One For The Books

Article Date: Thursday, April 17, 2008

By Dan Bernstein, The Press-Enterprise

I am standing in what they call the Great Hall, and I have to agree: It is a great hall.

It is long and wide and a majestic two stories high. It is topped by what they call a "translucent skylight", which saves energy. Nice. But the main thing is all that natural light. It just gushes in.

It's a brand-new building that opens Saturday and people are going to love it. Nine years in the making, this place cost at least $60 million, including a $15 million state grant that demanded public participation. This translated into more than two years of surveys, open houses, consultations with PTAs, sports groups, etc., just to, as they put it, "determine the needs." Another $15 million came from private donations. Some huge. Some not so.

At first, they thought they'd only need 30K square feet. But the more they got into it, the more they realized the city was going to keep growing -- and that they'd better do this right. It's 93K square feet, not counting the 157 spaces of underground parking. Free parking.

It's a library. Technically, a branch -- part of the S'Berdoo County chain. Call it anything you want, including Lewis Library and Technology Center. But I'll boil it down: It's Fontana's library. It's a knockout.

To tell you that it has thousands of new books, CDs and DVDs, computer-equipped race-car pods for "young adults", secluded reading and laptop areas for grown-ups, homework centers (tied in with Fontana Unified), generous and amazingly diverse space for children, a spacious 330-seat Steelworkers Auditorium, full frontal WiFi and even a place to get married (the County Recorder has a counter in the Great Hall), is another way of saying there's more than that.

There's an easy, comfortable feel to the place. It's cheerful, yet homey. The layout, artwork and furnishings make the library interesting but not distracting. Fontanans (there are 190K of them!) are going to want to hang out here.

A few miles east of Fontana, in a "Renaissance" town that has crowned itself the "City of the Arts", there has been much back-room intrigue, distrust and arm-chair bloviating (including my own) about Riverside's downtown library and metro museum of the future. A no-huddle, hurry-up "blue-ribbon task force" has been instructed to produce in less than two months a vision that will carry the City of the Arts through 2025. (Even the reputable consultant charged with herding the blue ribbons says this exercise typically requires six months.)

Meanwhile, Fontana, which calls itself "City of Action", is set to open the library of its future -- a $60 million jewel compared to the $25 million library-muzeem combo envisioned (by City Hall) for the City of the Arts.

I can't sit here and tell you that Fontana and the S'Berdoo County Library system got everything right. But it's hard to see where they got very much wrong. (Did I mention 157 spaces of free underground parking?)

Meanwhile, back in the City of the Arts, the blue-ribbon herder assigned the task force some homework: Visit the library and muzeem. (The muzeem always gets short shrift, but has enormous potential.) Decide what you like most about each and what each place needs.

For extra credit: Visit the "City of Action" and feast your eyes. (Did I mention there's free parking?)

Reach Dan Bernstein at 951-368-9439 or dbernstein@PE.com.