Southside Branch Library marks milestone
South side’s diverse community celebrates its hub of reading, learning
Community members celebrate neighborhood hub of reading, learning on its 10th anniversary.
On a recent weekday afternoon, 6-year-old Emory LawsonWilder and his mother, Anna Wilder, walked past the rows of flowering Hawthorne trees in front of the Southside Branch Library and under the ornate wire sculpture hanging above the doorway. They stepped lightly over a mural of the Placitas water basin on the floor of the foyer and, once inside, took a hard right through the doorway to the children’s room.
Children’s librarian Amy Barr recognized the pair.
“Hey guys, what’re we doing today?” Barr asked. Pointing over her shoulder, she lowered her voice to a mock whisper: “Are we checking out the toys?”
Emory nodded and picked out a yellow dump truck, nearly as long as he is tall and filled to the brim with Mega Bloks. He played for a few minutes, then came back with a more serious request: “I’m looking for stories and real fish,” he told Barr.
Barr led them to her favorites, and a short while later, mother and son walked out of the children’s room with a stack of fiction and nonfiction books on the aquatic creatures — everything homeschooled Emory needs to take proper care of his pet goldfish, plecostomus catfish and prehistoric shrimp-like triops.
It’s a regular routine. The boy got his first library card at 6 weeks old.
“When we first heard they were building on our side of town, we were so excited,” his mom said. “We love the library.”
This weekend, the Southside Branch of the Santa Fe Public Library system celebrated 10 years in the community. A decade ago, the 25,000-square-foot edifice was also one of the first public facilities in the burgeoning Tierra Contenta neighborhood on the city’s more affordable south side. In the years since, it’s continued to be a vital resource for people and students without computers or internet access, a free provider of early childhood education and a beautiful place to pass the time.
For some nearby residents, the building feels like a lasting symbol that the working families of Santa Fe’s south side are as important as people who live in the more expensive areas, such as the city’s east side and downtown.
“It’s welcoming, and it makes this community feel just as beautiful as Santa Fe,” said Consuelo Rojas, a 22-year resident of the area. “Not left out, and not ‘less than’ just because it’s a lower-income part of town. They did not hold back on making it gorgeous.”
The doors of Santa Fe’s Southside Branch Library opened in 2007, but planning for the building started nearly a decade before that. In 1999, the nonprofit Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library conducted a survey to identify where library services were most needed in Santa Fe, according to library Director Patricia Hodapp. The south side of town stood out. Not only was the area growing rapidly, it also had a huge community of students — from 5,000 to 7,000 young people — who, at the time, didn’t have access to community amenities, Hodapp said.
They decided to build the library in the Tierra Contenta area, nestled among mixed-income houses and apartment complexes near the Santa Fe Country Club and Capital High School.
“When we started out there, there was nothing there. The fire department hadn’t even built that station yet,” Hodapp said, referring to the fire station down Jaguar Drive. “We knew we needed services in this area because of the kids in the neighborhood. It was so key to provide these resources.”
Census data show that the Tierra Contenta area has grown from 2,631 residents in 2000 to 7,466 residents today. Thirtyfive percent of the residents in that area are under the age of 20.
To serve that younger population, the branch has a room dedicated specifically to kids that any bibliophile would envy:
It makes this community feel just as beautiful as Santa Fe.” Consuelo Rojas, 22-year resident of the area
Rocking chairs face a sunlit patio and kids can hide away in pintsized reading nooks or color at tables just their size. The branch also hosts regular reading groups, movie nights and summertime reading marathons.
On Thursday morning, dozens of children and their parents circled around Dahlia Cummings in a yellow-walled conference room during the Books and Babies storytelling time. Toddlers danced together as Cummings sang nursery rhymes and read books, translating them into different languages. Parents clapped their babies’ hands along to the universal motions of the itsy-bitsy spider as Cummings sang: “La araña pequeñita subió, subió, subió.”
