Roseland library finds a temporary home, but permanent location still unclear
Marisol Angeles will be the first to tell you that libraries are not just a place for books.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic closed in-person access to the Roseland Regional Library in March 2020, you could find her at the branch multiple times a week.
For years, Angeles met there weekly with other members of the Roseland Community Building Initiative, a neighborhood advocacy group, to discuss the group’s projects and challenges in the community.
She also participated in a bookmaking class, one of several courses offered to adults at the location.
Of course, access to books for her kids and for herself was part of the appeal. Angeles also liked that Spanish-speaking staff was easy to find at the location.
“It was a place that was needed,” Angeles said of the branch, which opened in late 2015, two years before most of Roseland was annexed into Santa Rosa.
This month, the Roseland library will reopen to the public in a new location, welcoming in-person patrons for the first time since the pandemic forced the branch to limit operations.
The relocation comes as a permanent home for the facility remains out of reach despite the millions of dollars already allocated for the project — casting an uncertain future for the branch and dimming the hopes of residents such as Angeles, who say they rely on the essential services and community space the library provides.
“What is needed in the city so they have the place (for the library)?” Angeles asked. “How come in other places, they have their own building but this area doesn’t?”
The library’s move to the 470 Sebastopol Road building, which sits next to the Frozen Art Gourmet Ice Cream store, represents a significant upgrade from its prior space, said Ray Holley, a spokesman for the Sonoma County Library, which oversees the regional branch.
The library’s former location about a block away at the Roseland Village Shopping Center was shared with the local Boys and Girls Club, meaning the library’s hours were mostly limited to the mornings, Holley said.
The roof sometimes leaked and there were problems with mice — conditions that fell short of what the community deserves of its library, Holley said.
By the time it opens, the new library will be outfitted with a new and larger collection of books, as well as new shelving and furniture, Holley said.
Like the prior location, computers and printers will be available, though it’ll also offer a dedicated community meeting space and eventually a 3D printer.
It’ll also be open for more hours: every day except Sunday, starting from 12-7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. the remaining days.
New space for community hub
The hope is to add to the library’s program offerings as the COVID pandemic wanes, according to Holley.
The library previously hosted author visits, story times, computer and typing classes and cooking demonstrations.
More than 750 users were registered with the library just prior to the 2020 shelter-in-place orders went into effect, though that doesn’t count relatives who visited the library with those users or people who only browsed or used the branch’s public computers — activities that don’t require a library card, Holley said.
“This is a dream come true for us, to serve this community that has been chronically underserved for so long,” Holley said of moving to the upgraded space, which will have more room for books and other resources than the prior space. “The few years that we have been in Roseland, the community has come to love us and our librarians have come to love the community.”
The move comes nearly six years after the library first opened at 779 Sebastopol Road next door to a now-closed Dollar Tree store in December 2015.
That space was offered up by Sonoma County, which at the time had jurisdiction over the county governed neighborhood, a predominantly Latino area that had long gone without many of the city services provided to surrounding neighborhoods.
In late 2017, Santa Rosa folded the neighborhood into its city limits in a long-awaited annexation.
By doing so, the city inherited the regional library and the responsibility to provide a permanent space for it, as is the case with the other local municipalities that have a library under the Sonoma County Library system, Holley said.
The library was allowed to stay in the county space temporarily as the city and library officials worked to find a city-owned property to house the library.
However, the approval of the 175-apartment complex at the county-owned site in 2019 placed additional pressure for the library to vacate the building, Holley said.
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