Janet Fabio, Director, SaddleBrooke Community Libraries
This year we’re celebrating 35 years of library service in SaddleBrooke!
Your SaddleBrooke Community Libraries are one system with three libraries, located in the DesertView building, the MountainView clubhouse, and the SaddleBrooke One clubhouse. Last year the libraries loaned out 47,152 items to SaddleBrooke residents. The library collections offer more than 13,000 items, including fiction and nonfiction books, large print books, paperbacks, audiobooks and CD players, movies and TV series on DVD, and several special collections. Our 76 volunteers staff and manage the libraries and select, order, and catalog new materials. The Friends of SaddleBrooke Libraries provide funding to purchase about 1,300 new items annually.
How did we achieve this? It all started in 1990 as a few residents brought donated books to the cozy fireplace room in the recently opened SaddleBrooke One clubhouse. Volunteers managed very basic library operations. The library expanded to a nearby room for paperbacks, movies on VHS tape, and a small card catalog. Residents checked out books using a notebook.
By 1999 the MountainView clubhouse had opened with a lounge area that had a fireplace and many bookshelves, which quickly became a library for residents, stocked with donated books. Paperbacks were offered on three small bookcases, which were frequently moved to different areas in the clubhouse.
Around 2001-02, the Friends of SaddleBrooke Libraries formed primarily to raise funds to buy new materials for the library collections. SaddleBrooke One had plans to remodel the clubhouse and expand library space. SaddleBrooke TWO was planning a new building for a theater and Fitness Center. Forward-thinking residents advocated to include space for a larger library.
In my new volunteer role as library coordinator to oversee the libraries as one system, we helped plan the SaddleBrooke One Library changes and the new library in the DesertView building.
Robson was receptive to information we provided about library shelving and other requirements for the new library, and the DesertView Library opened in 2005 with suitable library shelving but short book stacks and very few books. The Friends of SaddleBrooke Libraries campaigned to fill the shelves. As residents responded, the shelves quickly filled up.
In the Spring of 2006, the SaddleBrooke One Library reopened with an additional room and a workroom. Now we had three functional libraries.
With the remodeling of the MountainView clubhouse in 2013, the Cholla Room was transformed into a library. Its small size was conducive to an honor system library stocked mostly with donated books. It continues to be very popular, as there are no due dates!
The library collections kept growing, along with the number of materials loaned out each year. With support from SaddleBrooke TWO, shelving space at the DesertView Library was extended higher. Additional shelving was added for the DVDs, a children’s collection, and the special collections.
With all this growth, our catalog system had to evolve, too. We moved from the card catalog to an Excel database, to an online system. In 2014 we migrated to our current cloud-hosted system that allows you to search, reserve, and renew books online. We can access extensive catalog data from other libraries and obtain detailed statistics.
We have much to celebrate! Learn more about the libraries at sblibraries.com.