Fremont on the Wally Pond Irvington Community Center and the Warm Springs Community Center to “provide modern and convenient options for picking up and returning books,” Sica said.
“We look forward to providing library services to South Fremont in new and exciting ways,” Sica said.
One of the library's advisory board members, Felix Lechner, recently resigned over the choice to shut the library, telling the town council at a public meeting that the advisory board was never informed of the closure. He told the council he had “lost the trust of this respected body.”
In an interview, Lechner said he was not against the closure, acknowledging that the constructing was over 50 years old and “something had to happen.”
“I found it unusual that the library commission was not consulted when the library was closed,” said Lechner. “I don't think the city administration was as caught off guard as I was. I think there were discussions in the city that I didn't know about.”
City Councilwoman Teresa Cox, who represents the South Fremont district where the library is situated, said she was “deeply saddened” to listen to of Lechner's resignation and has been in close contact with Shankar and the petitioners searching for to stop the library's closure. Cox's aunt, Effie Lee Morris, was the primary black president of the Public Library Association.
“I'm not just a city councilor. I grew up in libraries,” Cox said.
She said she asked the petitioners to send her some ideas about what they think should occur on the Irvington branch after it closes later this month.
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