CORONADO, Calif. (KGTV) — Built in 1909, the Coronado Public Library is the oldest concrete building on the West Coast, and it is expected to undergo some modern renovations on the inside.
On Wednesday, Assemblymember Tasha Boerner of the 77th Assembly District, which included the City of Coronado, along with Mayor Richard Bailey, council members Mike Donovan, Carrie Downey, and John Duncan, presented a check for $150,000.
The grant money from the state will go towards creating a new event space and study rooms inside the library. It will accommodate the library's 723 programs and more than 34,000 attendees.
Based on the grant's terms, the library will have to complete the renovations by 2026.
Shaun Briley, director at the Coronado Public Library said the library will make the upgrades to keep up with the new demands. This will be based between trends the library has seen with their own readers and what the American Library Association has identified.
"We do have a shortage of meeting spaces at the library," Briley said. "Based on our usage, we need to find adequate space for programs and add some soundproof doors so that you can hold events in here without disturbing people outside."
Briley also said people are coming for a more narrow search in their library books.
"People coming in for lifestyle books for fiction is very strong," Briley said. "We have about two-thirds of our circulation is fiction."
However, Briley said nonfiction books like biographies, travel, and cooking don't have a strong pull anymore as people access those materials on their devices more often now.
The library also wants to take what it calls its '90s style internet cafe' and transform it into a study room.
"Another thing that's happening with libraries are people are using them as a WeWork space for their jobs," Briley said. "Or you have and we have a lot of students come here because we're right next to the high school, right next to the middle school, which have 40 percent military in there and then make up."
