Robert Dawson has been photographing public libraries for the past eighteen years, capturing images in 48 states (excluding Alabama and Hawaii). He went through a slide show for half an hour before sitting in conversation with Luis Herrera, librarian at SFPL.
* 17,000 public libraries in the US, ~550 are in his book
* Peterborough, NH library was the first public library.
* Early libraries included collections of paintings and other art
* Library in Derby Line is half in US, half in Quebec
* Carnegie libraries: Dawson said we have 5 in the Bay Area but I see a whole lot more in the list; Carnegie spent ~70% of his fortune on libraries. They had swimming pool, basketball court, indoor track, and books. For his donation to SF of $750k, half was spent on the main library (now Asian Art musuem), the rest on branches (Chinatown, Mission, Golden Gate, Sunset, Richmond, Noe Valley, Presido)
* Seattle’s library has too many nooks and crannies for patrons to hide in at the end of the day
* Salt Lake City & Philadelphia have gorgeous libraries (his list of top 3: NYC, Seattle, SLC)
* San Rafael, CA has a Frank Lloyd Wright designed library
* Yosemite library only (?) library in a national park
* Kansas City has a library in an old bank, they show movies in the vault
* Henderson, NV has a library in the shopping mall, confusing patrons who tried to buy the books, so they had to offer some for sale.
* The busy busy Berkeley tool library offers check-out of tools
* Hurricane Katrina wiped out 50% of books, 90% of library staff
* Most unusual library in his opinion that of Elsie Eiler, mayor of a one-woman town
* Other trends: libraries closing when we need it most (Great Recession), spike in computer use