Hawthorne's first library was established in 1913 and the current branch was built in 1962. The new branch quickly proved popular - in it's first six months circulation numbers jumped from a ranking of 26th place (for the previous branch) to 5th place. By 1965 the branch was the most used regional branch in the county system with Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights being the busiest. Shortly after the library opened, a group of 'young folks', ranging in age from 10 to 14, formed the Junior Friends of the Hawthorne Library. The ambitious group of approximately 50 had committees for arts and posters, children's book week, school co-ordinating, ways and means, refreshments and special services. In 1964, the (adult) Friends of the Hawthorne Library began a program of creating 'talking books' for the visually handicapped. Volunteers read from such classics as Dickens Christmas Carol and Goodbye Mr. Chips and were recorded on a reel to reel machine donated by the Hawthorne Lions Club.
Community programs during their first decade included art exhibits, film series and investment lectures. During the mid-1970s they also circulated 8mm and super 8mm for 10 cents each.
You learn something new everyday! A 1970 article in the Los Angeles Times on the cookbooks of the Hawthorne library has a librarian explaining that each county library concentrates on one of the 10 Dewey decimal classifications from 000 to 999 and their specialty is the 600s "and that includes cooking, dogs, data processing, gardening, carpentry, cats and winemaking."
In 1978, as part of Hawthorne Library's 65th anniversary celebration, children were invited to submit artwork depicting what they thought the library looked like in 1913 or what they think it will look like in the year 2000. I wonder if they saved any of those?
Today the library is an excellent resource for car buffs (with a whole aisle populated with Chilton manuals) and crafters (more craft books than you can shake a bejeweled stick at). Every Wednesday night a group of local residents, known as the Hawthorne Knit Wits, meet at the library to work on their knitting and crocheting. Evidence of their handiwork, in the form of bookworm bookmarks, can be purchased at the front counter for $1.00.
Great post! I need to get me a bookworm bookmark--those are awesome.
ReplyDeleteThe current building opened in 1962 as the "Centinela Valley Regional Library", replacing the regional office that was located at the nearby Lennox branch about 2 miles north as well as the smaller Hawthorne branch that was further north on 116th Street. The area formerly known as the Lennox Region was created in the 1940s by then County Librarian Helen Vogleson but the regional system as we know it today was finalized by Vogleson's successor John Henderson in 1957 and fully implemented by 1959 (the main purpose was to decentralize the system). According to memos I found in the Kenneth Hahn Papers at the Huntington Library, in 1972 there was talk within the Library system (then headed by Carol Moss) and Supervisor Kenneth Hahn's office for expanding the building as the County's Real Estate Management Department was looking into acquiring adjacent properties (such as the former City Hall or County Public Social Services office), and they were mainly interested in the adjacent Armory building but they ended up expanding within the existing library building (an interim facility was leased from the City in the same vicinity to continue public service), and that resulted in the Lennox Regional Office at Hawthorne relocating to the newly built Carson Regional Library (which by the way finally reopens to the public on December 8, 2023 after being closed for 4 long years!) instead of acquiring adjacent properties. The Armory site that the Library originally wanted was demolished to make way for the Marriott TownePlace Suites Hotel.
ReplyDeleteAs for the room that has all the Chilton car repair manuals and the Microfilm room, I was told earlier this year that was the space formerly occupied by the Lennox/Centinela Regional Office from 1962-1972.
The practice of using geographic region names for the all the regional branches ended in 1972 at the request of Carson's mayor, which wanted the City's name for the library for simplicity. Therefore, Centinela Valley renamed "Hawthorne", South Bay renamed "Carson", Antelope Valley renamed "Lancaster", East San Gabriel Valley renamed "West Covina", Los Cerritos renamed "Norwalk", West San Gabriel Valley renamed "Rosemead", Rio Hondo renamed "Montebello", and San Antonio renamed "Huntington Park". A ninth region, Institutions (15 branches in County-operated camps, hospitals, and Sheriff facilities that serve only staff and "inmates"/patients), was supervised out of the system's old Downtown headquarters.
Hawthorne's little sister branch, Holly Park (or sometimes printed as Hollypark), opened in 1964 in the city park of the same name in the northern part of the city adjacent to the 105 Freeway, closed sometime in the late 1980's (most likely due to the 105 Freeway construction) but the building is still being maintained by the Library as storage space. Apparently not much information is known about this former branch other than a few news articles and photos. This branch featured more technical books for the area's aviation/manufacturing industry. The area's third branch, Wiseburn, has a Hawthorne mailing address but is technically in unincorporated territory of the same name and caters mainly to children as it is on the grounds of an elementary school since 1966 but has served the community since 1955.