Talk:Dallas Public Library

Untitled

I spent 30 years on the professional staff of DPL (1967-97), so I'll try to expand this article a bit. I've already touched it up a bit. And I have good non-copyrighted photos of the first & second main libraries -- if I can ever figure out how to work the bloody image-upload system. . . . --Michael K. Smith 17:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It would be good also if we could find published sources that discuss the cutbacks in library hours, etc., in the last 20 years. While it's impressive how the DPL system has coped, it's still a fact that years ago, we didn't have to have this business of branches being closed on a Thursday or Friday, and we still have a system in which branches of a large municipal library are closed many evenings at an oddly early hour that makes them inaccessible on weekdays for much of the working public. Lawikitejana 03:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC) lifetime DPL user and, yes, a booster in real life

Branch library info

I was using the DPL system to search the database of The Dallas Morning News 1885-1977 articles (for a different topic) and found there's a lot about the branch libraries built in the 1960s. Walnut Hill, for example, was part of a big push made after a national organization said the library had a strong downtown library but a weak branch system and that most of the public didn't access the downtown library. The WH building even won an architectural award ("Walnut Hill Library Architecture Cited," DMN, April 14, 1963, section 7 page 1). I don't have time at present, but anyone with access to this database — including all cardholders of the DPL — could go back and see which branches are notable enough for their own articles, or whether we should just add info in this article indicating when each was established and any noteworthy historic facts about it. Lawikitejana (talk) 21:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Casa View Library

How much of this should be integrated into the PDL article?

" The Casa View Library has been a mainstay of the neighborhood. Ground was broken on the library April 34, 1964. The funding to open the branch was authorized in the 1962 Capital Improvement Bond Program. It was one of four library branches that broke ground the same day."Casa View opened to the public February 29, 1964. The architect was William H. Hidell and the building cost $240,600. The 13,820-square-foot building opened with 35,000 volumes. A bookmobile purchased in 1961 operated from the branch and carried 4,000 books," according to a history of the library. "With its broad slashes of pre-cast stone panels and light-washed spaces, the branch was an embodiment of southwestern elan."

The library opened February 29, 1964. Wyman Jones, who was responsible branch library operations, wrote about the experiences in a Library Journal article that was published later that year. "February 29 shows up on the calendar only once every four years. We should have known that something was going to happen. ... By nine there was a small crowd. By nine-thirty there was a large and restless crowd. By ten there was an even larger and more restless crowd at the side of the building." The crowd grew and became restless, waiting for the library to open. Mayor J. Erik Jonnson could not get through the crowd and was forced to use a service entrance. Even so, when he was inside and attempted to open the library's front doors, it was a madhouse. "[T]he architect threw a body block into the mob and managed to get [the door]open. Male staff members stood elbow to elbow and let a few persons at a time. Two children fell and we had to drag them out from beneath on-rushing feet.

"Visiting librarians and staff members from the other branches and the Central building pitched in to help. Charging lines began to take shape. Hundreds of patrons waited more than an hour to check out books," at the end of the day, "it was the damnedest thing any of us had ever seen," Jones said. The book circulation on that single opening day was 9,132 items, according to head branch librarian Norman Graham. It was determined that this one day set a record for the largest book circulation ever recorded for one day by an American library.

Demand at the library was so great that patrons were limited to checking out five books with truncated due dates. The library board was compelled to extend operations from five days to six days a week. Jones was forced to ask the city council for additional funding to open a second branch in the neighborhood at Northlake Shopping Center in 1965 to relieve the excessive demands on the Casa View branch.

The library won a 1966 Merit Award for Architectural Design and Planning from the American Institute of Architects, the American Library Association and National Book Committee.

The branch will be closed in 2008 to be replaced with the Lochwood Library at the intersection of Jupiter and Garland roads. " WhisperToMe (talk) 05:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

References

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