Renovated Palm Desert library opens after split from county

With a few dozen patrons on hand — including at least one first-timer — the Palm Desert library reopened its doors Monday morning, marking the start of its operations under city control after decades of being a part of Riverside County’s library system.

The city’s transition from the county-led system has been in the works for just over a year. The city council endorsed the move in June 2023 , saying it will free up more than $1 million annually in extra funding that currently goes to the county’s library fund and open the door for a new facility later on.

The county spent approximately $1.5 million each year on the Palm Desert branch, but by withdrawing from its system, the city gets back $2.6 million a year that it previously sent to the county's library fund, according to city estimates.

As part of the transition, the library, which has been on College of the Desert’s campus since 1996, was closed at the start of May for what the city described as a “light interior refresh” to upgrade its visitors’ experience. The upgrades cost $692,000.

The refurbished space Monday offered a handful of changes: The circulation desk near the entrance has been removed to allow library staff to mill about with patrons with ease and make them more approachable. Several desks with computer monitors were also gone, and a “laptop kiosk” — available to people with a library card for in-house use — has been set up in their place.

Additionally, the city’s Visitor Center — previously located at city hall — has been moved to the library, offering the latest info on events and activities in Palm Desert. The renovations also included adding some new furniture, fresh paint, new flooring in parts of the building, new light fixtures and the reupholstering of some existing furniture.

The renovated library, which acts as one of the city’s daytime cooling centers to give people a safe place to get out of summer heat, also features an upgraded HVAC system and new tinted windows to keep the space as cool as possible. As it did before, the space also features a veterans resources center open on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Gary Shaffer, who was hired last fall as Palm Desert’s director of library services, said the staff’s vision is “to modernize the library and kind of bring it into the 21st century.” He also said the new space aims to be a “library laboratory” that allows the city to experiment with new offerings and programs.

“Having run a system with 25 libraries, there’s a little bit of a cookie cutter approach to libraries,” said Shaffer, who was previously the director of library systems in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Glendale. “This allows us to really have a tailor-made library experience.”

The experimentation will allow the staff to see what works as the city of Palm Desert prepares to build a new standalone library within the next few years.

“We’re going to see the usage of the children’s services (and) what is the demand for large print books versus e-Books. So we can kind of balance it all out so that when we build the new facility, it will be right-sized,” Shaffer said.

The new library is planned on city-owned land near city hall at the Palm Desert Civic Center, Shaffer said. The city aims to open it in three years, depending on funding and construction constraints.

The library’s reopening Monday drew plenty of residents, with a few dozen patrons on hand during The Desert Sun’s visit, while 87 people had signed up for their Palm Desert library cards within the first 40 minutes after opening, according to a library staffer.

For some, it was a day of firsts. Natalie Dewey, who grew up in the valley and often visited Palm Desert’s library for school projects, was on hand with her 19-month-old son Dean, who was making his first library visit.

Natalie described her son as “book obsessed.” (His favorite at the moment? “ Giraffes Can’t Dance ” by Giles Andreae.) After attending the city’s weekly story time for toddlers and preschoolers held at The Shops at Palm Desert this summer, she caught wind of the library reopening and knew they would be there.

“I’m really excited about it,” Natalie said. “There’s nothing to do here in the summer, so an air-conditioned space where he can have free roam is important.”

Rita Robinson-Campbell, who’s lived in the valley with her husband for five years, said she’s an avid fan of libraries, so they wanted to come check out the renovated space right away.

“It looks like it’s going to be pretty nice. They’ve got a nice reading area and docking stations (for laptops),” Robinson-Campbell said as she perused a collection of magazines.

The library’s reopening also drew praise from city officials. Councilmember Evan Trubee attended Monday morning and said it was “stunning” to see the speed at which city staff had completed the renovations.

“This is exactly what we wanted,” Trubee said. “I just thought we would be better served (by a city-run library) with some autonomy and more direct control.”

If you go

Located at 73-300 Fred Waring Dr., the Palm Desert library is open during the following hours:

• Monday through Wednesday: 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
• Thursday through Saturday: 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
• Sunday: 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Visitors will need to get a separate library card to access books and other technology at the Palm Desert facility. (Anyone is eligible to obtain a card.)

Patrons also won’t be able to request books from the county’s collection at the Palm Desert facility. Instead, Shaffer said the library is planning to use a system known as “LINK+,” which allows you to request books from the hundreds of other libraries across California that are a part of the consortium.

The city will also continue with its “Storytime at The Shops” program, held every Tuesday at The Shops at Palm Desert near Macy’s, through the rest of the summer, and its Book-Mobile will still make appearances at events across the city.

More information is available at the city's new library website: www.palmdesertlibrary.org .

Tom Coulter covers the cities of Palm Desert, La Quinta, Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells. Reach him at thomas.coulter@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Renovated Palm Desert library opens after split from county