Last week my wife Kathy and I traveled to Marana, AZ, (about 20 miles NW of Tucson) for her step-father’s 80th birthday celebration. I took the opportunity one morning to visit the nearby Wheeler Taft Abbett Sr. Branch of the Pima County Public Library. This branch is one of 27 locations in the extensive Pima County library system. It is named for its principal benefactor who donated one million dollars in 2006 to build this 20,000 square-foot library branch that was dedicated in 2008.
In the Tucson area it is not uncommon to see solar power installations like the one at the library that double as sun shades for parked cars. Just outside the library entrance there is a large metal sculpture with cut outs of words. There has been near record rains in the Tucson area before we arrived, so the nearby catch basin was full of water.
The library’s glass-walled entrance was most inviting, yet it did not prepare me for the sheer spaciousness of this bright and open library with two entire walls of windows and a high open ceiling that seems to sweep from indoors to outdoors with expansive sun shields all around the building. These are designed to keep the intense sun from overheating the building, especially on the 100+ degree Fahrenheit days common in the summer.
This large open space offers separate areas for computer stations, study carrels, comfortable seating areas, and shelves for books, recorded media, and periodicals. In addition to the glass walls, the concrete walls had clerestory windows all the way around. The ceiling seems almost to float, with only a small number of supporting posts.
The view to the east of the Santa Catalina Mountains is almost magical. The foreground of the photo shows part of the Silverbell District Park that surrounds the library.
The display board just inside the entrance announces the day’s activities in the Children’s Room and in the Community Room, which is just inside the library entrance doors. I was most intrigued by the 3 pm activity in the Children’s Room, “Read to a Dog.”
In one corner of this large room is a space specifically for Teens. Glass panel walls set it off, but it is still quite open like the rest of the library. This gathering space offers computers stations and comfortable seating along with book shelves for teen fiction and nonfiction.
There are bookcases for teen fiction and nonfiction, and a display board announces a variety of teen activities throughout the month.
As a visitor from Ohio, I knew I would not be able to borrow any books, but I was on the lookout for a comfortable place to sit and read the book I’d brought with me. Looking from the Teen Space, I spotted various study tables and carrels.
My eyes were especially drawn to the corner where the two large glass walls meet. There were numerous chairs here and all along the longer wall—all with that amazing view of the Santa Catalina Mountains.
Before sitting down to read however, I wanted to check out the Kids’ Place, which is a separate space off the left hand side of the large room. Just inside the Kids’ Place there’s a Story Room.
I wasn’t able to take photos of the play area in the Kid’s Place because there were so many children playing there. The area for computer stations and the seating area near the large windows were momentarily unoccupied, allowing me to take pictures.
I stopped to admire the artwork posted along one wall—watercolor mosaics of prickly pear cacti painted by 6th-graders at the school next door, the Lehman Academy of Excellence.
Searching through the children’s books, I found a Mo Willems book that was new to me, so I sat down to laugh my way through reading Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs. That Willem’s take on the story would be a bit twisted was clear on the very first page, where the third dinosaur after the Papa and the Momma is “some other Dinosaur who happened to be visiting from Norway.” And when the three dinosaurs make three bowls of chocolate pudding instead of porridge and then Goldilocks comes to taste them, “the first bowl of chocolate pudding was too hot, but Goldilocks ate it all anyway because , hey it’s chocolate pudding, right?"
Having thoroughly enjoyed Mo Willems’ inventive story, I headed back to that inviting corner with all the glass to settle in and read for the next hour. What a great reading space, with that great view to one side and another back toward the entrance across the entire library space! (My words and pictures really cannot do justice to it.)
After an hour it was time for lunch, but first I wanted to walk around the entire library to see what the glass walls and sun shade looked like from outside. It’s all quite striking.
For lunch I decided to stop at a nearby In-N-Out Burger—a burger chain I like but can’t visit in Ohio because it operates only in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Texas. I had my usual when I’m visiting in Arizona—a Double Double cheeseburger with fries and a drink. (The photos are borrowed from Google Maps.)
It was a fine topper to a great morning in Marana, AZ!
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