Grand Opening for Riverside’s New Main Library
Published: 06/07/2021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 7, 2021
Contact:
Ryan J. Railsback
Public Information Officer
(951) 826-5959
Grand Opening for Riverside’s New Main Library
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – The City of Riverside is excited to announce the grand opening for its new Main Library, located at 3900 Mission Inn Avenue in downtown Riverside. The public is invited to attend the opening ceremony on Saturday, June 26, 2021 at 10:00 a.m., with the doors officially opening immediately after and plenty of family-friendly activities to follow until 2:00 p.m.
The new Main Library is a two-story building covering approximately 42,000 square feet of innovative space that includes an archive reading room, children’s room, innovation center, outdoor terrace, and the Friends of the Riverside Public Library bookstore. With beautiful views of downtown and Mount Rubidoux, visitors will be able to enjoy reading and study rooms, story time areas, laptop kiosks and wireless printing, self-checkout machines, and seating throughout this state-of-the-art facility.
The new library contains 60,000 materials in the circulating collection. It also includes a children’s room that contains 570 lightbulbs used in the snowflake lighting, 60 laptops for public use, 30 iPads available for checkout, over 1,500 photographs in the Archive Photograph Collection, and 4,400 reels of microfilm in the Archive.
Attendance is free and light refreshments will be served. Additionally, Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson and members of the Riverside City Council will be on hand to celebrate this amazing new facility.
Mayor Lock Dawson said, “The timing could not be better, as our community comes out the pandemic we’ll all be able to immediately enjoy what the new Main Library has to offer.” She continued on to say, “We are the city of arts and innovation, and you will find exactly that in this beautiful facility.”
Riverside Public Library Director Erin Christmas echoed the Mayor’s comments and added, “The Riverside community should be proud of all the hard work done to bring our new Main Library to fruition. This is more than a just a building, it’s where young minds will transform into brilliance.”
MAIN LIBRARY GRAND OPENING:
- 10:00 a.m. – Opening ceremony
- 11:00 a.m. – Library doors officially open
- 11:30 a.m. – Preschool story time with Ms. Abby in the Children’s Room
- 12:00 p.m. – Tech tour on the 3rd floor Marketplace
- 12:30 p.m. – Story time with Mr. Brian in the Children’s Room
- 1:00 p.m. – Art tour on the 3rd floor Marketplace
- 1:15 p.m. – Bilingual story time with Ms. Yesenia in the Children’s Room
- 2:00 p.m. – Library doors close
Also:
- 10:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Library cards will be issued and the family literacy booth will be handing out free books on the ground floor Arcade / Breezeway
- 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Demonstrations of the virtual reality station and 3-D printer will take place on the 3rd floor Innovation Center, along with a cricut demonstration with adult craft-to-go
For more information about the City of Riverside Public Library, the new Main Library, and all its available services, visit our website at www.RiversideCA.gov/library.
