A new municpality-run library will be soon added to the list of Anchorage libraries. This one will be located in the old City Hall building in downtown Anchorage and will be the sixth general-purpose public library in Anchorage. It won’t take up the whole building, and the library isn’t envisioned as a large one, like the Loussac Library in Midtown.
It is a project years in the making, most recently getting a boost from former Anchorage library director Judy Eledge, who made it a priority before she left the library in 2023, after being hounded by reporting on her by the Anchorage Daily News. The money came from an endowment that has been sitting in the accounts of the Anchorage Library Foundation, originally made by Janet and John Goetz, longtime downtown residents who died many years ago and bequeathed their estate to the foundation with instructions that it would be used to recreate a downtown library. The original gift of over a half million dollars has grown over the years and is now said to be in the millions of dollars.
But none of the administrations before Bronson were able to get the project done for various reasons.
On Thursday, Mayor Dave Bronson will announce the plans to move forward, which involve using some portion of the historic building at 524 W. 4th Ave., not far from where the old downtown library was located before it was torn down to make way for the Egan Convention Center.
According to the foundation’s planning documents for the library, it will not be a location rich in actual books, but it will be a flexible space that has some books and newspapers, and lots of flexible room for other activities.
“While a small collection of popular books and DVDs will be available for check-out and magazines and newspapers will be available for browsing, staff will be much more focused on creating and curating experiences and offering services to customers. Staff will also go into the community to develop partnerships with local businesses and service providers to bring timely and relevant programs into the library. For instance, the Library might partner with a legal services or tax preparation group to offer classes in those areas, or host a Dena’ina beading workshop or a foreign film night. Some library events might not even happen at the library—staff will take advantage of the surrounding museums, restaurants, theaters and galleries to expand the size and type of programs the library is able to offer,” the planning document says.
Libraries have become de facto daytime warming shelters for Anchorage homeless and during previous mayoral administrations were venues for controversial events such as Drag Queen Story Hour for children. Parents are concerned about the books that culture-warrior librarians seem to be pushing on children, with literature that emphasizes gender identity matters that many feel are not appropriate for children. Libraries have, in fact, become a front of the culture war being waged by leftists.
These are challenges that are not exclusive to Anchorage but seen in cities around the country, where not everyone feels that the library is a safe and welcoming place. During the Bronson administration, there has been some effort to restore the use of libraries to their intended use, although the current Loussac Library has once again become a magnet for drug users and other miscreants who use the facilities for various illegal activities.
Two years ago, a woman returning books at the Loussac Library suffered permanent injuries after being attacked by a knife-wielding stranger, adding to the concern that libraries are changing in America.
Read more about the foundation’s concept for the downtown library.
Library: a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (such as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale (Merriam Webster). Library: a building, room, or organization that has a collection of books, documents, music, and sometimes things such as tools or artwork, for people to borrow, usually without payment (Cabridge Dictionary).
Not some foundation’s idea: “a flexible space that has SOME books and newspapers, and lots of flexible room for other activities.” I bet it won’t be long before the homeless folk turn it into a defacto warmup space and sleepoff shelter.
Yes, and a place to find books and research material not available online. No place for modern fad that you can get anywhere. Not a place that our other library has become, but a place for scholars.
Doesn’t sound like a library to me…
Yes
The school district needs more money the city needs more money for snow removal the assembly needs more money for the homeless but we need a money pit downtown.
Money is going to come from your property taxes because politicians know it’s not their money so spend us into another broke city.
Another reason myself and family hate downtown.
Anchorage can’t even keep busy Mountain View, Muldoon, Eagleriver-Chugiak, and Loussac libraries.
More wasting tax-payers money when tax-payers and non voters are barely using the existing libraries.
If Alaskan parents and grandparents won’t read to the kids around them. Then Shut them All down.
Another thing no one wants to go downtown anymore. It’ll take 20 years for downtown anchorage to be revitalized under twenty years of a conservative-Rhino mayor and a more conservative assembly and city councils.
Since Midtown is becoming an eye sore I’d say move all businesses to South Anchorage and let downtown be the government, JBER, and Port of Anchorage district until an earthquake happens to put it out of its misery.
Just build a Quonset Hut, empty the Service HS book collection into it, then turn it over to the homeless.