Cummings marvels at the diversity of families that show up each week to the free event. On Thursday, there were families from the island of Bali, Colombia and the mainland of Indonesia. According to census data, almost 20 percent of residents in Tierra Contenta area were born in a different country.
“I’ve met people from all over the world,” Cummings said. She thinks the diversity “makes everyone feel accepted and safe.”
Electrician Gilbert Montoya said he has been bringing his eldest child, 4-year-old Aylani to Books and Babies since she was as young as 5-month-old Santiago, who he also had in tow.
Aylani isn’t in school yet, but her parents take advantage of the library events to prepare her for kindergarten. She said she loves to bring books home and can already spell four-letter words.
“It’s good for the kids, and it keeps them entertained for a while,” Montoya said. “Especially because it gets them started socializing with other kids.”
Barr, the full-time children’s librarian for the branch, says programming drives regular attendance in her part of the library. She also runs a teen group and said many of the participants are high-schoolers who have been coming to the group since they were young.
Over the past few years, the branch has seen a general shift in its relationship with teens, Barr said. Before Santa Fe Public Schools issued Chromebooks for students to do their homework, the library was heavily trafficked on weeknights during the school year, when teens with no computer at home needed a machine to write papers. Some days, teens would come into the children’s room, desperate to use the kids’ computers when the adult stations were full. Now, Barr said, kids come in to use the Wi-Fi.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ozzie Ortega, a senior at Santa Fe High School, clambered off the bus near the Southside Branch Library, a hardback book tucked under his arm.
Ortega said he reads about a book a week and mostly comes to the library to restock his reading material. But over the past four years of school, the internet services have been helpful, too. Ortega doesn’t have Wi-Fi at home, so he’s used the machines or the internet to do schoolwork. A few weeks ago, the librarians even helped him fill out a job application for a local theater. Most places, Ortega said, only let you apply for jobs online.
“The library has definitely helped me after school,” Ortega said. “It’s a really good place to get information, and I love reading books. It’s one of my passions.”
Hodapp said the Santa Fe Public Library has been working hard to balance traditional resources and digital technology. In 2008, the library branches fought for Wi-Fi, and each year they rearrange their stagnant budgets to make sure that ebooks, computers, music and internet access are available for patrons.
Barr has seen firsthand how important that access can be for patrons. Sometimes, people even use the library to file their taxes.
“If you can’t afford to have your own computer, you can’t afford to have your own Wi-Fi, the library sort of levels that playing field,” Barr said. “That’s one of the beautiful things about libraries. If you’re a millionaire and you walk in the library and you’re a homeless person and you walk in the library, you have the same rights.”
Patrons of all types browsed books, used computers or snuggled into seats next to the wide windows of the brightly lit library on a recent afternoon. Lorraine Abeita used one of the 13 public access computers to look for a job, next to people surfing YouTube and Facebook. Families picked out stacks of books, as did retiree Gary Johnston, who found his selections in the Friends of the Library bookstore.
Retirees, students and people who said they struggle with homelessness all told The New Mexican that when they are looking for a place to sit quietly, the library is just a nice place to go.
“We feel very strongly that we’re one of the last democratic institutions in the U.S.,” Hodapp said. “We want everyone to feel welcome, and we want them to have what they need.”
On Saturday, the branch celebrated its 10th anniversary and kicked off the citywide library system’s summer reading program with live mariachis, performers on stilts and appearances from current and former mayors.
Children and families wandered booths set up for community services, such as the YMCA and The Housing Trust, grabbing candy and filling tote bags with free goodies. At one station, the Santa Fe Library Advisory Board invited people to draw the floor plan of their dream library. Suggestions included food trucks and a boxing gym.
The call for input comes on the cusp of a new library assessment and planning study, designed to evaluate the “needs and desires for our Library system in the future.” It’s the first assessment since the one that catalyzed the Southside Branch.
“It’s time for a new one. It’s been 20 years,” board President David Wagner said of the survey. “We want to give people things they like, and what they use.”