Opening date, first lecture series set for Encinitas library

By: ADAM KAYE - Staff Writer
Policy for community room headed to City Council | Friday, January 4, 2008 10:58 PM PST ∞

ENCINITAS -- Mark your calendars, the long-awaited Encinitas Community Library is opening at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 23.

It has been nearly four years since the city has been without its main library on Cornish Drive. The old one closed in May 2004 and was razed months later.

As officials prepare for next month's opening, the City Council on Wednesday is scheduled to consider a policy governing the use of the library's community room.

And in other library business, the county of San Diego has opened registration for a series of five public discussions of Jewish literature at the library this spring.

One of the 27,000-square-foot library's amenities will be a 2,000-square-foot community room. The room will provide space for library and community programming.

A proposal headed to the City Council outlines how groups can gain access to the room as well as the fees they would face.

A ranking system in the policy gives precedence to the city or county library to host cultural, fine arts or educational events. Nonprofit or civic groups could schedule time in the room, and for fees ranging from $50 to $100 per hour, so could private, commercial groups.

While booking the community room can include fees, a reading series of Jewish literature is free to anyone

As part of the library system's "Let's talk About It" series, San Diego State University assistant professor June Cummins will host five, monthly talks starting in February.

The first talk will cover Sholem Aleichem's "Tevye the Dairyman."

Contacted Friday, Cummins said she also is leading a book club in Poway, where up to 50 readers have shared their thoughts.

Many of them are senior citizens and many of them bring impassioned anecdotes to the discussions, said Cummins, who teaches English and comparative literature.

"They're a generation or two ahead of me and they have knowledge of the American Jewish experience they know firsthand," Cummins said. "There's nothing better than the benefit of shared experience and hearing other people's perspectives."

Other books in the discussion series include "Bread Givers" by Anzia Yezierska; "O My America!" by Johanna Kaplan; "American Pastoral" by Philip Roth; and "Bee Season" by Myla Goldberg.

To participate in the discussions, register at(858) 694-2484.

The discussion series is all about bringing community members together to celebrate things they have in common, said Jose Aponte, the county's library director.

"The library doesn't do this for you, doesn't do it to you -- it does it with you," Aponte said.

More enthusiasm about next month's opening and the reading series came from Anne Omsted, a former Encinitas councilwoman and co-president of the Friends of the Encinitas Library.

"Where else would you be holding a free, very high-level exciting discussion like this?" she said. "This library is going to be the center of Encinitas. There's going to be a myriad of things going on in that community room. It's awesome. That's what it is."

Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 901-4074 or akaye@nctimes.com.

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