“While a small collection of popular books and DVDs will be available for check-out and magazines and newspapers will be available for browsing, (This is not a library) staff will be much more focused on creating and curating experiences and offering services to customers. (This is what it’s for. A new place for the drag queens to perform in front of children)
For my money, libraries are obsolete and should be discarded. The ones that offer “customer service” over “books” should be the first to go.
Good news for the homeless.
Leave it to MRAKers to criticize the idea of a library. I think I get it – things that are good for the public at large should not exist; things that help me but screw you are great (and I don’t want to pay for any of it).
Well, a few MRAKers quoted the definition of a library to point out that the description herein does not match the traditional understanding of a library.
That sounds like the use of reason to me, rather than hate.
Neither the announcement not the article make a good case as to why we need another library in Anchorage. The Loussac is a coven, but starting another library in town will not drive the devil out…
I’m leaping for joy!
This will be the new hangout for modern societal lepers now that Kaladi bailed out. The challenge? A private employer can say ‘heck w/ this’ and run off with impunity. The city though? Not so much. They’ll have a filthy hoard in that building for decades and the impact radius will be significant.
There used to be a jail in the rear o that bldg. Better to turn back the clock and start locking up bums. Offer some a one way ticket outside and a suspended sentence if they don’t come back. Beyond that you’re not going to fix our growing cultural effluent.
Thank you for the article, Must Read.. Actually the original bequest was around 6 million, and when Mayor Bronson was elected this library was one of his top priorities. Thanks has to go to Sami Graham, who I replaced at the library. She is a downtown resident, having been born and raised in Anchorage, and was able to obtain additional funding through the legislature to help in this effort. The description given by Foundation is just a description and vision they have. This will be a smaller branch library and vision is to be used by many tourists and others for better access to library services. On another note I left the library because I had told the mayor I would be there a couple of months, and two years later I left to have knee replacement. LOL, I assure you nothing ADN or other liberal outlets wrote about me made me resign. They actually just made me stay longer.
Thanks Judy. Job well done.
According to Judy Eledge:
“I happened to live in Barrow,” she said, referring to the mostly Inupiat city that residents in 2016 renamed Utqiagvik. “They consider themselves Inupiat Eskimos but they got a bunch of woke, liberal, I consider racist Native people, young people. … It’s all about ‘We stole their land.’ Which is bullshit!”
Eledge made no secret of her beliefs. Over a one-month span in September 2020, for example, the following posts appeared on her Facebook page:
• “How sad that people of color seem to have no self esteem! If so why all the focus on color?”
• “This is a slippery slope we began with gay marriage. Next was transgender so of course pedophile is next.”
she suggested Alaska should “stop the damn testing” for the virus.
– ADN
Judy, your racist and anti science views are what tanked you.
She a nasty little critter, isn’t she ?
I miss the old library & the city gym that old man Sullivan tore down to make space for the Egan.
Heh? aren’t the Sullivans & the Egans related?
Something smells fishy.
I bet this “new” library will smell too.
The city gym was torn down to build the PAC. That and the old Loussac Library sat on separate city blocks. Also, Margaret Sullivan’s maiden name was Eagan, not Egan. They were a Fairbanks mining family. Bill Egan’s family came to Alaska from Montana in 1902 and settled in Valdez, where they were pillars of the local business community throughout the middle 20th century.
Thank You Sean and my apologies for getting my politics & history so wrong.
I missed that old gym, because I lived in Bootleggers & could walk over.
But ….that’s progress (and jobs) so I guess I should be quiet now.
Isn’t there a mayoral election soon?
I want to thank Mayor Bronson, for setting up another library that will be created for people who will/can use a library and not a homeless center for all sorts of humanity that has destroyed the purpose of Loussac. Loussac has not been willing to cleanup their trashy books, nor have control over the homeless to where no one feels free to use it,(Tax money not being used for the best options)..
Actually Loussac has been pretty quiet all winter and the disruptive held at bay for some reason I don’t understand.
Kudos to security there, they are doing something right.
I expect this to change for the worse w/ the spring weather though.
So when the endowment money is gone, who picks up the tab? Who is going to pay for building utilities, maintenance, staff, security? Let me guess…….
The first time I saw vagrants using a library as a warmup shelter was at the old Loussac Library when it was still downtown. But that library was built during a time when downtown was the hub of Anchorage. Today most people avoid downtown like the plague and those that work there leave as soon as it’s quitting time. So who is going to use this library? Besides the vagrants.
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