How do you celebrate a public library building’s 100th anniversary? If you live in Santa Barbara, write a book. Not only write a book, but have many of Santa Barbara’s top authors write for it.
Friends of the Library board member Steve Gilbar did just that by bringing together 80 local authors to create Library Book: Writers on Libraries, a Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Santa Barbara Public Library’s Central Library. The book’s debut on June 10 will commemorate the Central Library building’s opening in 1917.
To start the project, he contacted T.C. Boyle (The Terranauts, 2016), who agreed to write the foreword.
Graphic artist Anna Sands Lafferty came next. Her handsome book cover uses the new library logo, a Bird of Paradise plant with its petals in the shape of partially open books.
Gilbar then faced a major effort: asking authors to contribute a piece. Most are Santa Barbarans, such as Pico Iyer, Gretel Ehrlich, Sue Grafton, Fannie Flagg, Starshine Roshell, the city’s poet laureates and others, each name making the list more impressive.
They have generously contributed essays, short stories and poems about experiences in libraries ranging from childhood memories to current use of the library and today’s facilities.
“I encouraged them,” Gilbar says, “to focus on libraries, not just learning to read. Everyone who answered sent in an article except for one who refused.”
The library we know today began in 1872 when Sara Plummer, a young woman from back East, realized that our community of about 3,000 had few books available, mostly in Spanish or law books. She along with others pulled together the Santa Barbara Public Library.
In those days, renting out books or paying membership fees was the way libraries worked. In 1882, Mayor Peter Barber proclaimed it a free library.
By 1892, when the Santa Barbara population reached 6,000, a permanent library at 14 E. Carrillo St. was built to accommodate the growing city. Within 25 years, the city had grown to more than 19,000 people. The building had become inadequate.
Thanks to a group of generous donors purchasing land at Anapamu and Anacapa streets, a $50,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation in 1915 and citizens working with the city, the current Central Library building came together. Designed by Pittsburgh architect Henry Hornbostel and revised by local architect Francis Wilson, it opened in November 1917.
The building still stands, although eight years after the opening, the 1925 earthquake caused major damage. As a result, local architect Carleton Winslow led a reconstruction effort and reopened it in the fall of 1926.
By 1930, the Faulkner Gallery, designed by architect Myron Hunt, was added and made possible through funding by Mary Faulkner Gould.
This past year, Gilbar realized that such an historical timeline could bring the library and its many branches to the community’s attention. Pulling from his experience with 20 published books, several of them anthologies such as Tales of Santa Barbara: From Native Storytellers to Sue Grafton (1994), he decided to create a community-loaded book about the importance of libraries.
He talked about what kicked off the idea.
“When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, ‘Because that’s where the money is.’ In my case, libraries are where books are. Also, I spent untold hours in the pre-Internet era doing research there with the help of the excellent reference staff. Public libraries are a glorious institution that must be supported. Even if I don’t use it as much as before, others need it. And it is an important community center — think Faulkner. Plus, I like doing anthologies and working with talented writers and having them a platform on which to shine.”
So how did he find these generous authors? He looked into resources such as the UCSB English Department, news media, book-group recommendations and connections typical of Santa Barbara’s small-town network. As founder of Speaking of Stories (Center Stage theatrical short story readings by professional actors), Gilbar himself has a large number of contacts throughout the literary community.
The local authors represent a wide range of Santa Barbara writers from Sara Plummer Lemmon, founder of our public library, to James Kahn, who novelized Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983) and The Adventures of Indiana Jones (2008).
A few nonresidents also attracted his attention.
“Whenever I saw a name of a good writer, I wrote a letter. For instance, I found the piece by Neil Gaiman [Norse Mythology, 2017] so wrote to his agent and asked if we could use it. He said yes.”
Other nonresidents include Ursula Le Guin (The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin, 2016) and Mahesh Rao (The Smoke Is Rising, 2014), who lives and writes about life in India as well as his childhood in Kenya.
Friends of the Library is paying for the printing of Library Book: Writers on Libraries. One hundred percent of sales, $20 per book, will go to Santa Barbara Public Library.
“We’re not using professional distributors,” Gilbar says, “but will get the book out there throughout this year’s celebration via Amazon, social media, etc.”
The book also will be available in independent bookstores.
To celebrate its publication, Friends of the Library will hold the Central Library Centennial Gala Fundraiser in the main library on Saturday, June 10 after closing at 6 p.m. for $50. If interested, click here for more information.
Now that the book is at the printers, Gilbar looks back: “It’s far better than I expected. All on the list are excellent writers.”
— Noozhawk columnist Susan Miles Gulbransen — a Santa Barbara native, writer and book reviewer — teaches writing at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and through the Santa Barbara City College Continuing Education Division. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.
