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Chula Vista Library's Civic Center Branch Celebrates 40th Birthday with a Party

The Chula Vista Public Library’s Civic Center Branch will celebrate its 40th Birthday with a “Back to the Seventies” party on Friday, July 8, from 3:00 to 9:00 p.m. The festivities will take place in the library, 365 F Street, and a variety of specialty food trucks will sell refreshments in the east parking lot. The free event will include music, piñatas, birthday cake, a costume contest for attendees and their pets, and more. Guests are invited to wear their favorite disco or retro costume, or dress their pets in Seventies attire.

The costume contest will take place from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Seventies music will be featured as deejay John Phillips spins Seventies music in the library’s marketplace area from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. Singer-guitarist Ray Ornellas and Friends will perform a variety of musical styles in the library’s auditorium from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

The current library facility formally opened in 1976 as the City of Chula Vista celebrated the nation’s Bicentennial. The 55,000 square foot library was financed with federal revenue-sharing funds, and was officially dedicated on July 4 of that year. Bluma Levine served as city librarian. Chula Vista’s first library officially opened in 1917 on F Street, funded by the Carnegie Corporation. That building was replaced by a new library in 1955 that was part of the City’s new Civic Center at Fourth Avenue and F Streets. Today’s library branch, also in the Civic Center, sees an average of one thousand people entering its doors on a daily basis. Equipped with free wi-fi connections for the public, free access to computers, a vast array of in-branch and online services and collections, workshops, events, research services and more, it serves as a center of the community. Library Director Betty Waznis oversees the three-branch library system.

Says Waznis, “It is a thrill to celebrate our beautiful library, and the fact that it continues to be a vital community center of creativity and lifelong learning. Special appreciation goes to our Friends of the Library, the Library Foundation, and to our enthusiastic and loyal patrons and partners for their support.”

For more information, please call the library at (619) 691-5069.