Roseland library: SR council advocates funding

Storytime at Roseland library. Credit: SCL website

Important news for supporters of Santa Rosa library services: The Santa Rosa City Council has directed city staff to include $150,000 for Roseland Community Library relocation in the budget for next fiscal year.

(The final budget must still be ratified before that funding is truly official.)

The news comes via a post on social media by City Councilmember Jack Tibbetts, who states: “This isn’t everything that’s needed (not even close) to guarantee or secure a permanent site, but it is a really important first step for the Council to take towards sharing in the responsibility for, and commitment to, Roseland’s Library.”

The Roseland Community Library (part of the Sonoma County Library system) operates out of a temporary location at 779 Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa. The community it serves scored near-lowest in the county on a “Human Development Index” that measured life expectancy, level of education, and earnings for Sonoma County residents.

(Roseland scored 2.95 on the HDI, followed only by Roseland Creek with a score of 2.79. The highest-scoring community, East Bennett Valley, had an HDI of 8.47.)

A Roseland Library Coalition, part of the Sonoma County Public Library Foundation, states that “a key component to empowering a community in the achievement of its peak potential is a fully resourced, modern Library.” It highlights some of the statistics to-date for use of the Roseland library:

“The items most checked out by the community are books for babies and toddlers in Spanish and the weekly preschool story times reach over 3000 Roseland residents annually.

“The Roseland Community Library provides daily access to computers, printers, and Wi-Fi for all ages, creating equity in an area lacking technology infrastructure. The bilingual digital literacy support provided by the Library is invaluable to the success of Roseland residents.

“The majority of registered users for the Roseland Library are children and teens. Over 500 children would be without library services and resources if the Roseland Community Library did not exist.”

Sources:

Post to Facebook by Councilmember Jack Tibbetts, May 22, 2019, at 7:07 p.m.,
https://www.facebook.com/harrison.tibbetts/posts/10157406237679853

2014 Human Development Report for Sonoma County, compiled by Measure of America of the Social Science Research Council, http://measureofamerica.org/sonoma/

Coalition to Support the Roseland Library, Sonoma County Library Foundation,
https://scplf.org/roseland-library/