When will the San Dimas Public Library reopen?

The San Dimas library announced its closing on May 10th, 2021 and officially closed the following week on the 17th. The original plans for closing were announced to end in late August of that same year, but it’s reached nearly a year since the library closed and the question still begs, when will the library ever open again?

The public library is a staple of the community for many families, especially those with learning and developing children. Sophomore Adeline Ramirez recalls, “I’m really upset… I used to get taken there a lot as a kid. That’s where I learned my extensive vocabulary.”

For many young children, the public library is a key part of their elementary lives, and at a time when the growth and development of children has already been stunted by a lack of socialization and personal experience with education, a lack of a local library serves to be a major problem.

The library has also been closed during the years of 2018-2019 for maintenance once again due to infrastructure rules placed by the LA County Library department. The library has offered accommodations and alternatives like outdoor activities and pick-up boxes, but many think these half-hearted efforts fail to make up for the loss of the community’s great hub.

The library temporarily closed the previous year due to covid-19 precautions and quarantine, but closed for maintenance at a time when most public places were starting to reopen fully again. Some adults in the city ask, “Why couldn’t this have been done before?” and “Must the library really be remodeled this frequently?”

The closing serves as an inconvenience to parents, studemts, and book readers alike, and doesn’t seem to be showing signs of opening back up anytime soon. A lack of a learning sanctuary mixed with an extremely changing world doesn’t bode well for the students of San Dimas, and ends up leaving the public library only acting as a big waste of space.