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I love our local libraries!

As a newly moved immigrant in 2007, libraries were one of the few places where I sought to read and relax after schools. I learned that libraries are also wonderful centers for the community to gather and work out and learn. They were also places where we can seek resources of many different kinds. It is 2026 and I still love going and learning and meeting great people. I feel like the libraries are one of the few safe spaces in the neighborhood I can come to develop myself. Thank you for all the patient librarians out there. You all make a difference.

Life raft

I live in east county and I had four kids in a relatively short period of time. A love of books drew me in to the county library in our area. The children’s song alongs and story times kept me coming back at first. The air conditioning in the summer and dry roof in the winter was a bonus! It’s hard to look through the books myself with several small children trying to climb the shelves, but my sister in law told me to request online and pick up on my regular trips in. That changed the game. After that…

From reading and research at SDPL, I wrote my own nonfiction book

From reading and research at SDPL and elsewhere, I wrote a 300-page book about how the U.S. military modernized itself after the Vietnam War, specifically in Navy ships often based here in San Diego. Library materials enabled me to place interviews and my own experiences into contexts and to recognize priorities. SDPL staff obtained for me an important research paper. Titled Electronic Greyhounds: The Spruance-class Destroyers, my book was published by the Naval Institute Press in 1995. I took my family to Europe on the royalties. SDPL itself had my book in its collection for decades.