Pleasanton Public Library

400 Old Bernal Ave Pleasanton, CA 94566

The Pleasanton Public Library serves the city of Pleasanton in Alameda County, California. The library is located near downtown Pleasanton at 400 Old Bernal Avenue. The Pleasanton Women’s Improvement Club was founded in 1908 to strengthen the Pleasanton neighborhood, an agricultural town located in the Tri-Valley area east of San Francisco. Their first project was to set up a lecture room. She bought a place to house the Reading Room with $1,100 earned at an “Old Maid’s Convention” and other fundraisers. It was opened for the public in 1909. Books were donated and $10 a month for a librarian was hired. Mrs. Phoebe Apperson Hearst and her friend, the Persian Consul, were honored guests for the formal opening. After the first city hall of Pleasanton (now Main Street Museum) was built in 1915, the city leased a portion of it to the club to house the library and reading room for $1 per year.

The library has expanded to keep up with Pleasanton as it has changed from an agricultural town to an affluent suburban community and one of the East Bay area’s modern business centers. The library became a full member of the library system of the Alameda County in 1964. The need for expansion in 1973 led the library with about 35,000 books to a new 6,900-square-foot (640 m2) building on Black Avenue. In 1987, the city acknowledged the need for an even larger library and started building on the new 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) facility that opened in 1988.

In 1999, the City of Pleasanton withdrew from the program to become a municipal library in response to significant funding losses to the Alameda County Library system caused by the “Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund” of California. Since then, library use has more than doubled, with over 1.1 million items checked out in the 2005 calendar year.

The Pleasanton Public Library is quite a large library with a variety of services. Not only do they have a wide selection of books and extremely friendly staff, they offer a range of programs such as their Summer Reading Program for children, free presentations from historians, kids reading to dogs, and many more! There are a lot of desks and seating options for those looking to get some homework done or simply read a book. Also, there are many computers that offer free black and white printing, up to 20 pages.