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Cupertino Library
A Member of the Santa Clara County Library
The exciting, new Cupertino Library is now open! The new Cupertino library is 54,000 sq ft. in size on two floors. The first floor features a new books area, a current issue magazine and newspaper display area with comfortable seating, as well as the media collection all located right off the lobby. Library users are able to retrieve books they have requested, and check them out at a conveniently located bank of self-checkout machines along one side of the service desk. The Friends of the Cupertino Library has a space in the lobby for an ongoing book sale. Located on the outside corner of the library, facing the Civic Center Plaza and Torre Avenue, is a small cafe, operated by Coffee Society.
The rest of the interior public space on the main floor is in the Children's Room. At the entrance to the children's room, a spectacular, 16 ft. long marine aquarium, a gift to the city and to the library from Fred and Annie Chan, is located along one wall. The Children's Room includes a picture book area, a beginning readers area that features window seats, a story room, a group study room, and a children's tutoring room. The Children's Room spreads out in an L-shape design around two sides of the completely enclosed outdoor courtyard in the middle of the library. The courtyard brings natural light to the interior of both floors of the library, as well as views from both floors and a quiet outdoor reading space. The south wall of the Children's Room also looks out onto a lovely memorial grove of redwood trees.
The second floor of the library comprises the Adult and Teen areas, and provides an added bonus of wonderful views of the East Bay Hills and of Mount Hamilton. Located next to the large Teen area is a Teen group study room. Also on the second floor are all of adult reference, business reference, fiction and non-fiction collections, featuring international languages, the California Western Americana collection and back issues of magazines and newspapers. A small training room is used to conduct Internet searching classes for the public. A quiet study room is located on the south end of the non-fiction area, overlooking the memorial grove of redwood trees. Again on this floor, the enclosed courtyard provides plenty of natural light to the interior of the building, adding to the ambiance, and making this a very different library experience from that in the original library building, which was very cramped and dark, having only a few narrow windows. Throughout the building are many more public access computers, study tables, study chairs and lounge chairs than were in the old library.
The community meeting room is now located in the new 6,000 sq. ft. Community Hall building on the Civic Center Plaza is connected to the library by a covered arcade. The Community Hall accomodates library programs, community programs, and also serve as the new City Council chamber. The Civic Center Plaza includes fountains, grass, heritage trees and seating areas. The Library, Community Hall and Civic Plaza celebrated their grand opening on October 30, 2004 and are now welcoming visitors.