City-Run Library Opens on Saturday

The Calabasas Library will have its grand opening Saturday.

In a 10 a.m. ceremony, city officials and library staff members will welcome the public to the first city-run library. In May the City Council decided to assume control of the facility after facing red tape with the county.

“We were unable to extend the hours on Sundays and we couldn’t staff the library with a full-time librarian,” library Manager Field G. Weber said.

The library, at 23645 Calabasas Road, is closed during its transition to being city-run.

The city library will have 15,000 new books, four computers with Internet access and an inter-library loan agreement with the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System, through which patrons can borrow materials from libraries in nearby cities.

If anyone still has books checked out from the county library, they should be returned to the Calabasas facility by Friday, Weber said.

After that, county materials may also be returned to any Los Angeles County library.

People with county library cards may still use them at any county branch, Weber said.

However, to check out books from the new city library, a new card is required.

“Since the county has a different system, we will have to create a new one,” she said.

A person does not have to be a Calabasas resident to get a city library card, she said.

The new library will be open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sundays and closed Mondays.